Guide · 7 min read
What is AI search, and why does it matter for your business?
The short answer: AI search is when people ask an AI tool such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or Claude a question and get a written answer instead of a list of links. When that question is about who to buy from, the answer names a few businesses. If yours is not one of them, you may never get the chance to win that customer.
What is AI search?
For twenty years, searching online meant typing a few words into Google and choosing from a list of links. AI search works differently. You ask a question in normal language, and an AI tool writes you an answer.
Ask “which hotel in Malta is best for families?” and you no longer get ten websites to compare. You get a short, confident reply that names two or three hotels and explains why.
The tools people use most for this are:
- ChatGPT, made by OpenAI
- Gemini, made by Google, which also powers the AI summaries at the top of Google Search
- Perplexity, an AI tool built specifically for searching
- Claude, made by Anthropic
Many of these tools search the internet before they answer, so what they say about your business depends on what they can find about you online.
How many people use it?
A lot, and the number is still rising. OpenAI says 900 million people use ChatGPT every week (OpenAI, reported by TechCrunch, February 2026). That is one tool on its own.
It is also changing how people use Google. When Google shows an AI summary at the top of the page, people click a website link in about 8% of visits, compared with 15% when there is no summary (Pew Research Center, July 2025). In other words, the answer is increasingly the end of the search.
Why does AI search matter for businesses?
Because the answer is a shortlist, and the AI has already chosen who is on it.
With a traditional search, a customer might look at five or six websites before deciding. With AI search, they often only consider the businesses the AI names. If your business is not mentioned, you do not lose on price or service. You are simply not in the conversation.
There is a second risk too. AI tools sometimes get things wrong. They can repeat an old address, last year’s prices, or say you do not offer a service that you do. Customers tend to trust these answers, so a mistake can cost you an enquiry without you ever knowing.
And the visitors who do arrive from AI tools are valuable. One study found the average visitor from AI search was worth 4.4 times as much as a visitor from traditional search, based on how often they went on to convert (Semrush, July 2025).
How do AI tools decide which businesses to recommend?
Nobody outside the AI companies knows exactly. But in practice, the businesses AI recommends tend to have a few things in common:
| What AI looks for | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| Clear information | Your website says plainly what you do, where and for whom |
| Consistent details | Your name, address, prices and services match everywhere online |
| Trusted third-party mentions | Reviews, directories, listings and press coverage that back you up |
| Answers to real questions | Pages that answer the questions customers actually ask |
AI tools build their answers from many sources at once: your own website, Google Business Profile, review sites like TripAdvisor or Trustpilot, industry directories, news articles and forums. If those sources disagree, or say very little, the AI is less likely to mention you, or more likely to get something wrong.
What is AI search optimisation?
AI search optimisation is the work of making sure AI tools can find, understand and trust the right information about your business. You will also hear it called GEO, short for generative engine optimisation.
It usually involves three things:
- Finding out what AI says today. Asking the AI tools the questions your customers ask, and recording exactly what they say about you and your competitors.
- Fixing what is wrong. Correcting old or missing information on your own website and on the other sites AI relies on.
- Giving AI more to work with. Publishing clear, helpful content that answers your customers’ questions, so AI has good reasons to recommend you.
It is not about tricks. It is about making sure the information about your business is accurate, consistent and easy to find.
What should you do first?
Start by finding out where you stand. Ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude the questions your customers would ask, without naming your business, and see who they recommend. Then ask about your business by name and check every fact.
Our guide on how to check what ChatGPT says about your business walks you through it step by step. Or get a free AI review and our team will do it for you.