Something changed in the last year, and you have probably felt it. People used to open Google, type a few words and click through a list of websites. Now a lot of them ask ChatGPT, or read the answer Google writes at the top of the page, and never scroll to the links at all. If you run a business, that raises a fair question: how do you get your business found in AI search, when there may not be a results page to rank on any more?

The good news is that it is less mysterious than it sounds, and most of it overlaps with work you should be doing anyway. Here is what actually matters.

What AI search actually means for your business

AI search is any time someone gets an answer from a machine instead of a list of links. It covers ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews, the answers built into Bing and the assistants now sitting on people's phones. Ask one of them for "a good family solicitor in Leeds" and it does not hand back ten websites. It names a couple, in a sentence or two, and moves on.

The old game was ranking on a page of results. The new one is being the business the answer chooses to name.

That is the whole shift, and it is why the usual advice needs a small update rather than a rewrite.

Will AI search replace Google for a small business?

Not yet, and probably not completely. Most people still use Google, and much of what the AI recommends is pulled from ordinary web pages and reviews it has read. So the sensible plan is not to walk away from Google. It is to do the groundwork that helps you show up in both places at once.

Think of AI search as a second front door, not a replacement for the first. The businesses doing well are the ones easy to find either way.

How does AI decide which businesses to recommend?

It reads the open web, the same pages and reviews a person could, and repeats what it finds stated most clearly and most often. There is no secret list to buy your way onto. If several trusted sources agree you are a good plumber in Bristol, the machine is likely to say the same.

So the aim is simple to state, if slower to earn: be the business that clear, trustworthy sources agree is a good answer to the question your customer is asking.

How to get your business found in AI search

There is no trick here, only a handful of things done properly. Each one also helps you with normal search, and with the person who eventually reads the page, which is rather the point.

Answer the question a real person is asking

AI is built to answer questions, so give it clean answers to lift. If people want to know what a filling costs, or whether you see patients on a Saturday, say so plainly on the page, in a sentence anyone could quote back. Vague marketing copy gives the machine nothing to repeat.

Make the plain facts easy to find

An assistant recommending you needs the basics without hunting: what you do, where you are, your hours, how to reach you. Put your name, address and phone number in the same form everywhere you appear, on your own site, on Google Business, in any directory. When those details agree, the AI trusts them. When they clash, it hedges, and you are the one left out.

Earn a mention on sites the AI already trusts

A machine leans on sources it already rates: reviews, local directories, the press, a supplier or partner who lists you. A steady trickle of genuine reviews and a few honest mentions elsewhere do more than anything you can write about yourself. This is the slow part, and also the part that lasts.

Write in clear, self-contained chunks

Long, winding pages are hard to quote. A clear heading followed by a straight answer is easy. Break a page into short sections that each stand on their own, so the machine can pick up one piece and use it without needing the whole thing. It reads better for people too.

What about Google's AI Overviews?

Google's AI Overviews are the summary that now sits above the usual results for many searches. You cannot pay your way into one. Google builds it from pages it already ranks and trusts, so the route in is the same as it has always been: a genuinely useful page that answers the question better than the ones around it.

If you already write clear pages and have some standing on the topic, you are a candidate. If your site is thin, no amount of formatting will get you picked.

What is not worth your time

There is already a small industry promising to get you into AI answers with keyword tricks and paid placements. Most of it is the old snake oil in a new bottle. You cannot stuff your way into a recommendation, and you cannot pay ChatGPT to prefer you.

Ignore anyone selling a shortcut. Spend the same money on being genuinely good and clearly described, and you will still be found when the tools change again, which they will.

The short version

None of this is really new. Be genuinely useful, state the plain facts, earn a little trust from sources beyond your own site, and write so that a person, or a machine, can find the answer quickly. It is the same honest work that has always helped a small business get found, pointed at a newer kind of search.

If you would like the plainer, non-AI version of the same idea, I wrote about SEO without the tricks. And the work on this site is all built to be found this way.