Powered by KwikChexHow AI assistants decide what to say about your business
By About This Business editorial team · Published · Updated
Short answer
AI assistants answer questions about a business by searching the web, choosing a handful of sources they can read and trust, and combining them into one answer, often with links. To help them get your facts right, let their search crawlers in, publish clear and consistent facts in plain HTML, make your structured data match your visible text, and keep one dated, sourced record.
Key takeaways
- AI assistants search, pick a few sources and blend them into one answer, so conflicting sources lead to blended or hedged answers.
- Each assistant has its own search crawler, such as OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot or PerplexityBot. Blocking it can remove you from that assistant's answers.
- Google says there are no extra requirements for AI Overviews or AI Mode: normal SEO, crawlable text and structured data that matches the page.
- Clear, consistent, dated facts are easier for assistants to quote accurately, but nothing can guarantee a citation.
How do AI assistants answer questions about a business?
They search, choose a few sources, and write one combined answer, usually with links to the sources they used. When someone asks "Who runs this company?" or "Is this firm insured?", assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode generally:
- Interpret the question and decide whether to search the web.
- Search, often running several related queries.
- Choose sources they can read and judge relevant and reliable.
- Write an answer that blends what those sources say, often citing them.
The catch is step 4. If your website, an old directory and a social profile disagree, the assistant has to pick one, blend them or hedge.
→ Read more: How ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI find their sources
Can AI assistants actually reach your website?
Only if their search crawlers are allowed in. Each assistant uses named crawlers, and robots.txt rules or firewall settings can block them, sometimes without you knowing.
| Assistant | Search crawler | Training crawler | User-requested fetches |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | OAI-SearchBot | GPTBot | ChatGPT-User |
| Claude | Claude-SearchBot | ClaudeBot | Claude-User |
| Perplexity | PerplexityBot | — | Perplexity-User |
| Google AI features | Googlebot | Google-Extended (controls use in other Google AI systems) | — |
OpenAI says sites opted out of OAI-SearchBot won't be shown in ChatGPT search answers. Anthropic says blocking Claude-SearchBot may reduce your visibility in Claude's search results. You can block training while still allowing search.
→ Read more: AI crawlers and robots.txt: let the search bots in
What kind of content do assistants quote?
Passages that answer one question clearly, in plain text, and make sense on their own. Assistants lift short passages. A section that opens with a direct answer, uses specific facts and doesn't depend on "as mentioned above" is easy to quote accurately. Important content should be in the HTML text, not only in images, scripts or PDFs.
Does structured data help?
It helps machines read your page, but it has to match what's visible. Google says no special schema.org markup is needed for AI features, and that structured data should match the visible text. Organization, Article, FAQPage and BreadcrumbList markup describe a page clearly. They don't override what the page actually says.
→ Read more: Structured data for AI search: what helps and what doesn't
Do you need an llms.txt file?
It's optional, cheap and harmless, but there's no evidence major assistants use it to choose sources today. Google has said it doesn't use llms.txt for AI Overviews and that normal SEO is what matters.
→ Read more: llms.txt: what it is and whether you need it
What should you do when an AI gets your business wrong?
Find where the wrong fact comes from, fix it at the source, and make your correct version easy to find and quote. Assistants repeat what they find, so the fix is usually upstream: an outdated listing, an old page or inconsistent details across sites.
→ Read more: When AI gets your business wrong: how to fix it
How does Business DNA help?
It gives assistants one clear, dated, sourced record of your facts, with each fact's status stated in plain words. Each profile is a public page with structured data, plus a public JSON record. Gaps are labelled neutrally ("Information pending"), so an assistant has no grounds to turn a missing fact into a negative one. We don't claim any assistant will cite it, but it's built to be the easiest accurate source to quote. See What is Business DNA? and The owner's guide.
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FAQ
Can I pay or submit my site to be cited by ChatGPT or Claude?
There's no submission form for organic citations in ChatGPT search or Claude's web search. What you control is whether their crawlers can reach you and how clear, consistent and current your content is.
Do I need special markup for Google's AI Overviews?
No. Google says there are no additional requirements for AI Overviews or AI Mode beyond being indexed and eligible for a snippet in Search, and that structured data should match the visible text.
Is AI search optimisation different from SEO?
Mostly it's the same foundations: crawlable pages, clear text, internal links and accurate structured data. The difference is emphasis on passages that answer a question on their own and facts that are consistent across sources.
Will publishing a Business DNA profile guarantee AI assistants cite it?
No. Nobody can guarantee that. A sourced, dated, consistent record gives assistants a better source to use, but each system decides independently what to cite.
