When a customer asks AI who to call, are you the answer?
More of your customers now skip the search results and ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity for a recommendation. They get three or four names back and pick one of them. If you are not on that short list, you never got a chance at the job. We measure whether the engines name you, who they name instead, and the exact pages they took it from. Then we fix it.
What changed
Customers used to search. Now they ask.
The work of getting found has not gone away. It has moved. Here is the shift, side by side.
| The old way | The new way | |
|---|---|---|
| What the customer does | Searches Google, scrolls ten blue links, opens four tabs | Asks an AI engine one question and reads one answer |
| What they see | Ten businesses plus ads | Three or four names, each with a sentence about why |
| What decides it | Your website and your Google ranking | Whatever the engine read about you: your Business Profile, directories, review sites, lists other people wrote |
| How you know where you stand | Search for yourself | You cannot tell from one try. Answers change every time, so you have to ask many times and count |
We measured ourselves first
Our own number, before and after.
Before selling this to anyone, we pointed it at NeonSky AI in our home market. Five questions a central Alberta owner would type, for example "who should I hire to automate my business with AI in central Alberta". Every question went to every engine three times, with live web search on. Here is what came back, unedited.
From 3 answers in August to 17 in October
Out of 60 answers each time: ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity, five Camrose-area questions, each asked three times.
96 visitors in September, up from 54 in August
People who visited the site each month, June to September 2026.
| Engine | Aug 13, 2026 | Oct 5, 2026 | Oct 20, 2026 | What we saw |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 0 of 15 | 13 of 15 | 11 of 15 | Lists NeonSky AI first in 8 of its 11 mentions on Oct 20, linking to our Google Maps listing. The small dip from Oct 5 is normal run-to-run variation. |
| Gemini | 3 of 15 | not measured | 0 of 15 | The only engine naming us in August, and none on Oct 20. It names AKAI Solutions and The Automators instead. (On Oct 5 the service we measure through was rate-limited all evening.) |
| Claude | 0 of 15 | 0 of 15 | 0 of 15 | Still names other Alberta firms, most often AB Transform and The Automators. |
| Perplexity | 0 of 15 | 0 of 15 | 6 of 15 | New on Oct 20. Lists NeonSky AI first in all 6, citing our home page. |
Share of the conversation
Across every firm the engines recommended, NeonSky AI went from 3.8% of mentions (7th place) in August to 18.3% (2nd place) on Oct 20, behind AB Transform at 30.1% and just ahead of The Automators at 17.2%.
Both scans count all four engines, so this compares like with like. The Oct 5 scan, without Gemini, had us 3rd at 17.1%.What the engines point to
We set up our Google Business Profile on August 19. In October, ChatGPT's answers link straight to that listing. In August, the only local firms ChatGPT named also reached it through Google Maps links, not through their websites. Perplexity took a different road: when it named us on Oct 20, it cited our own home page.
We changed other things too, so we cannot prove which change did what. The citations point at the profile and the website, though.Why we publish our own numbersIn August our number was close to zero, and we showed it anyway. A report that only flatters you is worth nothing. What matters is something specific and measured that tells you what to fix next. For us, the next fix is Claude and Gemini.
Free. Tonight. Ten minutes.
Check yourself before you pay anyone.
You can do a rough version of this yourself on your phone. It will not be a measurement, but it will tell you whether to worry.
Write three questions your customers would really ask
Use their words, not yours. "Best plumber in Camrose", "who fixes furnaces near Camrose on a weekend", "family dentist taking new patients central Alberta".
Ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity
All three are free to try. Ask each question in a fresh chat.
Ask each one three times
The answers change every time. Once is a story. Three times starts to be a pattern. Count how often you are named.
Write down who they named instead
Those are the businesses the engines trust in your category. Look at their sources. Most answers show the links they used.
Open your own Google Business Profile
Check the hours, the category, the address pin and the reviews. In our scans, local firms most often reached AI answers through their Google Maps listing.
Score yourselfNamed in most answers: green, keep doing what you are doing. Named sometimes: amber, you are close. Never named: red, and you are not alone. Red is where we started.
How we measure it properly
Many questions, many repeats, every source.
The do-it-yourself check tells you whether to worry. The real measurement tells you what to fix, in what order.
Your customers' questions, not keywords
We build the question set from how your customers actually ask: your category, your town, the alternatives they compare you to.
Four engines, asked again and again
ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity, each with live web search, targeted to your market where the engine allows it. Every question is asked several times, because one answer proves nothing.
Every source traced
We capture the exact pages behind each recommendation and rank them. Those pages are where the decision is really being made, and most of them will list you if you ask.
The plumbing checked
We check whether your website lets AI crawlers in at all. Some sites block them through a security setting nobody remembers turning on, and then no other fix matters.
Pricing
Start small. Credit it forward.
Fixed fees. No tool subscriptions to sign. The Snapshot is credited in full against the Audit if you upgrade within 30 days.
| Option | What you get | Turnaround | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Snapshotthe place to start | Up to 10 questions, 4 engines, 2 repeats each (80 answers). How often you are named, who is named instead, and the crawler check. A short report and a two-minute video walking you through it. | 2 business days, no call needed | $197 |
| Auditthe full picture | Up to 10 questions, 4 engines, 5 repeats each (200 answers). Share of voice against every competitor named, the full source ranking, a prioritised fix list and a 45-minute walkthrough. | About a week | $1,450 |
| Audit + Monitorwatch it move | Everything in the Audit, then the same questions re-run every month, with what you gained and lost and any new competitor flagged. Cancel any month. | Monthly | $1,450 + $395/mo |
| Own the Answerwe do the fixing | Everything above, plus the work itself: Business Profile and directory listings completed, review-site and list outreach, answer pages written and published, crawler settings handled. | 3-month first term | $2,450 + $1,250/mo |
What happens next
Three ways in. Pick the one that fits today.
Planning to sell in the next few years?Being named by AI is one of three things that change what a buyer will pay. Run your own numbers on the exit-value calculator.
Not sure yet
Run the free check above tonight. If you are green, you do not need us.
Want the real number
Order the $197 Snapshot. Tell us your business name, your town and three questions your customers ask.
Ready to fix it
Book the Audit and we start with a 30-minute call to build your question set.