How to Make Your Website More Visible in AI Search: What Businesses Should Actually Do in 2026

There’s a new question we’re starting to hear around websites and SEO:

How do I get my business to show up when someone asks ChatGPT, Google AI or another AI tool for a recommendation?

It’s a good question.

People aren’t only searching the way they used to. Instead of typing a few keywords into Google, opening several websites and comparing the results themselves, they can now ask something much more specific:

Who can build a website for a small service business in Palm Beach County that also needs online estimates and customer intake?

Or:

What’s the best way for an HOA landscaping company to let residents submit service requests online?

Or even:

Find me a local company that can redesign my WordPress website and connect it with the other tools my business uses.

AI systems can research that question, compare information from different sources and present an answer.

That changes something important about online visibility.

Being found isn’t only about earning a position in a list of search results anymore. Your website also needs to be understandable enough to become part of the answer.

So what can a business actually do about that?

We went directly to the current documentation from Google, OpenAI and Microsoft rather than relying on the growing collection of theories surrounding “GEO,” “AEO” and AI search optimization.

What we found is encouraging.

You probably don’t need an entirely new AI strategy.

You need a better website, clearer information and stronger evidence that your business actually knows what it’s talking about.

First, Understand What AI Search Is Actually Doing

AI search can look almost magical from the outside, but an important part of the process is fairly practical.

The system needs information.

Google explains in its official guide to optimizing for generative AI search that its AI features use techniques including retrieval-augmented generation, or grounding.

In plain English, Google can retrieve current information from pages in its search index and use that information to help construct an AI-generated response.

Google also describes something called query fan-out.

Instead of treating someone’s question as one search, the system can generate several related searches to explore different parts of the question.

That matters for businesses.

A potential customer may ask one complicated question, while the AI system researches several smaller questions behind the scenes.

Your website doesn’t necessarily need a page targeting every one of those possible searches.

It needs useful information that helps answer them.

The Goal Isn’t Just Ranking. It’s Becoming a Useful Source.

This may be the most useful way for a business owner to think about AI search.

Traditional SEO often encourages us to ask:

How do we rank this page?

AI search adds another question:

What information on this page would be useful enough for an AI system to retrieve, cite or use when answering someone’s question?

Microsoft is already giving website owners a glimpse into this.

In 2026, Bing Webmaster Tools introduced AI Performance reporting showing when pages are cited in AI-generated answers across Microsoft Copilot, Bing and supported partner experiences.

The reporting includes cited pages and what Microsoft calls “grounding queries”—the phrases AI systems used while retrieving information for an answer.

That’s a significant shift.

We’re moving from measuring only rankings and clicks toward also being able to see whether a website is being used as a source.

1. Make Sure AI Search Can Actually Access Your Website

Before worrying about content strategy, start with something much less exciting:

Can the systems actually get into your website?

Google says pages need to be crawlable, indexed and eligible to appear in Search to participate in its generative AI search experiences.

OpenAI has a similar requirement.

According to OpenAI’s guidance for publishers, public websites can appear in ChatGPT search. To help ensure that content can be discovered, surfaced and cited, a website should allow OAI-SearchBot to crawl the relevant pages.

That means your robots.txt file, firewall, security plugins, CDN and bot-protection settings matter.

A website can contain fantastic information and still create a problem if the systems trying to retrieve it are being blocked before they ever reach the page.

This is one of the first things we would check on a business website preparing for AI search:

• Is the site publicly crawlable?
• Are important pages indexable?
• Is Google Search Console configured?
• Is Bing Webmaster Tools configured?
• Is OAI-SearchBot being unintentionally blocked?
• Are security or firewall rules rejecting legitimate crawlers?
• Is the XML sitemap current?
• Are canonical URLs clear?

None of that is particularly glamorous.

But if the answer engine can’t reliably access the information, everything else becomes considerably less important.

2. Clearly Explain What Your Business Actually Does

This sounds obvious.

It’s not.

We’ve worked on plenty of business websites where a human can eventually figure out what the company does, but the important information is scattered across slogans, images, service pages and vague marketing language.

Imagine trying to determine whether a company is a good recommendation from sentences like:

Transforming possibilities into extraordinary digital experiences.

What does that business actually do?

Who does it for?

Where?

What problems does it solve?

AI search gives businesses another reason to answer those questions plainly.

A website should make important facts easy to understand:

• What the business does
• Who it serves
• Where it operates
• What individual services it provides
• What problems those services solve
• What makes its approach different
• Who is behind the business
• How someone can work with it

Clarity has always been good for customers. Now it’s increasingly important for machines trying to understand the same business.

