Most advice about being found by AI tools is about your own website: clearer pages, an FAQ, structured data. That advice matters, but it only covers half the problem.
An AI assistant answering "who does plumbing in Hamilton?" does not read one website and stop. It pulls together facts from several places, and most of those places are not owned by you.
That is why a business can have a tidy, well-written website and still be described with the wrong opening hours, the wrong services, or not mentioned at all.
The short answer: your Google Business Profile, directory listings, review pages, social profiles, other people's articles and your own website. When those six disagree, AI tools either pick the wrong one or leave you out.
Why do AI tools rely on other websites?
Because they are built to be careful. An AI assistant that only repeated what a business said about itself would be easy to mislead. So these systems look for the same fact in more than one place.
When your website, your Google Business Profile and a directory all say you are open until 5pm, that fact looks solid. When they disagree, the fact looks weak. A weak fact often gets dropped, and a business with too many weak facts gets skipped in favour of a competitor whose details line up.
There is a second reason. Some AI tools answer from a search index rather than by visiting your site. If a directory page about your business ranks well and your own service page does not, the directory is what gets read.
1. Your Google Business Profile
This is the single most important source for a local business, and the one most often left to go stale. It feeds Google's own AI answers directly, and its facts spread outwards into other listings.
Open yours and check five things: the business name exactly as you write it elsewhere, the address, the phone number, the opening hours including public holidays, and the list of services. Then read the description. Many were written years ago and no longer match what you actually sell.
The fix: make the services list specific. "Plumbing" tells an AI tool very little. "Hot water cylinder replacement, blocked drains, bathroom renovation" gives it three things it can match a question to.
2. Directory and listing sites
Your business is probably listed in places you have forgotten about, or never created yourself. Industry bodies, chamber of commerce pages, local council lists, trade association member lists and general business directories all carry details about you.
These pages matter because they are usually old, well-linked and trusted by search engines. An outdated listing from 2019 can easily outrank the service page you wrote last month.
The fix: search your business name in quotes and note every site that comes up on the first two pages. Claim or correct the ones you can. The detail to get right everywhere is your name, address and phone number, written the same way each time — the same abbreviations, the same suite number, the same phone format.
3. Review pages
Reviews do two jobs here. They tell an AI tool that your business is real and active, and the words inside them describe what you actually do.
That second job is easy to miss. A review saying "they fixed our leaking shower in one visit" is a fact about your services written by someone other than you. That is exactly the kind of independent detail these systems weigh heavily.
Recency matters too. Twenty reviews spread across the past year read as a working business. Forty reviews that all stop in 2023 read as one that may have closed.
The fix: ask for a review after every completed job, and reply to the ones you have. Your replies are also text about your business, and they are usually the only part of a review page you control.
4. Your social and professional profiles
LinkedIn company pages, Facebook business pages and similar profiles are read easily and are often out of date. They also tend to rank well for your business name, which means they can be the first thing an AI tool finds.
The common problem is vagueness. A profile that says "helping clients achieve their goals since 2015" contains no facts. It cannot be used to answer any question, so it adds nothing.
The fix: rewrite the one-line description and the about section in plain words: what you do, who for, where. "Commercial cleaning for offices and medical clinics in Wellington" is short, dull, and far more useful than anything with the word "solutions" in it.
5. What other people write about you
Mentions in local news, industry blogs, supplier pages, community newsletters and event listings all count. These are the hardest to influence and the most trusted, because you did not write them.
You cannot manufacture these honestly, and you should not try. But you can make them more likely. Sponsoring a local team, being quoted in a trade publication, joining an industry body or being listed as an approved installer for a supplier all create pages about you that you do not control — which is the point.
The fix: when a mention does appear, check that it spells your business name correctly and links to your site. A quick, friendly email asking for a correction usually works.
6. Your own website
Your site is still the source that sets the record straight. It is where the other five get checked against. If your own pages are vague, nothing else can be confirmed.
The job here is to be the clearest version of every fact: your services, your areas, your hours, your prices if you publish them, and answers to the questions customers actually ask. We have covered how to do that in detail in our guides to service pages, FAQ pages and schema markup.
If your site is old or was built without any of this in mind, it can be quicker to start again than to patch it. Our websites are built with this structure from the beginning, and our xEO optimisation covers sites you already have.
How do I check what AI tools say about me?
Ask them, and pay attention to the sources rather than the answer. This takes about thirty minutes.
Open ChatGPT, Gemini and one other assistant. In each, ask three questions: "What does [your business name] in [your town] do?", "What are [your business name]'s opening hours?" and "Who does [your main service] in [your town]?"
Now read the answers for three things. First, what is wrong — a service you no longer offer, an old phone number, the wrong suburb. Second, which sources are named or linked. Third, whether you appear at all in the third question, the one where you are not named.
The sources named in those answers are your priority list. If a directory page you had forgotten about is being quoted, fix that page before you touch anything else. If nothing is named and the answer is vague, the problem is that there is not enough about you anywhere, and the Google Business Profile is where to start.
Our guide to testing whether ChatGPT knows your business has a fuller version of this check, with a way to score the answers.
What order should I fix these in?
Start with the source that is both wrong and widely read. For most small businesses that is the Google Business Profile, because it is quick to fix and feeds so much else.
After that, work through the sources that appeared in your test answers. A listing an AI tool actually quoted matters more than a directory nobody reads, even if the directory looks more important.
Then make your own site the clearest source of all, and keep asking for reviews. Changes do not appear immediately. Google Business Profile edits can show within days; directory and index changes often take several weeks.
AI sources FAQs
Where does ChatGPT get information about a small business?
From a mix of sources: its search results, your website, your Google Business Profile, directory and review pages, and social profiles. It generally favours facts that appear the same way in more than one place, which is why consistent details across sites matter more than any single page.
Why do AI tools give the wrong opening hours for my business?
Usually because two sources disagree. An old directory listing or a stale Google Business Profile often carries hours you changed years ago. Fix your Google Business Profile first, then correct any directory listings that appear when you search your business name in quotes.
Do I need a Google Business Profile if I have no shopfront?
Yes, if you serve customers in a defined area. You can create a service-area profile that lists the regions you cover and hides your street address. It still feeds Google's AI answers and local results, and it is one of the strongest signals that your business is real and active.
How many reviews do I need for AI tools to notice my business?
There is no published threshold, and no AI company has stated one. What helps is a steady flow rather than a large total: a handful of recent reviews shows the business is trading. The words inside them also describe your services independently, which is useful on its own.
Can I pay to appear in AI answers?
Not for the main answer. AI assistants generate their responses from sources they find, and that part is not for sale. Some tools show separate advertising alongside answers. Paying a directory for a listing may help that page rank, but it does not buy you a place in the answer itself.
How often should I check these six sources?
Once a quarter is enough for most small businesses, plus straight away whenever something changes: new services, new hours, a new phone number or a move. Keep a simple list of every place your details appear so the update takes minutes rather than an afternoon.
Green Kauri checks all six sources as part of an xEO optimisation, and can build the follow-up side of it into a custom AI agent so enquiries that do arrive get a fast, useful reply.