ChatGPT
ChatGPT is the conversational AI product built by OpenAI on top of its large language models. Instead of returning a list of links, it writes out an answer in plain language, sometimes naming specific brands, products or services along the way. OpenAI disclosed in February 2026 that ChatGPT had reached 900 million weekly active users, which makes it the largest single surface where an AI system speaks on your business's behalf without you controlling the wording.
Why ChatGPT matters for your visibility
People increasingly ask ChatGPT the questions they used to type into Google: "Which CRM is right for a five-person team?" or "Who should I hire for tax advice in Cologne?" ChatGPT typically answers with a short, specific list of names, and if you are not on it, that user never sees you. There is no page two. Research from Ahrefs has found that only around 6-8% of URLs ChatGPT cites also appear in Google's top 10 for the same query, and roughly 80% of ChatGPT's cited URLs don't rank in Google's top 100 at all. That means ranking well on Google gives you no guarantee of being mentioned in ChatGPT's answers - it is a separate selection process, which is exactly what Generative Engine Optimization exists to work on.
How ChatGPT arrives at answers
ChatGPT's underlying model was trained on very large volumes of text and learned statistical patterns in language, not a lookup table of facts - it predicts the next most likely word rather than retrieving a stored answer. Newer versions can also browse the live web through the GPTBot crawler and cite current sources when they do. Two things shape whether you show up: how often and how consistently your brand is mentioned across the web in sources the model has seen, and whether your site is technically reachable and clearly written when it's fetched live. On the first point, an Ahrefs analysis of roughly 75,000 brands found that how often a brand is mentioned elsewhere on the web correlates with AI citation rate at about 0.664 - roughly three times stronger than the correlation for backlinks alone (about 0.218). Earning genuine mentions in press, reviews and third-party sites is a better-evidenced lever than link-building by itself.
Common mistakes and misconceptions
The biggest mistake is assuming ChatGPT's answers are reliably factual. They can be confidently wrong - a phenomenon called hallucination. A Columbia Journalism Review study that tested AI search tools on identifying news articles found more than 60% of responses were incorrect across the tools tested, with ChatGPT misidentifying 134 of 200 articles. For a business, that risk shows up as outdated prices, wrong hours or invented offers attributed to you. A second mistake is assuming classic SEO tactics transfer directly, when the citation pattern above shows they mostly don't. A third is over-investing in an llms.txt file: Google's John Mueller has confirmed no Google Search system reads llms.txt, and an Ahrefs review of roughly 137,000 sites that published one found about 97% saw no measurable referral traffic tied to it. There's no comparable evidence that ChatGPT treats it specially either. Blocking GPTBot in robots.txt, on the other hand, does have a real effect - it can remove you from what ChatGPT can fetch live.
Relation to AI recommendations generally
ChatGPT is one of several assistants people now turn to for recommendations, alongside Google's Gemini (over 1 billion monthly active users as of August 2026), Google's AI Overviews (over 2 billion monthly users), Claude, Perplexity and others. Because behavior is shifting away from clicking through to websites at all - a SparkToro/Similarweb analysis found 68.01% of US Google searches in early 2026 ended with no click to any site - the mention itself, not the click, is often the entire interaction. Tracking your AI visibility means checking your mention rate (how often you're named for relevant prompts) and the tone of those mentions across ChatGPT and the other major assistants, not just one of them.
Example
Imagine a small tax advisory firm in Leipzig. A prospective client types into ChatGPT: "Recommend a tax advisor for freelancers in Leipzig." ChatGPT names three firms with a short rationale for each. If the firm isn't one of them, that lead goes to a competitor without the firm ever knowing the conversation happened. Regularly asking ChatGPT the questions its prospective clients are likely to ask, and making sure its own website plainly states who it serves and what it specializes in, is a concrete way to improve the odds of being one of the names ChatGPT offers - and the same approach applies well beyond tax advice.
Common questions
Can I pay or otherwise directly control whether ChatGPT mentions my brand?
No. There is no way to buy a mention. You improve your odds indirectly: publish clear, specific, fact-rich content about what you do and who you serve, earn genuine mentions in press and third-party sources (the strongest evidenced lever), keep your site technically crawlable, and don't block GPTBot in robots.txt unless you deliberately want to opt out.
Are ChatGPT's answers about my business always accurate?
No, and you shouldn't assume they are. ChatGPT can state outdated or invented details as fact - hallucination - and independent testing has found high error rates even on simple factual lookups like identifying a news source. Check periodically what ChatGPT says about your business and correct wrong information at the source, on your own site and in the third-party sources it draws from.