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GEO Research

How AI recommends your business

AI engines don’t use one universal ranking system. A real estate agent, an online store, and a church are each evaluated by completely different signals. This guide breaks down what drives AI recommendations for each category—and what it takes to get named.

Real Estate Agents & Brokerages

82% of Americans use AI for real estate insights (Realtor.com, 2025)

When a buyer asks an AI assistant for a real estate agent, the engine doesn’t browse listings—it recalls names it has been trained on. Agents who appear consistently in structured data (LocalBusiness and RealEstateAgent schema), maintain updated Google Business Profiles, and earn citations across review platforms are the ones AI confidently names. Reviews are disproportionately powerful here: a single negative review cluster can drop an agent out of AI recommendations entirely.

See how AI ranks and recommends agents, what each of the four engines weighs differently, and the exact fixes that get you named.

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Local Businesses

1.2% of businesses recommended by ChatGPT vs 36% who appear in Google’s local 3-pack — AI visibility is far harder to earn (SOCi 2026)

For “best near me” queries, AI leans on your Google Business Profile harder than any other signal—more than your website, more than most directories. A complete, active GBP with fresh reviews, consistent NAP across directories, and LocalBusiness schema on your site are the three levers that move the needle. Most local businesses are invisible to AI not because they’re bad at their craft, but because the structured signals AI needs to name them simply don’t exist.

See how AI decides the “best near me” answer, why your Google Profile and citations matter more than your rankings, and how to win the spot.

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Ecommerce Stores

4.4× higher conversion rate for AI-referred shoppers vs organic search (Salesforce Commerce Cloud 2025)

In AI shopping, your product feed is the product. When a shopper asks an AI assistant what to buy, the engine draws on structured product data—price, availability, reviews, and Product schema—rather than website copy. Stores with incomplete or unstructured data get skipped in favor of brands whose products AI can confidently describe. Getting into AI shopping results requires the same discipline as a well-optimized Google Shopping feed, applied across every product you sell.

See how AI shopping picks its products, why your feed and schema decide whether you’re recommended, and how to get your catalog in.

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National & Online Services

51% of B2B buyers now start vendor search in an AI chatbot rather than a search engine (G2 2026)

When customers can be anywhere, they don’t ask AI for the nearest option—they ask for the best tool, the most trusted platform, the name everyone in their industry uses. For SaaS companies and national service providers, AI visibility is a brand authority problem. Entity clarity (are you unambiguously the same company across Wikipedia, Crunchbase, G2, LinkedIn, and your own site?) matters as much as schema. B2B buyers in particular have shifted toward AI for vendor shortlisting.

See how AI builds its shortlist for software and national brands, why reviews and third-party authority beat your website, and how to get on it.

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Content & Resource Sites

68% of AI citations go to just the top 15 domains in each topic area (Citation Source Index 2026)

For churches, nonprofits, blogs, and educational resources, AI citation is existential. When someone asks an AI assistant a question your site answers, you want to be the source it quotes—not a competitor’s summary of your work. AI engines prefer sources with clear authorship, structured FAQ schema, and content that directly answers the specific questions being asked. Broad authority still matters, but specificity and structural clarity are increasingly what separates the cited from the invisible.

See how AI decides which sources to cite, why structure and topic authority matter more than volume, and how to become the cited source.

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Why AI visibility is its own discipline

Showing up in AI answers isn’t the same as ranking on Google — and it isn’t the same for every business. Here’s what’s actually going on, and why the fix depends on what you do.

Why your customers are asking AI first

A growing share of buyers now open ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity before they ever touch a search engine — and the AI hands them a short, confident answer with a few names in it. There’s no page of ten blue links to scroll, no second chance to be noticed further down. You’re either in the answer or you’re invisible, and most businesses have no idea which. That’s the shift: discovery is collapsing from a list you could climb into a recommendation you’re either part of or not.

How AI decides who to name (and why SEO isn’t enough)

Traditional SEO optimizes your website for a ranking algorithm. AI recommendation works differently — the engine assembles its answer from everything it can verify about you across the web: structured data on your site, reviews spread across platforms, third-party mentions, directory presence, and how clearly it can identify who you are and what you do. It’s less about your site’s keywords and more about whether the wider web corroborates you as a trustworthy answer. That’s why a business can rank well on Google and still be absent from AI — the two are measuring different things.

Why the fix is different for every business type

The signals AI weighs shift completely depending on what you are. A local dentist lives or dies on Google Business Profile consistency and review recency; an online store on its product feed and schema; a SaaS platform on G2 reviews and third-party authority; a nonprofit on topic authority and citation. Generic “AI SEO” advice ignores this — which is why VizyReport is built around your business type, with the schema, directory targets, content, and tracking tuned to the exact signals that move AI in your world. Pick your type above to see how it works for you.

How VizyReport works
Step 01
Enter your business
Name, location, category. That’s it. We handle everything else — no technical knowledge required.
Step 02
We query 4 AI engines
We ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude the same questions your customers ask — and document exactly who shows up.
Step 03
You get the fix plan
A visibility score, competitor comparison, and a prioritized fix list — with schema code and copy already written.

See where you stand—free

Run your business through all four AI engines in 60 seconds and get your AI visibility score, free.

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