Ask yourself this: if a customer asked ChatGPT to recommend a business like yours right now, would it say your name?

Most business owners have never asked that question. Their customers already are.

44% of Americans have now used ChatGPT — up from just 18% two years ago (Pew Research Center). Locally, the shift is sharper: 45% of consumers now use AI to find a local business, up from 6% a year ago (BrightLocal) — a 7.5x jump in twelve months.

Here's the part that should give every business owner pause: a study of more than 350,000 local businesses found that AI tools recommend only 1 out of every 100 by name — even businesses with strong reputations, great reviews, and solid websites (SOCi).

Good SEO still matters. AI tools reward a lot of the same fundamentals — real information, clear answers, active reviews. But they also weigh something SEO never had to: outside proof, and a business profile AI can actually read.

There's a name for this newer discipline: GEO, or Generative Engine Optimization — making sure a business is set up to be understood and cited by AI systems, the same way SEO does for traditional search engines. Think of it as SEO's counterpart for the AI era, not a replacement for it.

This isn't about being a better business than the competition. It's about whether AI has the information it needs to recommend you at all.

SiteloopAI is a Quad Cities-based AI-optimized business directory that shows business owners exactly what AI tools currently say about them — and helps fix it. Free to check. Free to get listed.

If you haven't looked yet, now's the moment to.