Well, Actually: Your Business Probably Looks Wrong to AI, and You Are Not Checking
AI search tools now generate answers about local businesses without human verification. These answers are frequently incorrect. The article advises business owners to proactively test what AI systems say about their locations before customers encounter errors.
This teaches you that reputation management now extends to machine-generated summaries, not just reviews. You must treat AI outputs as a new channel requiring active monitoring. The workflow change is simple: audit before complaint, not after.
Search Engine Journal published this guidance. No specific company results were cited in the source. The advice targets local business operators using general AI search platforms.
Step 1: Open three AI tools you likely already use, ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Perplexity, and ask each 'What are the hours for [your business name] in [your city]'. Step 2: Compare all three answers to your actual hours, website, and Google Business Profile, noting any discrepancies in hours, address, phone, or services. Step 3: For each error found, update your Google Business Profile first, then add correct structured data to your website's contact page, and recheck the AI tools in 48 hours to verify fixes propagated.