How to check if your business is invisible to AI search (and what to do about it)

A business owner in Dorset recently told me something that's becoming worryingly common. She searched ChatGPT for "best accountants in Dorset" and found three local firms recommended. Her 20-year-old practice wasn't mentioned.

She tried Google's AI Overview. Different firms appeared. She tried Perplexity. Still not there.

Her website ranks well in traditional Google search. She's invested in SEO. Her Google Business Profile is optimised. But when potential clients ask AI tools for recommendations, she's invisible.

This is the GEO problem. And it's happening right now to businesses across every sector.

The quick check you can do today

Before we get into what GEO is and why it matters, here's something you can do in the next five minutes.

Open ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity. Ask it a question a potential customer would ask about your service. Something like:

• "What are the best [your service] in [your area]?"
• "I need help with [problem you solve] — who should I contact?"
• "Which [your business type] in [location] do you recommend?"

Look at the response. Are you mentioned? Are your competitors? If you're not there but they are, you have a GEO visibility problem.

Now try the same question in Google and look for the AI Overview box at the top. Different results again?

This simple test shows you what thousands of potential customers are seeing when they ask AI tools for help. And if you're not appearing, you're losing enquiries to businesses who are.

What makes AI search different from Google

You might be thinking this sounds like SEO. You've spent years learning about keywords, backlinks, and meta descriptions. Surely the same rules apply?

Not quite.

Traditional search engines show you a list of websites and let you choose. AI tools make the choice for you. They read content from across the web, decide which businesses are most relevant and trustworthy, and recommend them directly.

The difference is critical.

With SEO, you optimise to appear in results. With GEO, you optimise to be recommended, cited, and trusted by AI systems that are actively evaluating your expertise and authority.

Here's what that means in practice:

Traditional SEO focuses on:

• Keywords in titles and headings
• Technical site structure
• Backlinks from other websites
• Page speed and mobile friendliness

GEO requires all of that, plus:

• Content that demonstrates genuine expertise
• Clear factual information AI can extract and cite
• Structured data that machines can understand
• Presence in authoritative sources AI systems trust
• Natural language that answers questions directly

The businesses appearing in AI results aren't gaming the system. They're being recognised as genuine authorities in their field because their digital presence proves it.

What good GEO presence looks like

I ran a test recently. I asked ChatGPT about kitchen designers in the South West.

Some businesses appeared with detailed descriptions. The AI explained what they specialise in, mentioned their awards, described their approach. It cited specific projects and design philosophies.

Other businesses, some with better traditional Google rankings, weren't mentioned at all.

The difference? The businesses being recommended had:

• Detailed case studies explaining their process
• Clear information about their expertise and experience
• Structured data telling AI systems what they do
• Content that answered real customer questions
• Presence on industry platforms and directories AI systems reference

The invisible businesses had nice websites. Good photography. Even decent blog posts. But nothing that helped AI understand their expertise or trust them enough to recommend them.

Why this matters more than you think

You might be wondering if people really use AI for business recommendations yet.

They do. And it's growing fast.

ChatGPT has over 200 million weekly active users. Google's AI Overviews appear for roughly 15% of searches. Perplexity processes millions of queries daily. Microsoft's Copilot is built into Windows, Edge, and Office.

But here's the bigger issue. When someone asks an AI tool for a recommendation and gets three business names, they often don't look further. They contact those three businesses. If you're not one of them, you don't get the enquiry.

You don't even know you lost it.

With traditional search, you could see your rankings drop and take action. With AI search, you're either recommended or you're not. There's no page two. There's no "also consider these options". You're in or you're out.

The expertise gap

Most business owners are only just hearing about GEO. Many marketing agencies don't fully understand it yet either.

The businesses gaining AI visibility now are either working with specialists who understand how AI systems evaluate content, or they've accidentally built their digital presence in ways that align with what AI values.

Get a proper diagnostic

The manual check I suggested earlier gives you a snapshot. But it doesn't tell you why you're invisible, what your competitors are doing differently, or what specific changes would improve your AI visibility.

That's why we built a proper GEO diagnostic tool.

It checks how your business appears across ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity. It compares you against your competitors. It analyses the gaps in your current approach and explains exactly what's missing.

You get charts showing where you appear and where you don't. Explanations of why certain businesses are being recommended over others. Specific areas where your digital presence needs strengthening.

The report is free. It takes about 30 minutes to generate and every report is checked by a human, not just automated.

To request yours, visit our contact page at www.okapiandco.co.uk/contact. You'll need your website URL, a few competitor websites, and a brief description of what you want to achieve. We'll have a quick chat to brief the system properly so you get the most accurate and useful results.

Learn how to fix it yourself

Understanding the problem is one thing. Knowing how to fix it is another.

We're running training courses on GEO over the coming months. These will show you how to audit your own digital presence, what changes make the biggest difference, and how to build content that AI systems recognise and trust.

Dates will be released soon. If you'd like to be notified when they're available, mention it when you request your diagnostic report.

What to do next

If you're reading this and thinking "I need to sort this out but I don't have time to become a GEO expert", you're not alone.

Most business owners we speak to understand why this matters. They can see the problem clearly once it's explained. But they're running businesses. They don't have months to learn a new discipline.

That's exactly why we specialise in this. We've been tracking how AI systems evaluate and recommend businesses since generative search tools became mainstream. We understand what makes the difference between being cited and being ignored.

Start with the free diagnostic. It will show you exactly where you stand. Then you can decide whether to tackle this yourself, bring someone in to help, or just keep an eye on how things develop.

But don't ignore it. Every week that passes, more of your potential customers are asking AI tools for recommendations instead of scrolling through Google results.

Make sure your business is one they hear about.