The short answer
ChatGPT recommends businesses it can find and trust. To be one of them, put what you do, where you work and what it costs in plain text on your website. Answer the questions your customers ask, and make sure other websites describe you the same way. Then check the answers every month.
This matters more in the UAE than almost anywhere: about 70% of working-age people here used AI tools in early 2026, the highest share in the world.
How ChatGPT chooses who to recommend
When someone asks “who is the best interior designer in Dubai Hills?”, ChatGPT doesn’t check a secret ranking. It searches the web, reads the pages it finds, and writes an answer from the sources it trusts most. Three things decide whether you make the cut:
- Can it read you? If your services are hidden in images, sliders or scripts, AI can’t use them.
- Does it understand you? If your site never says plainly what you do, where, for whom and roughly what it costs, AI has to guess. It usually picks someone clearer.
- Does it trust you? AI looks for agreement: the same name, address and services on your site, your Google Business Profile, directories and other people’s websites, plus genuine reviews.
Eight things to do, in order
1. Check what AI says about you today
Write down ten questions your customers ask. Put each into ChatGPT, Gemini and Google, logged out, and note who gets named. This is your baseline. Our free AI check does this for five questions in three assistants.
2. Make your website readable
Every important sentence should be real text on the page. Give each main service its own page. Make the site load in about two seconds on a phone. If your site is built so that text only appears after scripts run, many AI crawlers will see an empty page.
3. State the facts plainly
Say what you do, the areas you cover, your opening hours, your prices or price ranges, and your proof: years in business, projects done, certifications. AI repeats facts it can find. One of our clients now has its project count and survival rate quoted word for word in ChatGPT’s answer.
4. Answer the questions buyers actually ask
“How much does villa landscaping cost in Dubai?” “Can you move a 30-year-old palm?” Write short, honest answers on your site, one question per heading. These pages are what AI quotes.
5. Make your details identical everywhere
Your business name, phone, address and services should match on your website, Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Apple Business Connect and the directories that matter in your industry. Mismatches make AI less sure you are one business.
6. Collect genuine reviews
Ask happy customers, every time, with a direct link. A steady flow of real reviews is one of the strongest trust signals there is.
7. Earn mentions on other websites
Industry associations, partners, suppliers, local press and “best of” lists all count. One real mention on a respected site is worth more than a hundred on sites nobody reads.
8. Measure monthly, not by one screenshot
AI answers change from day to day. Re-ask your questions every month, several times each, and track how often you’re named. That trend is the only honest measure.
What not to do
Don’t publish dozens of thin AI-written pages, buy fake reviews, or pay to plant posts on other sites. Google’s spam policies target exactly these tactics, its 2026 spam updates enforced them, and the same rules now apply to Google’s AI answers. They can wipe out years of trust in a week.
A useful test: if a tactic would embarrass you when a customer found out about it, AI will probably stop trusting you for it too.
How long it takes
Most businesses start appearing in AI answers within three to six weeks of fixing the basics. Reaching the top three for your main service usually takes two to three months, depending on your market. Adi General Trading saw its first AI mentions three weeks after launch and is now ChatGPT’s first choice for tree transplantation in Dubai.
AI still sends a small share of total web traffic, around 1% across industries in early 2026, but those visitors arrive already convinced. For a business where each customer is worth thousands, a handful of them a month changes the year.
Questions people ask
Can I pay ChatGPT to recommend my business?
Not inside the answer. OpenAI is testing labelled ads for some US users, shown separately, and says ads don’t influence the answer. ChatGPT names businesses based on what it can find and trust about them online, so the way in is to be the clearest, best-supported answer to the question.
Does ChatGPT use Google reviews?
AI assistants read reviews and ratings from the sources they can access, and use them as a sign of trust. Genuine reviews on Google and other platforms help; fake ones put the whole business at risk.
How do I check if ChatGPT recommends my business?
Open ChatGPT in a private window, logged out, and ask the questions your customers would ask, for example “best physiotherapy clinic in Dubai Marina”. Ask each one a few times on different days, because answers vary.
Written by Esh, founder of Sylow AI. Esh leads every project personally: website builds, AI visibility work and the monthly tracking of what ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Grok, Perplexity and Google say about each client. More about Esh. Last reviewed 30 October 2026.
Sources
- Khaleej Times: UAE tops global AI adoption rankings as workplace usage crosses 70% (Microsoft AI Diffusion Report, Q1 2026)
- Superlines: The state of GEO in Q1 2026 (Conductor benchmarks)
- eWeek: OpenAI tests ads in ChatGPT (“Ads do not influence the answers ChatGPT gives you”)
- PPC Land: Scaled content abuse and Google’s 2026 spam updates