AI search is the new shop window. Here's how to get recommended.

Ask ChatGPT for "the best property lawyer in Nairobi" or Gemini for "a reliable caterer in Westlands" and you won't get ten blue links. You get a short answer that names two or three businesses. If yours isn't one of them, you were never in the running.

That's the shift. Search used to be a list you could climb. AI search is a recommendation, and recommendations go to the businesses the AI can find, understand and trust.

How AI assistants decide who to recommend

AI assistants build their answers from what they can read about you across the web. A few things matter most:

• Clear facts on your own site. What you do, where you operate, who you serve, your prices or price ranges, and your contact details, written in plain language rather than buried in images or slogans.
• Mentions on sites the AI already trusts. Directories, news articles, industry associations, review platforms and "best of" lists. When answers cite a source, that source is often a third-party page, not the business's own site.
• Consistency. The same name, address, phone number and description everywhere. Conflicting details make an assistant less confident about recommending you.
• Answers to real questions. Pages that answer the questions customers actually ask, such as costs, timelines, comparisons and "how do I…", are easy for an AI to quote.

Five things you can do this month

1. Ask the AI yourself. Type the questions your customers ask into ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. Note who gets named, and which sources are cited.
2. Fix your basics. Make sure your homepage and Google Business Profile state clearly what you do, where, and for whom.
3. Write the answers. For each important customer question, publish a clear, honest page that answers it.
4. Earn mentions. Get listed where the AI is already looking: the directories, associations and publications cited in step 1.
5. Check again every week. AI answers change. Track them the way you'd track your Google ranking.

Measuring it

Doing step 1 by hand works for a handful of questions. It doesn't work across dozens of questions, five AI engines and several countries. That's why we built Citeflare. It runs your customers' questions through ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews every day, shows where you appear and which sources each answer cites, and drafts the content that closes the gaps.

Whether you use a tool or a spreadsheet, start measuring now. The businesses that show up in AI answers early will be the hardest to dislodge.