3. Publish Information That an AI Answer Would Actually Need

This connects directly with our recent article about AI-generated content and SEO in 2026.

Google’s new generative AI guidance puts particular emphasis on what it calls non-commodity content.

Google specifically recommends bringing a unique viewpoint and firsthand experience to your content instead of simply recycling information already available elsewhere.

That’s important for AI visibility because generic information is easy to find.

If 5,000 websites say essentially the same thing, your version isn’t adding much to the information environment.

Instead, publish the things your business actually knows.

For Grassroots, that could mean explaining why a customer intake form sometimes needs routing logic instead of simply emailing every submission to one person.

A landscaper could explain what property managers should include when submitting a service request so crews can respond correctly the first time.

An attorney could explain a commonly misunderstood part of the process clients encounter before calling the office.

A contractor could document what homeowners should check before comparing two estimates that appear to cover the same work.

Those are useful answers.

They’re also based on actual experience.

4. Answer Specific Questions, Not Just Broad Keywords

AI search makes this especially interesting.

People can ask much more complicated questions than they typically typed into a traditional search box.

That doesn’t mean creating hundreds of pages for every imaginable question.

Google explicitly warns against doing that simply to manipulate AI search visibility.

Instead, build genuinely useful pages around the subjects your customers care about.

Within those pages, answer the natural questions that belong there.

For example, a useful website-design article might naturally answer:

• How much information belongs on a service page?
• Should every service have its own page?
• When should pricing be published?
• What should happen after someone submits a form?
• Does a local business need separate pages for every city it serves?

Clear headings help people scan those answers.

They also make the subject matter of the page easier to understand.

But don’t turn the article into a collection of awkward questions simply because someone said AI likes FAQs.

Write the page for the person. Structure it so the information is easy to find.

5. Support Important Claims With Good Sources

This is one of the reasons we’ve strengthened the sourcing standard for Grassroots Insights.

If we tell you Google recommends something, you should be able to see Google’s documentation.

If we quote a local statistic, you should be able to see where that statistic came from.

If we’re discussing a study, the original research should be available whenever possible.

That makes the article more useful for a person.

It also creates clearer context around where information originated.

Microsoft’s own guidance for improving content used in AI answers recommends supporting claims with evidence, examples, data and cited sources.

So linking to authoritative sources isn’t simply academic housekeeping.

It helps turn a page from an unsupported assertion into a useful research source.

6. Give AI Systems Consistent Information About Your Business

For a local business, your website isn’t the only place information about you exists.

There may also be:

• Your Google Business Profile
• Bing business information
• Professional directories
• Industry associations
• Social profiles
• Review sites
• News coverage
• Customer reviews
• Other websites linking to or discussing your business

Google’s generative AI optimization guidance specifically recommends maintaining accurate local business information and says Google Business Profile can help services and business details become visible in both AI responses and other Google Search results.

That gives local businesses another reason to keep those details accurate.

Your business name shouldn’t be one thing on the website and another somewhere else.

Your service descriptions shouldn’t contradict one another.

Your address, hours and contact information should be current.

Your website should reinforce what the rest of the web says the business actually is.

For a Palm Beach County business, local relevance should also be real.

Don’t create 20 nearly identical pages with West Palm Beach swapped for Wellington, Boynton Beach, Boca Raton and Jupiter.

Talk about the communities you actually serve when location genuinely matters to the subject.

7. Use Structured Data, But Don’t Treat Schema Like an AI Cheat Code

Structured data still has a place.

It can help search engines understand information about organizations, articles, products, events and other content.

For example, an article can use Article or BlogPosting structured data to identify its headline, author, publication date, modified date and image.

A local business can provide appropriate organization and local-business information.

But here’s where the AI-search industry can get ahead of itself.

Google explicitly says there is no special structured data required for generative AI search.

It also says you don’t need special AI markup or an llms.txt file to improve visibility in Google Search.

Structured data is useful when it accurately describes what is visibly on the page.

It isn’t a substitute for the page itself being useful.

8. Use Original Images and Useful Visual Information

AI search isn’t limited to text.

Google’s guidance specifically recommends high-quality images and video when they genuinely help the audience because those assets can create additional opportunities to appear in generative search experiences.

For many small businesses, this is an underused advantage.

Show the actual work.

Show the project.

Show the person providing the service.

Show before and after examples when appropriate.

