To check whether ChatGPT recommends your business, ask it the questions a customer would ask, with your location included, and record whether you are named, who else is named, and which websites are cited. Repeat in Gemini and Perplexity and check Google for an AI Overview. The whole exercise takes about 30 minutes and gives you a baseline you can measure against every month. Here is how to do it properly.
Why should a Kenyan business check this?
Because your customers are already asking. 97.5% of Kenyan internet users used an AI tool in the past month, the highest rate of 54 countries surveyed by DataReportal in 2026. When someone asks an AI assistant for a recommendation, it typically names a handful of businesses. If yours is not among them, that customer never knew you existed. Most Kenyan businesses have never tested this, which means most have no idea whether they appear.
Step 1: write down 20 customer questions
Think about how a real person would ask, not how you describe yourself. Mix these types:
- Recommendation: “Which companies do kitchen renovations in Nairobi?”
- Best-of: “Who is the best dentist in Kilimani?”
- Comparison: “Compare accounting firms for SMEs in Kenya.”
- Price: “How much does a website cost in Kenya and who builds them?”
- Problem-led: “My M-Pesa till reconciliation takes hours, who can automate it?”
Include your town or neighbourhood in at least half of them. Keep the list; you will reuse it every month.
Step 2: run the questions in ChatGPT
Use a fresh conversation for each question so earlier answers do not influence later ones. Analysis of around 730,000 ChatGPT conversations found the first question in a conversation is 2.5 times more likely to trigger citations than the tenth. For each answer, record four things in a spreadsheet: whether your business is named; which competitors are named; which websites are cited or linked; and whether anything said about you is wrong or out of date.
Step 3: repeat in Gemini and Perplexity
Each engine draws on different sources and cites at different rates. Research by Muck Rack found ChatGPT cites sources in 96% of responses, Gemini in 82% and Claude in 55%. Perplexity cites heavily and is popular with researchers. Run the same 20 questions in each and record the same four things. Differences between engines tell you where your presence is weakest.
Step 4: check Google for AI Overviews
Search each question in Google. If an AI Overview appears at the top, note whether it mentions you and which sites it credits. This matters because the Overview takes clicks away from everything beneath it: Ahrefs measured a 58% drop in clicks to the first organic result when one is present. Being cited inside it is now worth more than ranking just below it.
Step 5: read the results
Three patterns are common. If you are not named anywhere but competitors are, look at which sites the engines cite for them; those are the places you need to appear too. If you are named but with wrong facts (an old address, a service you no longer offer), your business information is inconsistent across the web and needs fixing first. If nobody local is named and the engines fall back to general advice or international brands, the category is wide open and the first business to structure its content properly will likely own it.
Step 6: fix the fastest things first
Three changes tend to move AI visibility quickest. First, make your name, address, phone and services identical on your website, Google Business Profile and every directory. Second, rewrite your main service pages so the first paragraph states exactly what you do and where; 44% of ChatGPT citations come from the first 30% of a page. Third, add FAQ sections with schema markup to answer the questions from your list directly. Our guide on getting started with AI search optimisation in Kenya covers each in more detail.
Step 7: repeat monthly
Run the same 20 questions on the same date each month and track the share where you are named. That single number, plus a note of which pages get cited, is the clearest measure of progress. If you would rather have it done systematically across more queries and engines, our AEO and GEO service starts with exactly this audit, and the first one is free: request your audit here.
Frequently asked questions
Does ChatGPT recommend businesses in Kenya?
Yes. When asked for recommendations with a location, ChatGPT names specific businesses it finds information about online. Whether a given business appears depends on how clearly and consistently it is described across the web.
How does ChatGPT decide which businesses to recommend?
It retrieves web pages relevant to the question, evaluates them, and cites a small number it judges reliable. Pages that answer the question directly, carry structured data and are supported by consistent third-party information are cited most often.
Can I pay to appear in ChatGPT answers?
Advertising inside AI answers is beginning to appear on some platforms, but recommendations and citations themselves are earned, not bought. The work is structuring your content and presence so the engine trusts you.
How often should I check my AI visibility?
Monthly is enough for most businesses. Use the same question list each time so the results are comparable, and track the percentage of questions where your business is named.
