You ask an AI tool to recommend a local business. Your competitor appears. You don't.
It is tempting to assume they know a secret. Perhaps they have a bigger budget, a special kind of page or someone who understands an algorithm you have never heard of.
Before guessing, open the citations.
Those links can show you which sources the answer references and what information a potential customer is being shown. Sometimes the source is a directory or a review site. Sometimes it is a list of “top” businesses. Sometimes it is your competitor's own website.
That is useful information. It gives you somewhere to begin investigating why your business is harder to find.
Start with a question that could lead to work
Imagine a homeowner looking for a general contractor in Ottawa. They might ask:
- Which Ottawa contractors handle basement renovations?
- What should I ask before choosing a renovation contractor?
- Who can help plan an accessible bathroom renovation?
- How do renovation estimates and payment schedules work?
These are hypothetical questions, not claims about what any named contractor offers.
Choose questions that connect to real services and useful inquiries. A generic “best contractor” question may reveal one set of sources. A specific question about a project, location or requirement may reveal another.
Use the same thinking for other businesses. A Toronto plumber, a local physiotherapy clinic and a law firm will each have different customer questions. Their websites should explain what they actually do, with the care their profession requires.
Inspect AI citations to understand competitor visibility
Think of Sherlock Holmes: examine the clues before deciding what happened.
For each important search, record the wording, the tool, the date and any relevant location. Note whether web search was used. Then open the links that actually support the answer.
Check who published each page. A guide on a contractor's website is different from an independent publication, even if both use “best contractors” in the title.
Also distinguish an inline citation from a separate list of suggested sources. You want to know which pages are tied to the answer's claims, not simply collect every link on screen.
Keep the exercise manageable. Start with a small set of questions that matter to the business, then repeat them over time. One answer is a snapshot, not your permanent position in AI search.
Which sources appear in AI search citations?
Group the sources into practical categories:
- A business's own service or product page
- A business-written comparison or listicle
- An independent article or comparison
- A directory or business profile
- Reviews or community discussions
- A professional or government information source
Then inspect what each page contributes. Does it describe services clearly? Explain project suitability? Offer a comparison? Supply an address, opening hours or a useful answer?
Look at your own information alongside it. If you offer a service but barely mention it, a competitor's detailed page may expose a real gap.
That doesn't prove why the AI chose the competitor. It does show something you can investigate and improve.
AI can help organize the investigation itself. Give it your recorded questions, dates, cited URLs and short notes from pages you actually checked. Use public information and keep private customer or project details out of the prompts.
Ask: “Group these citations by source type and customer question. Which information gaps recur across this sample? Suggest three improvements to investigate, linking each suggestion to the relevant source.” Request separate columns for observations, possible explanations and missing evidence.
Check the output against your log. Open the original sources to confirm they support the claims; a summary may miss a qualification or confuse a publisher with a recommended business. Ask the tool to flag pages it could not access rather than guess their contents.
Counts apply only to your sample, not the whole market. If directories recur, check your listing before planning a new article. If service details are missing, review the relevant page. The useful skill is asking the next question and verifying the answer, rather than accepting a confident list of recommendations.
Yes, listicles can appear in AI answers
It would be a mistake to dismiss every “best” or “top” article as useless for search.
An Ahrefs study found “best X” lists frequently among sources for a selected set of commercial prompts about software, products and agencies. That is evidence worth considering, but it is not a rule covering every local-business question.
The useful lesson is to examine the actual results. If several relevant searches repeatedly reference comparison articles, ask what those articles provide that a customer needs.
It may be a clear list of options. It may be a breakdown of services or suitability. It may be information that is difficult to find elsewhere.
The available sources help shape what can be retrieved and cited. Google describes using related searches to develop answers, while OpenAI explains that ChatGPT search can turn a question into targeted searches.
Neither system promises that a particular page format will be selected.
Decide what to improve before publishing more
The next step depends on the gap.
If a service page is missing, consider creating it. If the page exists but says very little, improve it. If a directory has the wrong details, investigate correcting the listing.
If a genuinely relevant publication has a useful guide, there may be a legitimate way to contribute accurate information. That does not mean paying for hidden endorsements, inventing reviews or spamming community discussions.
A comparison on your own website may also be useful in some industries. Explain who wrote it, apply fair criteria, verify information and disclose your commercial interest. Don't present your own ranking as an independent assessment.
For example, a contractor could explain the questions a homeowner should ask when evaluating quotes. That may serve the buyer better than declaring itself the winner of a competition it invented.
Beat your chest with something worth hearing
Local businesses rarely have a queue of journalists waiting to describe everything they do. Your website needs to carry part of that responsibility.
If you don't explain your experience, services and value, no one else is going to do it for you with the same understanding.
Show real work where permission allows. Explain the process. Describe the projects you are equipped to handle and the questions customers should ask. Make relevant qualifications and business details easy to find.
Claims like “best” and “top” need care. Canadian advertising guidance considers the overall impression, not only whether a sentence is literally true. Some performance claims require adequate testing before publication.
Regulated professions can have stricter rules. For example, Ontario's RCDSO guidance restricts dental practice comparisons and superiority claims. A self-ranking dentist listicle is not automatically acceptable because another business publishes one.
What appears in a citation is evidence of what appeared, not legal approval of the page.
Check the SEO foundations for AI search
Useful content still needs to be accessible.
Make sure important pages are public, working and linked from relevant parts of the website. Use clear titles and check indexing through Search Console when appropriate.
Google's AI search guidance says the usual SEO foundations remain relevant. There is no special AI file or magic schema that guarantees inclusion.
If crawling seems blocked, ask your website provider to investigate the particular system rather than changing settings blindly. Search crawling, training crawlers and user-triggered retrieval are different activities.
Track AI citations, business mentions and inquiries
Track two separate questions: Was your page cited, and was your business mentioned or recommended?
An AI answer can cite a page while recommending another company. Citation alone is not proof that the system endorsed your business or accepted every claim on your page.
Then look at the outcomes that matter: useful website visits, qualified inquiries, calls and booked work. Some people will discover you in an AI answer and later visit directly, so attribution will be incomplete.
Record meaningful changes and repeat your key searches. Don't rewrite the whole website because one answer changed overnight.
The goal is a better understanding of what customers find and what information your business needs to provide. Use the evidence to choose the next useful improvement.
For help connecting that work to your wider search strategy, explore Salient AI's SEO services and AEO and GEO services.
Written from Stephen Lau’s experience and point of view, with AI-assisted research, editorial production and illustrations.