AI Visibility

What AI visibility means for a local business

AI visibility is whether assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity can find your business, understand what you do, and describe it accurately when a customer asks. It's separate from your Google ranking: you can sit at the top of Google and still be missing, or wrong, inside an AI answer.

Get started free Check your business

9:41

●●●

Who's the best physio near me for a running injury?

For a running injury you'll want a physio who does proper gait analysis, not just general treatment. A strong fit near you:

Kensington Sports Physio ai.kensingtonphysio.com

🏃Runner-focused: video gait assessment and a structured return-to-run plan.
📅Open Saturdays, usually booking within a few days, and they bill most insurers directly.
⭐4.9 stars across 180+ reviews, several mentioning running rehab specifically.
💰Initial assessment $95, follow-ups $70.

Want me to check their next available opening?

Ask anything

Supporting every major AI assistant

ChatGPT

Claude

Gemini

Perplexity

Copilot

Grok

The short version

AI visibility is whether assistants can find, understand, and accurately describe your business, not where you rank on Google.

45% of consumers now use AI to find local businesses, up from 6% a year ago, but only a small fraction get recommended.

Most assistants don't "verify" you. They tend to retrieve what they can find, then describe the businesses they understand.

You can't buy your way in. One thing you can easily do is give AI an accurate, detailed and current source about your business.

A different question

AI visibility is not the same as your Google ranking

Search shows people a list of links. An assistant reads what it can find and provides an answer naming just a few businesses. Being in the list of links and being named in the answer are two different jobs.

Traditional search

Shows a page of links

You scan and choose

Ranking = visibility

SEO

Helps people find you

Your website appears in a list, and the customer decides. Being on page one is the goal.

AI assistant

Writes one answer

Names a few businesses

Understanding = visibility

Has to understand you

It tends to name the businesses it understands the most, and has confidence in from across the web. If it can't understand your business, it's more likely to name someone else.

Start here

The questions every owner is asking about AI

Simple answers to what AI visibility actually is, why AI gets businesses wrong, and what you can do about it.

How ChatGPT & Gemini pick businesses →

What it's looking for: proximity vs reputation, and why the two assistants differ.

How to check if AI knows you →

A three-minute self-test, and what a bad result actually means.

Why AI gets your business wrong →

The five reasons behind wrong hours, prices, and services, and the one fix.

Do customers really use AI? →

The adoption data, and why the businesses AI understands tend to win.

Fix wrong AI answers →

Give assistants one current source of truth about your business.

45%

of consumers used AI to find a local business in the past year, up from 6% the year before. It's now the third most-used way people find businesses, behind Google and Facebook.
BrightLocal Local Consumer Review Survey, 2026

AI Visibility Index

See which businesses AI actually names

We track this in the open. Every week we put 24 real customer questions to ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Mode (288 answers per market) and publish which local businesses each assistant names, and how accurately it describes them, across 50 US and Canadian markets.

Explore the AI Visibility Index

4assistants, measured weekly

50US & Canadian markets

20,000+businesses evaluated

Where Courtyard fits

Give AI a source it can rely on

AI tends to name businesses it can actually understand, and today that's only a small share. The way in isn't a trick or a ranking hack. It's making sure assistants have an accurate, current, and detailed AI-readable source about your business.

That's what Courtyard does. It publishes and maintains a live AI knowledge base for your business: your services, hours, images, pricing, and policies, in a form ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity can read. So when AI goes looking, it's more likely to find the real you.

There's no new website to build, and no guarantees or gimmicks. You give AI the facts it needs, kept current, so you're a business it can describe and consider.

See how Courtyard works

ChatGPT

Can read your availability

Gemini

Has your current pricing to draw on

Perplexity

Can pull in the right images

FAQ

AI visibility, answered

The basics, for owners who are just starting to think about this.

What is AI visibility?

It's whether AI assistants can find your business, understand what you offer, and describe it accurately when a customer asks for a recommendation. It's about being understood, not just whether you're mentioned.

Isn't this the same as SEO?

Related, but no. SEO helps people find your website in a list of links. SEO does help with AI visibility but it's not the whole story. AI visibility is about an assistant understanding your business well enough to describe and recommend it in a single answer, and a deep conversation. You can rank well on Google and still be invisible in ChatGPT.

Can I pay to be recommended by AI?

No. There's no ad slot or submission form for an organic AI recommendation, and nobody can guarantee one. Visibility is earned by being understandable, trustworthy and easy to find.

Do customers actually use AI to find local businesses?

Increasingly, yes. 45% of consumers used AI for local recommendations in the past year, up from 6%, making it the third most-used source behind Google and Facebook.

What can I actually do about it?

Give assistants an accurate, current, AI-readable source about your business so they stop guessing. That's exactly what Courtyard maintains for you.

Become the small business AI understands the best

Set up your live AI knowledge base in minutes. No new website. From $20/month.

Get started free