Most businesses aren't showing up in AI answers in tools like ChatGPT and Claude

Most businesses aren't showing up in AI answers in tools like ChatGPT and Claude at all, even if they place well for search.

So Ghostart has changed. We still help you create great content, human content that doesn't sound like everyone else but our business focus has shifted to AI visibility.

In our Foundry business, @andrewseel and I regularly sit with SME owners, helping them to implement AI into their businesses effectively.

"One problem kept surfacing for them, ahead of everything else," Andrew says. "They say search isn't giving them the results it used to and and more and more often, people are asking tools like ChatGPT for recommendations for goods and services."

In fact, 61% of consumers have already used ChatGPT for online shopping*.

But most businesses aren't showing up in AI answers at all, even if they place well for search. Half the founders we sit with have no idea they're invisible until we show them.

We ran our Ghostart URL checker against a client who was ranking on page one in Google for their category... ChatGPT and its ilk didn't mention them *once* across three questions related to their business.

AI visibility is a huge business problem that isn't going away. 50% of consumers have replaced traditional services or routines they previously used for shopping, travel or home management with AI-driven lifestyle apps**

So this year, we've been rebuilding Ghostart in the background and it has now become The AI visibility platform.

It's built on the same belief we started with 2 years ago: generic AI writing is a professional risk, not just a style choice.

But AI search visibility makes the cost more obvious than ever.

For twenty plus years the question has been how to get your business to rank in search, but now there's another question.

53% of consumers have made a purchase based on Gen-AI recommendations.***

Do AI tools name you when someone asks who to use?

I'll be posting more about the AI landscape, our competitors, the types of AI visibility tools out there and what this new industry is shaping into over the coming weeks.

++ I'm Nigel, I help SMEs optimise their businesses in the age of AI. I created Ghostart, an AI Visibility/GEO platform and The Foundry, helping SMEs implement AI to make their business easier to run.

Sources:

*[1] Salesforce, 2024.

**Adobe Analytics, 2024.*

***