Our AI visibility was zero. Here's what we did about it

In August 2026 I asked ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini the ten questions our buyers actually ask, several times each, and logged all 103 answers. Respondyr appeared in 9 of 9 answers where the question named us, and 0 of 94 where it didn’t. Here’s the fix we started with, and you can copy it for free: claim the foundational listings that tell machines your business is real (Bing Places, Apple Business Connect, Crunchbase, BBB, a DUNS number), keep the facts identical on every one, and don’t buy a single link. This post is that walkthrough, with the gotchas we hit doing it this week.

What did the measurement actually show?

The queries covered category searches (“best review management software for a small business”), comparisons, pricing questions, problem descriptions, and vertical-specific asks. Two competitors, Birdeye and Podium, showed up in nearly every one. In comparison-intent answers they went 24 for 24. We went 0 for 24.

The branded result matters just as much. When someone asked about Respondyr by name, all three engines described us accurately and cited respondyr.com. The engines know what we are. They never think of us on their own. That gap, known but never recalled, is what most small brands actually have, and it changes what work is worth doing.

One more number changed my plans: ChatGPT ran a live web search on only 4 of the 35 questions we sent it. The other 31 answers came from what the model learned in training, months ago. You can’t publish your way into an answer that doesn’t look anything up. What feeds those memory answers is broad, durable presence across the wider web: directories, registries, reviews, other people’s pages.

Why start with free listings instead of backlinks?

Because the failure wasn’t a ranking problem. The engines had nothing to corroborate. When a machine decides whether to recommend a business, it cross-checks the places businesses are recorded: search indexes, map platforms, company registries, business bureaus. If those records are missing or disagree with each other, you’re a rumor. If they all say the same thing, you’re a fact.

So the first move isn’t outreach and it isn’t paying anyone. It’s the boring registry sweep, done carefully. Every listing below is free, and the whole set fits in one sitting. The one rule that makes it work: copy your name, website, and description into every form character for character, and leave a field blank before you ever guess. Blank beats fake, because one wrong record poisons the rest.

The checklist we ran, with the gotchas

• Bing Places. ChatGPT’s web search runs on Bing’s index, so this one punches above its weight. Use the import from Google Business Profile option and sign in with the same Google account that owns your profile. It pulls everything over, auto-verifies off your verified Google listing, and offers ongoing sync. Turn the sync on. Check the description afterward; the transfer can truncate it.
• Apple Business Connect. Claim your business on Apple Maps. A personal Apple ID is fine; it’s only the login and never shows publicly. We verified by adding a DNS record to prove we own our domain, which beat mailing documents. Expect the review to take a few days.
• Crunchbase. Heavily crawled, and it shows up in the material AI models train on. Creating a company profile is free, but the signup flow pushes a paid subscription hard and hides the skip. Decline it. The free profile is the whole play.
• Better Business Bureau. The free business profile and paid accreditation are two different things. Fill out the free profile, then expect a sales call about accreditation. That’s a separate marketing decision you can make later or never.
• A DUNS number from Dun and Bradstreet. This seeds the business-data ecosystem that dozens of other databases copy from. The free application takes up to 30 business days, and slow is fine. Decline the expedited option and every credit-monitoring upsell on the way through.

If you run a local or service area business rather than a software company, your version of the list looks different. Swap Crunchbase and DUNS for Yelp and Yellow Pages (we wrote that version up in the five business listings owners skip), then add two layers on top. First, your real local chamber of commerce. Membership costs money, but you’re paying for a relationship that happens to come with a directory listing, which is a different thing from buying a link. Second, the directories your trade actually lives in: Angi and HomeAdvisor for home services, Healthgrades and Zocdoc for medical and dental practices, Avvo for law firms, TripAdvisor and OpenTable for restaurants.

A note for service area businesses specifically, the plumbers and mobile groomers who go to the customer: all of this still applies. Keep your service area consistent on every listing and never invent a storefront address to fill a form. Blank beats fake there too. The trade-directory layer is deep enough that it deserves its own walkthrough, and we’ll publish one.

What are we not claiming?

These listings are days old. I have no idea yet what they’ll do to our numbers, and anyone who promises AI assistants will recommend you next month is selling something. Training-data effects lag by months. What I can defend: the before photo is measured, the work cost nothing but an afternoon, and every record a machine can find about us now agrees with every other one.

We’ll rerun the same 103-question measurement and publish what moved, including a zero if that’s what we get.

What this means if you run a local business

The same engines answering software questions are answering “who’s a good plumber near me,” and they lean on the surfaces where real customers talk: review platforms and business profiles. A profile with recent reviews, each answered by the owner, is exactly the kind of third-party record that survives into both search results and training data.

That part is our day job. Respondyr answers every Google review in your voice, with you approving what posts, and Get Reviews on Basic and above gives you a branded link and QR code so fresh reviews keep landing. Claim your listings this week. See the plans or get started, month to month, no contract.

FAQ

Do I have to pay for any of these listings? No. Every item on the list is free. The platforms will offer paid upgrades during signup; none of them are required for the listing to exist and be read by machines.

How long until AI assistants notice? Months, honestly. Engines that search the live web can see new records within weeks; engines answering from training memory update on model-release timelines you don’t control. Treat this as foundation work, and measure before and after so you’re not guessing.

Does this replace earning links and mentions? No. Registries make you a verifiable fact. Mentions in content people actually cite are what get you recommended. Do the free foundation first so everything else you earn agrees with a consistent record.