Short answer: make your business easy for AI assistants to find and check. Have your own website with clear details and prices, keep reviews coming, get mentioned on other sites, and keep every listing up to date. In an audit of 4,776 cafes, restaurants and bars in Bali, those were the things linked to being recommended by ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity (August 2026).
| What the research found | Source |
|---|---|
| 85.6% of the 4,776 venues were never recommended by any of the four assistants | arXiv audit, August 2026 |
| Business websites made up 42% of 1.9 million AI citations in local searches | BrightLocal, September 2026 |
| ChatGPT named 4.1 businesses per answer on average | BrightLocal, September 2026 |
What to do, step by step
- Have your own website, and keep it plain. Put your name, address, phone number, opening hours and what you sell, with prices, in normal text. In the Bali audit, an own website was the strongest of the four links. BrightLocal says it doesn't have to be complicated.
- Let ChatGPT's search crawler in. OpenAI says sites that opt out of its OAI-SearchBot crawler will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers. Ask whoever runs your website to check that robots.txt allows it.
- Keep your listings current everywhere. BrightLocal found Google Business Profile was the biggest single source across the three platforms it tested, but ChatGPT hardly uses it and leans more on Yelp and Bing. So keep your Google profile, review sites and directories in step. In the Bali audit, the assistants recommended permanently closed venues 93 times: old information, not made-up places, was the real problem.
- Keep reviews coming, and answer them. Review volume was linked to being recommended. Our review reply templates help with replies. Never buy or fake reviews: our guide on turning Google reviews into Instagram posts covers the rules.
- Get mentioned on other websites. Third-party mentions were also linked to being recommended. Local press, blogs, event listings and partner businesses all count.
What you don't need
- Special AI files for Google. Google says there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode.
- A perfect star rating to get in. In the Bali audit, rating did not predict whether a venue was named, only which named venue came first.
- Every data listing you can find. Being in Foursquare's open places dataset showed no positive effect.
How to check where you stand
Ask ChatGPT the questions your customers would ask, such as the best brunch near your street, several times. Expect the list to change between runs. Note which businesses keep appearing and which websites ChatGPT cites for them, then make sure you are on those sites too.
How Suara helps
Suara is done for you: share your Instagram or website, and Suara makes a week of posts every week from your own photos, in your look and voice. Each post comes to you in a Telegram chat, and nothing is posted until you approve it. Your first week is free. Start your free week. Suara (trysuara.com) is not an AI-search service, but it keeps your Instagram, Facebook and TikTok current with posts from your real photos, and it can turn a Google review you forward into a post.
When Suara is not the right fit
- You want your website, listings or AI visibility handled. Those are not part of the service described on trysuara.com.
- You want posts to go out unchecked. Nothing is posted until you approve it.
- You need a new design within minutes. Urgent one-off posts take the same day, usually within a few hours.
Questions
Does my star rating decide whether ChatGPT recommends me?
Not quite. In the Bali audit, rating made no difference to whether a venue was named, but among named venues a higher rating was linked to being listed first.
Do I need an llms.txt file or special schema to show up in AI answers?
No. Google says no AI text files or special schema are needed for AI Overviews or AI Mode. OpenAI's crawler page recommends allowing OAI-SearchBot in your robots.txt file.
Will posting on Instagram get me recommended by ChatGPT?
Not in our data. We have not measured it. Instagram was not among the top 10 cited sources in BrightLocal's study, while Facebook was, at 2.23% of citations.
Is it normal for ChatGPT to give a different list each time?
Yes. In BrightLocal's study, repeat runs of the same ChatGPT question shared only 23% of their results, and a business named once came back in about half of later runs.
Sources
- Invisible to the Machine: Auditing AI Restaurant, Cafe, and Bar Recommendation Against a Complete Market Census (Vladimir Pitenin, arXiv, 7 August 2026) (fetched 2 November 2026)
- BrightLocal: What 200k local AI searches tell us about what businesses get recommended, and why your website matters (Mike Hawkes, 16 September 2026) (fetched 2 November 2026)
- OpenAI: Overview of OpenAI Crawlers (fetched 2 November 2026)
- Google Search Central: AI Features and Your Website (fetched 2 November 2026)
- Suara llms.txt (fetched 2 November 2026)
