Guides
How AI Search Engines Decide Which Business to Recommend
Each AI search engine uses a different retrieval path and a different standard of proof. ChatGPT leans on Bing. Perplexity runs its own crawler and cites live sources. Claude researches through Brave Search. Gemini and Google AI Overviews both draw on Google’s index, local results, and entity data. Grok weighs current activity on X alongside the open web. These eight guides explain what each platform needs from a business, and what the six of them have in common.
Start here
Two overviews that frame the rest. Read either one first.
Comparison · 6 platforms
AI Search Engines: Six Rulebooks for Visibility
The side-by-side. What ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and Grok each reward, where their requirements overlap, and the three things every one of them needs before it will name a business.
Read the guideStrategy
SEO Ranked Pages. AEO Trains AI to Recommend You.
Why ranking first no longer means being recommended, what AI confidence is, and which evidence outside your own website moves it.
Read the guideOne guide per platform
The mechanics of each engine: where it retrieves from, what it treats as proof, and why it stays vague instead of naming a business.
Retrieves via Bing
How ChatGPT Chooses Businesses to Recommend
Two knowledge layers, why a Google ranking does not carry over, and the gap between being retrieved and being recommended.
Read the guideRuns PerplexityBot
How Perplexity Chooses Businesses to Recommend
Freshness, crawler access through robots.txt, and why appearing in the source pool is not the same as earning the citation.
Read the guideResearches via Brave
How Claude Evaluates Business Recommendations
The highest evidence bar of the group. Why Claude defers instead of naming a business, and what proof changes that.
Read the guideBuilt on Google
How Gemini Chooses Businesses to Recommend
Why your Google Business Profile, service area, and entity consistency decide whether Google can name you at all.
Read the guideBuilt on Google’s index
How Google AI Overviews Evaluate Local Businesses
Why the Google Business Profile is not optional, how the local pack still shapes the answer, and what schema does and does not buy you.
Read the guideWeighs live X activity
How Grok Finds Businesses to Recommend
The only engine reading a live social stream. Why recency counts for more here, and why activity still is not authority.
Read the guideWhere does your business stand?
Reading about the criteria is one thing. Seeing which of them your business currently fails is another. The score is free and takes about a minute.
Get your AI Visibility ScoreCommon questions
Do I need a separate strategy for each AI search engine?
No. You need one strong foundation and a few platform-specific priorities. Every engine needs the same three things first: an identity that is easy for a machine to understand, claims that can be verified somewhere other than your own website, and content that answers the question directly. The differences sit on top of that shared base.
Why does one AI name my business when another one will not?
Because they retrieve from different places and hold different standards of proof. ChatGPT leans on Bing, Perplexity runs its own crawler, Claude researches through Brave Search, Google AI Overviews works from Google’s own index and local results, and Grok reads current activity on X. Being visible to one is not evidence you are visible to the rest.
Is this the same thing as SEO?
It overlaps but it is not the same job. SEO gets a page ranked and crawlable, which still matters. AEO is about building consistent, verifiable evidence across your whole digital footprint so an AI system has enough confidence to name you in an answer where no ranked list is shown at all.
Does this apply to a business outside Louisiana?
Yes. The mechanics described in these guides are how the platforms work, not a regional quirk. Cornerstone Marketing Agency works with local service businesses across Louisiana and with law firms nationwide, and the same criteria apply in both cases.