09/03/2026
Try this experiment: open ChatGPT or Perplexity and ask it to recommend a business like yours. See if you actually get named.
For a lot of small businesses, the answer is no, even ones that rank well on Google. A recent benchmark study of 200+ U.S. service businesses found the average company scores just 30 out of 100 on AI visibility. Ranking on page one of Google only translates to a ChatGPT mention about 6 times out of 10.
Here's the part worth knowing before you spend a weekend "fixing" it: a rigorous 2026 study from Ahrefs tracked nearly 1,900 pages that added schema markup, the technical fix most commonly pitched as the AI citation shortcut, and found it produced no meaningful increase in AI citations on any platform. Google's own documentation backs this up, stating plainly that no special markup is required to appear in AI Overviews.
What actually seems to move the needle is less technical and more fundamental: stating your answer plainly and specifically near the top of the page, staying consistent across every listing of your business, and earning genuine third-party mentions instead of just describing yourself well on your own site.
We broke down what the current research actually shows, including a quick self-check to see where your own business stands. Further reading: https://mynewitguys.com/ai-search-visibility-small-business-guide/