Six checks on our own business, two dates
If you've searched how to get ChatGPT to recommend my business, this is the part most guides skip: the answer you're trying to get into doesn't hold still. We measured that on ourselves. It matters for the practice the industry calls AEO or GEO — we call it Answer Optimization (AO).
Once a month we check whether AI names our own business. Same three questions every time, and we write down every answer. We sell AI visibility audits, so if anyone should show up, it's us.
We didn't. Not once in 6 checks. But that's not the most interesting thing in the log.
Three checks, run on September 7 and again on October 13, 2026. All three ran on Claude, the AI made by Anthropic. We did not run ChatGPT for this, and we're not going to pretend we did.
Both dates, the first check came back the same: it doesn't know who we are. Fair. We're a few months old.
Here's the "best AI visibility audit service Napa CA" search, both runs, exactly as logged.
| September 7 | October 13 |
|---|---|
| AY Rank | Greater Than Services |
| Profound | Vectis Strategies |
| WhiteLabel IQ | Pilot Digital |
| Emblus | 5W (5WPR) |
| LocalFi | |
| First Page Sage | |
| Flying Cat | |
| Avenue Z |
8 names, then 4 names. Zero overlap. Twelve different companies, and not one of them made both lists. If you were one of the eight in September, you were gone in October. If you're one of the four now, you weren't there five weeks ago.
We're not judging any of these companies. We didn't look into them. We're only reporting who the search named.
It got stranger. In September, "who can check if ChatGPT recommends my business Napa Valley" named 6 services. In October it named none. It returned wine and travel guides instead, as if it decided the question was about visiting Napa.
Count both searches across both dates and AI named 18 different businesses. Not a single one came up twice.
On our checks, the list of who AI recommends for one search turned over completely in 36 days. There was no spot to hold, because nobody held one.
It means they're selling certainty they can't have. A guarantee assumes a fixed list with a #1 slot. We ran the same search on the same engine five weeks apart and got two lists with nothing in common.
To be fair about what our data can and can't say: we ran each search once per date. So we can't tell you how much of this is change over 36 days and how much is randomness from one run to the next. We'd need repeat runs on the same day to split those apart. Either way, the answer for a business is the same. The list isn't stable enough to sell a place on.
We don't know for sure. Our best guess: almost nothing outside our own website mentions us yet. That's a guess, not something any AI told us. The first check makes it fairly clear the AI's own memory has never heard of us. A live search can only name who other pages already name, and we haven't earned many of those pages.
So we're in the same spot as most local businesses we scan. Doing the work, not yet in the answer.
You can't pick the answer. You can control what AI finds when it goes looking, and that part doesn't reshuffle every month.
Yes. It runs every month and every answer goes into the log, including the months we're not in it. When AI names us for the first time, you'll read it here, with the date.
Want to see what AI can read on your website? The scan is free, takes about a minute, and shows every check, including the ones you fail.
Not on command, and be careful with anyone who says they can. When we ran the same AI web search for our own category 36 days apart, the first run named 8 companies and the second named 4 different ones, with no company in both. What you can control is what AI finds when it looks: a claimed Google Business Profile, Bing Places, and Apple Business listing with matching details, a website that crawlers are allowed to read, and other sites that name you for your service and town.
On our own checks, completely. We asked a live AI web search for the best AI visibility audit service in Napa, CA on September 7 and October 13, 2026. September named 8 companies. October named 4. None appeared both times. We only ran each search once per day, so we cannot say how much of that is change over the 36 days and how much is run-to-run randomness. Either way, there was no stable list to rank on.
We would not. In our own tracking, the full list of businesses named for one search turned over between two checks five weeks apart. A guarantee promises a fixed position in an answer that, on our evidence, does not hold still. Ask instead what they will change that AI can read, and how they will show you the before and after.
Claude, the AI made by Anthropic. One check per month asks what it knows from its own training. Two checks run a live web search through it. We did not run ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity for this article, so we are not claiming anything about what they would say.