Folks ask AI for a recommendation now. "Who's a good mechanic near me?" They get a short list back. If you're on it, great. If you're not, the customer never knew you existed.
So how does it pick? Honest answer: nobody outside those companies knows exactly. The engines don't publish a recipe, and it changes. I'll tell you what's documented, what we saw in a small test, and what's worth fixing.
What Google says about its own local results
Google does publish how its local search works. On its Business Profile help pages, it says local results are based mostly on three things: relevance, distance and prominence. Relevance is how well your profile matches the search. Distance is how far you are from the person. Prominence is how well known you are, which includes things like reviews.
That's for Google's regular local results. It's a good clue for the AI answers too, but it isn't a promise of how any AI works.
What we saw in a small Denver test
In November 2026 we asked ChatGPT and Google AI Mode a set of "best in Denver" questions, once each. It was small, and one run is a snapshot. I'm not printing numbers from it, because we don't have a logged file that backs them. Here's what stood out.
- Google AI Mode leaned on Google's own business listings for most answers.
- ChatGPT leaned on businesses' own websites and on local list pages.
- The two often named different businesses for the same question.
- Narrower questions, like a specific make or a neighborhood, named shops with far fewer reviews than the broad ones did.
That last one is the useful part. A small shop can't out-review the biggest name in town. It can be the clear answer to a narrower question.
What you can fix
Nothing here is magic. It's the boring stuff, done properly.
- Claim and complete your Google profile. Right categories, hours, services, a real photo. This is what Google's own AI seemed to read the most.
- Get real reviews, and reply to them. Ask every customer. Don't pick only the happy ones, and don't offer rewards. The FTC's rule on reviews, 16 CFR Part 465, bans fake reviews, and Google doesn't allow gating either.
- Make your website answer real questions. A page that answers one narrow question in its first sentence, like "Do you work on Subarus in Highlands?" gives an engine something to read.
- Keep your name, address and phone the same everywhere. If your hours differ on three sites, the engines see three different businesses.
- Check the list pages. ChatGPT read local list pages in our test. Make sure you're listed on them, and that the details are right.
Why narrow beats broad
Think about how you'd ask. You wouldn't type "best auto repair." You'd type something closer to your actual problem. A brake squeal. A specific make. A shop near your street. Those questions have fewer good answers, so a smaller shop with a clear, accurate profile has a real shot at being one of them.
This is also why we sell one client per kind of business per neighborhood. Two shops fighting for the same narrow question helps nobody, and we'd never want to sell the same spot twice.
How to check where you stand
You can do this yourself in ten minutes. Write down the questions a customer would ask. Make them specific: your city, your neighborhood, the kind of job. Ask them of ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and Gemini. Write down who's named.
Then do it again in a few days. Answers change from one run to the next, so one answer proves little. Look for patterns. Who shows up often? What do their profiles have that yours doesn't?
What I can and can't promise
I sell this. Our AI Visibility employee runs those checks every week, fixes what the engines read, and drafts answer pages for you to approve. We report it as "named in n of N answers, engine, date." You can read exactly how on how we measure.
But I can't make any AI name you. Nobody can. We don't promise rankings, AI answers, more booked jobs or revenue. We promise the work, and honest numbers. We have no client results yet, so I'm not showing any.
Want to see who the engines name for your shop's questions? Ask for a free AI employee check. It's yours to keep either way.