WebiskeMore and more people skip Google entirely now. When someone wants the best Indian spot in the Highlands, or asks "who does AI marketing near me," they type it straight into ChatGPT and take whatever answer comes back. If your business isn't in that answer, you don't exist for that customer — they never see your reviews, your menu, or your phone number. This isn't something to get ready for down the road. It's happening in Louisville right now. Here's a check any owner can run in about ten minutes, with no tools and no budget.
What "Showing Up in AI Search" Actually Means
This isn't about ranking number one on Google anymore. It's about whether an AI assistant names you when someone asks it a question. Four of them matter right now, and they don't all work the same way.
ChatGPT answers partly from what it was trained on and partly from the live web when it browses. Perplexity almost always pulls live sources and shows them, so you can see exactly where its answer came from. Google's AI Mode — and the AI Overview that now sits at the top of a lot of searches — pulls from live search results. Gemini blends Google's index with its own model. The point: each one reads the web a little differently, so being visible in one doesn't mean you're visible in all four.
The 5-Minute DIY Check (Do This Right Now)
Grab your phone. Every one of these is free.
Step 1 — Ask ChatGPT
Go to chatgpt.com (you don't need an account on the web). Type: "What are the best [your category] businesses in Louisville, KY?" Read the answer. Are you named? Or is a competitor sitting in the spot that should be yours?
Step 2 — Check Perplexity
Go to perplexity.ai and ask the same question. This one shows its sources — click them. That tells you which sites and listings the AI trusts for your category. If it's pulling from a directory you're not even listed on, you just found a to-do.
Step 3 — Try Google's AI Mode
Search "[your category] Louisville" in Google and look at the AI Overview at the top. Does it mention you? Google's version leans on solid on-page SEO and your Business Profile.
Step 4 — Search your own name
Now type "[your business name] Louisville" into each one. This is the step most owners skip, and it's where the ugly surprises live — wrong hours, an old address, a description of a business you stopped being three years ago. If the AI has its facts wrong, it's quietly working against you every single time someone asks.
Not showing up and showing up wrong are two different problems. The first means the AI doesn't have enough about you to recommend you. The second means it's repeating bad information. They need different fixes, so note which one you're looking at.
What Determines Whether AI Recommends You
After running these audits for Louisville businesses, the same handful of things decide it almost every time.
- Your Google Business Profile. This is the single biggest signal for local AI answers, and the most common place we find the problem. Plenty of restaurants are filed under "Restaurant" instead of "Indian Restaurant" or "Pizza Restaurant." AI doesn't guess your cuisine — it reads the category. Too broad, and you don't come up for the specific question people actually ask.
- Reviews, and how recent they are. For Perplexity especially, a business with 40 reviews from this year beats one with 200 reviews from 2021. Freshness says you're still good, still open, still worth recommending. It's the same reason staying on top of managing your Google reviews pays off.
- What your website actually says. Here's the one that surprises people: a lot of Louisville homepages never write "Louisville" or "Kentucky" anywhere in the real page text — it's only in the address footer. AI reads your body copy, not schema alone. If the page doesn't plainly say what you do and where you are, the AI has nothing to go on.
- Consistent name, address, and phone across the web, backed by structured data the machines can read.
What to Do If You're Not Showing Up
- Fix your Google Business Profile first — right primary category, complete info, real service area.
- Get recent reviews flowing again.
- Rewrite your homepage so it says, in plain words, what you do and where you do it.
- Add structured data so AI can read you cleanly.
These are exactly what we check in our AI Visibility audit.
Want a proper audit instead of a manual once-over? Webiske's AI Visibility service runs the full test across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI, then tells you exactly where you stand and what to fix. Free basic check, no sales call required.