Show the thing you’re explaining.

A library of original visual material is much harder for a generic competitor to reproduce than another stock image of two people shaking hands.

9. Make Your Website Understandable to AI Agents Too

Search isn’t the only thing evolving.

AI agents are beginning to do things on behalf of users rather than simply provide answers.

Google’s current guidance discusses browser agents that can inspect a website’s DOM, accessibility tree and visual interface while trying to complete tasks.

OpenAI similarly recommends accessibility practices such as descriptive ARIA labels and roles to help browser agents understand interactive elements.

This starts moving beyond traditional SEO.

A website may increasingly need to be understandable not only to a person and a search crawler, but also to software attempting to use the website on that person’s behalf.

That makes familiar website fundamentals even more valuable:

• Clearly labeled buttons
• Understandable forms
• Logical navigation
• Accessible interactive elements
• Clear service and product information
• Predictable actions
• Useful confirmation messages

Again, the interesting thing is that most of these changes also make the website better for humans.

10. Start Measuring AI Visibility Instead of Guessing

This is one of the biggest developments of 2026.

We no longer have to treat all AI-search visibility as a black box.

Google has rolled out Generative AI performance reporting in Search Console, giving website owners dedicated visibility into impressions from AI features such as AI Overviews and AI Mode.

Bing’s AI Performance reporting provides another perspective by showing citations, cited URLs and grounding-query information across supported Microsoft AI experiences.

And OpenAI says referrals from ChatGPT search include a utm_source=chatgpt.com parameter, making that incoming traffic identifiable in analytics platforms such as Google Analytics.

That means businesses can begin asking better questions:

• Which pages are appearing in AI search?
• Which subjects are getting cited?
• What kinds of questions are leading systems to our content?
• Is ChatGPT actually sending visitors?
• Which pages have traditional search visibility but little AI visibility?
• What useful information could make those pages better sources?

Measure first. Then improve what the data tells you to improve.

What About GEO, AEO and All the New AI Optimization Services?

You’ll increasingly see services described as Generative Engine Optimization, Answer Engine Optimization, AI SEO and probably several other names that haven’t been invented yet.

Some of that work is legitimate.

Understanding how AI systems retrieve and cite information is becoming a real part of search strategy.

But businesses should be careful about anyone presenting AI visibility as if there’s a secret technical shortcut.

Google’s own position is remarkably straightforward: optimizing for its generative AI experiences is still fundamentally SEO.

The company specifically warns against overfocusing on supposed AI tricks such as special AI files, artificial mentions, unnecessary content “chunking” or rewriting everything specifically for AI systems.

That’s worth remembering.

Don’t rebuild a perfectly good website around someone’s theory about what an AI model might like.

Start with what the systems themselves are telling us.

So What Would We Actually Do to a Small Business Website?

If a Palm Beach County business came to Grassroots today and said, “I want my website to be better prepared for AI search,” we wouldn’t begin by installing an AI plugin.

We’d start by looking at the foundation.

Can the site be crawled?

Does it clearly explain the business?

Are the services understandable?

Does each important page actually contain useful information?

Does the business demonstrate real experience?

Are important claims supported?

Is local information accurate?

Are the website, Google Business Profile and other important sources telling a consistent story?

Is the content organized clearly?

Are appropriate structured data and technical SEO already in place?

Are images useful and original?

Can people—and increasingly agents—understand the forms and actions on the site?

Are Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools and analytics configured so we can measure what happens next?

Only after answering those questions would we start looking for more specialized opportunities.

The Best AI Search Strategy May Be a Better Website

There’s something almost reassuring about all of this.

The internet is changing quickly.

The interface between customers and businesses is changing.

And AI will undoubtedly create new optimization techniques that don’t exist yet.

But the current guidance from the companies actually building these systems keeps returning to remarkably familiar principles:

Be accessible.

Be clear.

Be useful.

Know what you’re talking about.

Provide information other people don’t already have.

Support what you say.

Keep your information accurate.

Make the website work well.

Those aren’t AI tricks.

They’re the characteristics of a strong digital foundation.

The difference is that your next website visitor may not always discover you by clicking the tenth blue link on a search-results page.

They may ask an AI system a question.

Your job is to make sure your business has given that system something useful, accurate and trustworthy to find.

If you’re wondering whether your website is ready for the way people are starting to search—or what practical changes would make it easier for traditional search engines and AI systems to understand your business—we can take a look at the foundation first.

Tell us what you’re trying to accomplish.

We’ll start there.

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