Field Notes · Visibility
What does ChatGPT say about your brand?
A twenty-minute check most brands have never run, how to read what you find, and three practical fixes.
More buyers now ask an AI assistant for a recommendation before they ever reach a search results page. The answer they get is the new first impression of your brand, and you didn’t write it.
Most brands have never checked what that answer says. It takes about twenty minutes, and it’s one of the most useful things you can do for your marketing this month.
Run the test
Open ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity. Ask each of them the same three questions, phrased the way a customer would ask them:
| Ask | What it tests |
|---|---|
| 1. “What is [your brand]?” | Recognition. Do they know you exist, and do they describe you the way you would? |
| 2. “What are the best [your category] brands for [your customer]?” | Consideration. Do you make the shortlist when someone is actually shopping? |
| 3. “[Your brand] vs [your main competitor]?” | Difference. Head to head, what’s the reason to choose you? |
A few ground rules
- Start fresh. Use a new chat, and log out or turn off memory if you can. Assistants tailor answers to what they know about you, and you want the answer a stranger would get.
- Ask like a customer, not a marketer. “Best accounting software for a five-person agency” beats “leading SMB financial platforms.”
- Keep every answer. Paste them into one doc. You’ll want to compare them side by side, and run the check again later.
Read the answers
Each answer will land in one of five places. Here’s what each one tells you.
| Answer | Looks like | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Missing | You don’t come up, or the assistant says it doesn’t know you. | Not enough is written about you, in enough places, for the assistant to be confident. |
| Wrong | Old products, the wrong location, a service you stopped offering. | Outdated descriptions of you still outnumber the current one. |
| Generic | “A trusted provider of quality solutions.” | You describe yourself in category words, so there’s nothing specific to repeat. |
| Borrowed | You’re described in a competitor’s language, or as a cheaper version of them. | Someone else has defined your category more clearly than you have. |
| Right | Specific, current, and close to how you’d describe yourself. | Keep going, and check the comparison question too. |
Pay most attention to the third question. Being known is good. Being chosen is the point.
Why it happens
AI assistants don’t have an opinion about you. They assemble an answer from what’s been written about you: your website, your profiles, reviews, articles, directory listings, and the pages that compare you to others. Some search the web as they answer. Others lean more on what they learned in training. Either way, the answer reflects two things: how often you’re described, and how consistently.
If your homepage says one thing, your LinkedIn says another and your directory listings are three years old, the assistant does what any of us would do with mixed signals. It averages them, and the average is vague. If no one outside your own site talks about you, it may leave you out entirely.
An assistant can only be as clear about you as the web is.
Three fixes
The fixes are practical, and every one of them makes your marketing better for people too.
1. Describe the brand the same way everywhere
Write one plain sentence that says who you’re for, what you do, and why you’re different. Then use it, or a close version of it, everywhere you’re described: your homepage, About page, LinkedIn, Google Business Profile, directory listings, speaker bios and partner pages. Consistency is what turns scattered mentions into a clear signal.
2. Answer real customer questions plainly on your site
Assistants are answering questions, so give them good answers to work from. Cover what customers actually ask before they buy: who you’re for and who you’re not for, how you compare to the alternatives, how pricing works, and how long things take. Write in full sentences, as text on the page, not inside images or PDFs.
3. Earn mentions on sites the AI tools trust
Your own site is one voice. Assistants look for agreement from others: industry publications, podcasts, credible review sites, directories, partner pages and community discussions. One thoughtful guest article or podcast interview that describes you clearly is worth more than a dozen thin listings.
We call it GEO
Generative engine optimization, or GEO, is the work of making your brand easy for AI assistants to find, understand and recommend. It doesn’t replace SEO. It builds on it. Clear pages, real answers and earned credibility have always helped people find you. What’s changed is who’s reading: an assistant sums you up in a few sentences, so the brands that are easiest to sum up accurately get recommended.
It’s quickly becoming as important as SEO, and most of your competitors haven’t run the check yet.
Make it a habit
Run the three questions once a quarter, and after any big change: a new offer, a rebrand, a launch. Keep the answers in the same doc so you can see the trend. When the description gets sharper and you start showing up on the shortlist, you’ll know the work is landing.