How do I appear in ChatGPT?

How an AI assistant chooses who to recommend

When someone asks for "a good restaurant in…" or "a reliable plumber in…", the assistant roughly does three things: it searches the web (often via Google or Bing), it reads what it finds — listings, reviews, articles, directories, your website — and it composes an answer with the few names that stand out most clearly. It has no opinion: it relays what the sources say. If the sources are empty or confused about you, you don't exist in the answer.

The five jobs that count, in order

1. An impeccable Google Business Profile

It's the number one source. Precise category, complete description, accurate hours, recent photos, listed services. An assistant reading an empty listing has nothing to say about you. (See also: why doesn't my business show up on Google Maps?)

2. Regular reviews, and replies

The AIs read reviews to gauge what you're worth and to find words to reuse: "warm welcome", "shaded terrace", "fast call-out". Recent, precise reviews with owner replies give the assistants reliable material — and material that works in your favour.

3. A website (even one page) machines can read

No need for anything complex: one page with your text as real text (not images), your practical information, and structured data (schema.org) if possible. A scanned PDF menu or an all-image website is unreadable to an AI.

4. Your name consistent everywhere

Same name, same address, same phone number on the listing, the website, the directories and the social accounts. Assistants cross-check sources; contradictions get you dropped in favour of a cleaner competitor.

5. Mentions somewhere other than your own pages

A local press article, a quality directory, a guide, a blog: every independent mention of your name raises the odds that an AI keeps you in the answer. It's slow, but it adds up.

And then: check, regularly

The assistants' answers change — with the engine, the phrasing, the moment. The only way to know where you stand is to ask the questions and keep the screenshots: "restaurant in X", "best hairdresser in X", "emergency plumber X"… That's what 1440° does: the scan records what ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini answer about your town, and the subscription monitors those questions continuously (5 questions on Essential, 15 across 4 engines on Pro — pricing).

Frequently asked questions

Can you pay OpenAI or Google to be recommended?

No. There is currently no paid placement in the organic answers of ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini for a local business. Anyone selling you a "guaranteed listing in ChatGPT" is selling hot air.

How long before you can appear in the answers?

No serious promise is possible: it depends on your starting point, the local competition and the engines. What can seriously be done: tend the sources, measure every week, and watch the change, screenshots in hand.

The AIs say things about my business that are wrong. What do I do?

Go back to the source: a wrong-hours error usually comes from the listing or an old directory, a dated description from a website never updated. Fix the source, and the answers follow — with a delay.

What's this "GEO" everyone talks about?

Generative Engine Optimization: the equivalent of SEO, but for generative engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini…). In practice, for a local business, it's exactly what's described on this page.