Does ChatGPT find you? Take the test in 2 minutes

From Google to ChatGPT

Until a few years ago, we all searched the same way. We needed an accountant, a plumber or a good restaurant, so we opened Google and typed a couple of words. We got a list of ten links, opened three or four, compared them, and at some point picked up the phone.

Today many people do something else. They open ChatGPT and ask the way they would ask a friend: “Do you know a good accountant in Thessaloniki for a small company?” They don’t get ten links. They get two or three names, with a few words about each. And if the first one sounds right, why look any further?

Even Google itself now shows, for many searches, an answer written by AI above the links.

And we’re not talking about a few people. According to Eurostat, almost 1 in 2 people in Greece and Cyprus used AI tools during one quarter of 2025. The European average is 1 in 3.

For a business, this changes something simple but important. It used to be enough to appear somewhere on the first page. Now you have to be one of the two or three names the AI mentions. And if yours isn’t among them, you’ll never know. Nobody will tell you they looked for you and didn’t find you.

Take the test: 2 minutes

The simplest way to find out where you stand is to see it for yourself:

1. Open ChatGPT and tap Temporary Chat at the top right. That way it forgets what it knows about you and answers as it would answer a stranger.
2. Type what a customer of yours would type, for example: “Which [your profession] do you recommend in [your city]?”
3. Then ask: “What do you know about [your business name]?”
4. If you like, do the same in Gemini and Claude.

You will see one of three things:

• It recommends you, with the right details. Good. Repeat the test in a few months.
• It knows you, but gets things wrong. An old phone number, the wrong opening hours, services you no longer offer. A customer who reaches the wrong number rarely tries again.
• It doesn’t know you at all. And it recommends one of your competitors.

Why it finds some and not others

ChatGPT has no directory of businesses. When you ask it a question like this, it searches the internet at that moment and picks the ones it can find easily and with confidence: from their website, from maps, from reviews.

So if your website doesn’t say clearly what you do and where, if you’re not on the maps or you have no reviews, it has nothing to go on. There are also websites that, without their owner knowing, have locked the door to AI with a setting.

Four things that count

There is no secret. These are the same things that bring you customers from Google:

1. An open website. A setting on the website tells AI tools whether they can read it. Checking it takes a few minutes.
2. Clear words. “Accounting firm in Thessaloniki for small companies” says far more than “Welcome”.
3. A place on the maps. Create a free listing on Google Maps and, if you can, on Bing and Apple Maps too. The same name, address and phone number everywhere.
4. Reviews. Google says that more reviews and positive ratings can help your local ranking. Ask for them from customers who were happy.

Is it hard?

Not really. You can set up the maps yourself in an afternoon, and start asking for reviews tomorrow. For the website, most of the time a few changes from whoever built it are enough. You don’t need a new one.

Repeat the test in a month. You’ll see for yourself whether anything has changed.