How ChatGPT and Perplexity Decide Which Local Businesses to Mention
When someone asks ChatGPT "who's a good electrician near Leicester" or asks Perplexity to compare accountants in Nottingham, the answer they get is built from a different set of signals than a Google search. Broadly, these tools lean on a mix of structured data sources (such as Foursquare and Yelp for ChatGPT), live web searches through Bing, and whatever information is published clearly and consistently about a business online. Neither tool has a published ranking algorithm in the way Google does for search, but a handful of patterns show up repeatedly in how they behave: they favour businesses with consistent, verifiable details; they lean on review sentiment and volume; and they cite third-party sources — directories, news mentions, review platforms — far more often than they cite a business's own website alone.
For a Midlands business, this matters because AI-assisted search is no longer a niche behaviour. Customers use these tools to shortlist tradespeople, restaurants, clinics and professional services before they ever open Google Maps. Understanding what these systems draw on helps you decide where to spend your time.
What "AI Overviews" means for local businesses specifically
It's worth separating Google's AI Overviews from ChatGPT and Perplexity, because they work differently and are documented differently. Google has confirmed that Gemini and its AI features draw on Google's own systems, including Google Business Profile data, as part of building answers about local businesses. That's a documented integration, not a third-party guess.
ChatGPT and Perplexity are separate products built by separate companies, and neither has a direct pipeline into Google Business Profile. What's been observed by SEO practitioners — and this is an observation, not a confirmed algorithm — is that ChatGPT often pulls local business detail from Bing's search index, from Foursquare and Yelp data, and from general web content it can retrieve when browsing is active. Perplexity behaves more like a live web-crawling assistant, generally favouring pages that are recent, clearly written and easy to extract facts from.
The practical takeaway is that "ranking" in AI Overviews and "being mentioned" by ChatGPT or Perplexity are related but distinct goals, and no single fix covers all three.
Google Business Profile: a foundation, not a control panel
A complete, accurate, actively maintained Google Business Profile remains one of the most useful things a Midlands business can manage directly. Google has stated that GBP data feeds directly into its own AI features, so an incomplete or outdated profile is a real gap for Google's AI answers specifically.
For ChatGPT and Perplexity, GBP has no confirmed direct integration. What a strong profile does instead is contribute to your business's overall public footprint — correct name, address, phone number, categories, hours and services all published in one authoritative place that other systems, directories and even journalists may reference. Treat GBP as one solid pillar among several, not as a lever that single-handedly controls whether AI assistants mention you.
Structured data: useful, but not a Google requirement for AI Overviews
Structured data (schema markup) is a standard vocabulary — things like LocalBusiness, Service and FAQPage schema — that lets you label your business name, address, opening hours, services and common questions in a machine-readable format on your website. Google does not require this markup in order for a page to appear in AI Overviews; Google's documented position is that AI Overviews draw on the same underlying search and indexing systems as regular search results, not on a special schema-only pathway.
That said, several SEO practitioners have observed that clean structured data appears to help tools such as ChatGPT and Perplexity extract facts about a business more reliably, since it removes ambiguity about what a piece of text actually refers to. This is a reasonable technical practice worth doing — it's low-cost and correct data can only help clarity — but it should be understood as good housekeeping, not as a guaranteed route to being mentioned by any AI tool.
Consistency, content, reviews and third-party mentions
Across the available evidence, a few themes recur, though it's worth being honest that most of this comes from SEO practitioner observation rather than confirmed algorithms published by OpenAI, Perplexity or Google.
Name, address and phone number consistency
When your business details match exactly across your website, Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Apple Maps, Yelp and other directories, it becomes easier for any system — human or automated — to be confident it's looking at the same business. Mismatched addresses or old phone numbers create ambiguity, and ambiguity tends to make a system less likely to reference you confidently.
Content that answers real questions
Pages that plainly answer the questions customers actually ask — what areas you cover, what a service costs to have done, how long a job typically takes — seem to be the kind of content these tools can extract from most easily. This overlaps heavily with good, ordinary web content practice; there's nothing exotic required, just clarity.
Reviews
Review volume, recency and the detail within reviews appear to feed into how AI tools describe a business's reputation. A business with a large, steady base of detailed reviews mentioning specific services seems to carry a stronger signal than a handful of five-star ratings with no detail — though this is an observed pattern from SEO commentary rather than a confirmed rule, and it shouldn't be treated as a formula.
Third-party corroboration
Mentions in local news, industry directories, "best of" round-ups, Chamber of Commerce listings and similar independent sources appear to matter more to these tools than what a business says about itself. AI systems generally seem to weigh independent confirmation more heavily than self-published claims, which is a sensible bias for any system trying to avoid being misled.
Practical actions for a Midlands business
None of the above translates into a checklist that guarantees a mention. What it does support is a sensible set of ongoing actions:
- Keep your Google Business Profile complete and current — categories, services, hours, service areas and photos, updated when anything changes.
- Check that your business name, address and phone number match exactly across your website, GBP, Bing Places, Apple Maps and any directory you appear on.
- Set up or check your Bing Places listing, given ChatGPT's use of Bing's search index.
- Add LocalBusiness, Service and FAQPage schema to your website in a straightforward JSON-LD format — useful practice, not a Google AI Overviews requirement.
- Encourage genuine, detailed reviews across Google, Yelp, Facebook and any relevant industry platform, and reply to them.
- Write website content that answers the specific questions your customers ask, rather than generic marketing copy.
- Look for opportunities to be mentioned by local news, trade bodies or community sites, rather than relying solely on your own site.
- Periodically ask ChatGPT and Perplexity the kinds of questions a customer might ask, to see who currently gets mentioned and why.
Focus on being genuinely findable, not on gaming the system
There is no paid route into ChatGPT's local recommendations, no secret setting that guarantees inclusion, and no way to update the underlying model by chatting with it. What consistently shows up across the available evidence is that AI tools tend to favour businesses that are already well-documented, consistently described and independently vouched for elsewhere online. That's largely the same groundwork as solid local SEO — an accurate, well-maintained online presence, real reviews, and being talked about by people other than yourself.
The sensible approach for a Midlands business is to treat AI visibility as a by-product of doing the fundamentals properly, rather than as a separate campaign to chase. Keep your information accurate and consistent, keep earning genuine reviews and mentions, and check periodically how you appear when customers ask these tools the questions that matter to your business.