Why ChatGPT Recommends Some Brands and Ignores Yours
AI assistants recommend the brands the web describes clearly and often. Plain positioning, published prices, real reviews and proof that someone else can check. There is no trick. We tested our own agency this month. ChatGPT named us first in two of five tries. Perplexity named us in none of four. Below is exactly what the answers leaned on, what is hype, and the five things we would do this month if we were you.
What happened when we tested ourselves
We asked the questions our buyers ask, logged out, from Sydney. Perplexity on 3 October, ChatGPT with web search on 6 October.
"What is the best independent media agency in Sydney for founders and small brands?" ChatGPT named us first in two of three runs and called us its pick for founders. When we asked the same thing in slightly different words, we were not mentioned at all. Perplexity named five other agencies and not us.
"Best Google Ads agency in Sydney for a small business." Neither tool named us. ChatGPT opened with a map-style list showing each agency's Google rating and review count: 4.8 from 120 reviews, 5.0 from 49.
"Best brand strategy agency in Sydney for founders." Neither tool named us. Again, review counts and agency directories did the work.
We are a small site. Ahrefs rates our domain under 1 out of 100. ChatGPT still put us first when the question matched what our pages say.
What it quoted when it named us was our own wording: built for founders, senior only, no juniors, brand and performance together. It mentioned our published prices and called the model "unusually transparent".
What it leaned on when it did not was other people's words about other agencies: Google reviews, directories such as Clutch, and case studies with numbers. One rival was praised for exactly that, quantified results. We do not publish ours yet. That is our gap, and we are fixing it.
Why do AI assistants name some brands and not others?
When web search is on, ChatGPT reads pages, then summarises them and shows its sources. It cannot recommend what it cannot find, and it repeats what it can confirm.
So the brands that get named tend to have three things:
A clear description of themselves, in plain words, on their own site.
Confirmation from somewhere else: reviews, directories, press, industry bodies.
Specifics a buyer can use: prices, who it is for, a result with a number.
And the answers move around. SparkToro and Gumshoe ran thousands of repeated prompts through ChatGPT, Claude and Google's AI and found the same list of brands came back less than 1% of the time (Search Engine Journal, 30 Jan 2026). Our own test showed the same thing in miniature. One answer proves very little. What matters is how often you are named across many runs.
Is there a trick to rank in ChatGPT?
No trick has been proved.
Google says there are "no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode" (Google Search Central). Its July 2026 guide goes further. You do not need AI text files such as llms.txt, you do not need to chop content into small chunks, you do not need to write differently for AI, and chasing inauthentic mentions is not as helpful as it seems (Google Search Central, 10 Jul 2026). That is Google, not ChatGPT. But it matches what we saw: the answers rewarded clear, honest pages and real reviews.
The one real switch is technical. OpenAI says sites that opt out of its search crawler, OAI-SearchBot, will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers (OpenAI). Check your robots.txt. If your website builder has a setting to block AI crawlers, check exactly what it blocks. We checked ours on 6 October. OAI-SearchBot is not blocked.
So when someone pitches you "GEO" or "AEO", ask what they will actually change. Most of the honest answers are brand building and good SEO with a new name. Anyone who promises you a ranking position inside ChatGPT is promising something nobody can measure reliably.
What makes a brand easy to name?
Say the same thing everywhere. One sentence: what you do, who for, what it costs. Two weeks ago our own site showed three different prices for the same product across different pages and listings. We fixed that first, because an AI cannot repeat a fact you have not settled.
Publish what AI cannot guess. Prices, who you are for and who you are not for, how long things take. ChatGPT singled out our published prices. Most agencies hide theirs, which leaves the AI nothing to quote.
Earn reviews, honestly. For local "best agency" questions, ChatGPT opened with Google ratings and review counts. We have 19 reviews at 5.0, and the ones at the top of our profile are about two years old. We are asking recent clients this month. No incentives, and we ask everyone, not only the happy ones.
Show proof with a number. A case study with a before, an after and what it meant. This is where we fall short today.
Be mentioned where buyers look. Directories, industry bodies, podcasts, the trade press. We are a member of the Independent Media Agencies of Australia, and listings like that are the kind of confirmation an AI can find.
What should a founder do this month?
Five things, none of them clever.
Ask your buyers' questions in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google. Ask each one three times, in slightly different words. Write down who is named and which sites are cited.
Check your robots.txt does not block OAI-SearchBot.
Write your one sentence and make it identical on your website, Google Business Profile, LinkedIn and every directory listing.
Publish your prices and one real result with a number.
Ask five recent clients for an honest Google review.
Then repeat the questions in 30 days and compare. That is the whole method.
We will do the same. We will run this test every month and publish what we find, including when the numbers go the wrong way.
Frequently asked questions
What is AI search optimisation?
It is the work of making your business easy for tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI features to find, understand and recommend. Google says no special files or markup are needed. In practice it is clear positioning, useful pages, published prices, real reviews and mentions on sites people trust.
How do I get recommended by ChatGPT?
Nobody can guarantee it. In our test, ChatGPT recommended us when the question matched how our own pages describe us, and it quoted our published prices. Make sure OAI-SearchBot is not blocked, describe yourself plainly and consistently, publish prices and proof, and earn genuine reviews.
Does ChatGPT give everyone the same answer?
No. In our test the same question in slightly different words produced a different list. A larger study found the same list of brands came back less than 1% of the time. Track how often you are named across many runs, not one screenshot.
Next step
We do not sell tricks. We do senior brand and media work for founders, and you can see how we work with founders and who we are. For a straight read on how your brand shows up, in Google and in AI answers, book a free Growth Plan: thirty minutes with the person who would do the work. Book your Growth Plan.