Quick summary: To check if ChatGPT recommends your business, ask it the questions your customers ask in a fresh chat and see whether your name comes up. One check only gives you a hunch, so do it properly:

• Write 10 to 15 questions in your customers' own words, mixing category, comparison and problem questions

• Run each one in a fresh chat on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews

• Record whether you were mentioned, where you appeared, how you were described, who else was named and which sources were cited

• Repeat each question two or three times because AI answers change

• Re-check every month to see the trend, or let Midwaver track it for you every day

The rest of this guide walks through each step.

The quickest way to check if ChatGPT recommends your business is to ask it the questions your customers ask in a fresh chat and see whether your name comes up. Do that once and you have a hunch. Do it properly and you have something you can act on. This guide shows you how to run the check on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. It also covers what to write down as you go.

Why one search isn't enough

AI answers move around more than a page of Google results. Ask ChatGPT the same question twice and you can get two different lists. Change a few words or the city and the list changes again. So if you type in your business name, see yourself mentioned and move on, you haven't learned much. You may have only seen the one answer that happened to include you.

The question matters too. Asking "what do you know about my business?" is easy for an AI tool to answer if you have a website. Asking "who's the best accountant in Leeds for small businesses?" is a much harder test. It's the one your customers are actually asking.

Write the questions your customers would ask

Start with a list of 10 to 15 questions and mix three kinds:

• Category questions, like "best [what you do] in [your city]"

• Comparison questions, like "[your business] vs [a competitor]" or "alternatives to [a competitor]"

• Problem questions, written the way a customer describes their situation before they know who to call

Write them the way a person would say them out loud, not the way you'd type keywords into Google. If you have old customer emails or sales call notes, copy the wording straight from there. Our guide to prompt research for AI search goes deeper on this step.

Run them on each AI tool

Open a fresh chat for every question so earlier answers don't influence the next one. Use a private window or log out if you can, because answers can be shaped by your location and chat history. Then run the same list on:

• ChatGPT

• Perplexity

• Gemini

• Google AI Overviews, which appear at the top of some Google searches

Each one behaves a little differently. Perplexity shows its sources next to the answer, so it's the easiest place to learn from. ChatGPT sometimes shows sources and sometimes doesn't. It's normal to show up on one tool and be missing from another, so treat each one separately.

Write down what you find

A spreadsheet is enough. For each question on each tool, note five things:

• Whether your business was mentioned

• Where it appeared in the answer (first, third or buried at the end)

• How it was described and whether that description was right

• Which competitors showed up instead

• Which websites were cited as sources

If you can, run each question two or three times and note how much the answer changes. Blank rows are useful as well. They show you exactly where you're invisible.

Look at the sources, not just the names

This is the step most people skip. When a competitor is recommended, find out which pages the AI used to get there. Often it isn't their own website. It's a review site, a directory, a news article or a "best of" list. Those pages are a big part of why they're being named. Getting your business onto them is usually the quickest way to change the answer.

If those pages already mention you but get something wrong, that needs fixing too. Our article on why ChatGPT gets facts wrong about your business covers how.

Check that AI can read your website

If you're missing from every answer, check the basics before anything else. Some websites block AI crawlers without the owner knowing. A site that's blocked can't be used in answers. Our guide on how to tell if your website is blocking AI bots takes a few minutes to follow.

Make it a habit instead of a one-off

One check is a snapshot. Answers change from week to week, so the useful thing is the trend. Are you showing up more, less or in different places? Checking by hand once a month is realistic. Doing it weekly gets heavy fast once you have 15 questions across four tools.

That's the job Midwaver does for you. You add your questions and it runs them every day on ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews. It records whether you were mentioned and who was recommended instead. It also shows you which sources the AI is using. You can keep checking Gemini by hand if your customers use it.

What to do with what you find

Match the fix to what you see:

• If you're described wrongly, correct the facts on your own site first and then on the pages AI is citing

• If competitors are named and you aren't, get onto the pages being cited. Our guide on how to get your business recommended by ChatGPT walks through it

• If you're named but never linked, or linked but never named, read mentions vs citations in AI search to see why that happens

Search is changing. Your customers used to search on Google or Bing and get a list of links. Now they're asking AI for recommendations. Is your business being recommended? Start your free 7 day trial with Midwaver. See what AI says about your business, who's winning in your industry and how to get mentioned more. No credit card needed, no obligation.