To audit how AI tools describe your business, ask them the questions your customers ask, write down who they name and which sources they cite, then check the six places those answers come from: your business facts, your Google Business Profile, the directories and lists each engine trusts, your own service pages, and the measurement you have in place. The 25 checks below take a few hours, need no paid software, and give you a score out of 100 before you talk to any agency, including ours.
How to use this checklist
Work through the sections in order. Each check tells you what to look at, what counts as a pass, and why it matters, with a source where one exists. Give yourself four points per pass and be hard on yourself; the engines will be.
Run the audit signed out of every account and in a private browser window. Signed-in results can be shaped by your own history. You want the answer a stranger gets.
| Section | Checks | Points available |
|---|---|---|
| 1. The prompt test | 4 | 16 |
| 2. Business facts | 5 | 20 |
| 3. Google Business Profile | 6 | 24 |
| 4. Citations and lists | 3 | 12 |
| 5. Website pages | 4 | 16 |
| 6. Measurement | 3 | 12 |
| Total | 25 | 100 |
Section 1: The prompt test (16 points)
This is the only section that measures the outcome. Everything after it explains the outcome.
1. Write 10 buyer prompts. Look at the questions customers actually ask, in their words, not your category name. “Commercial roofer near Warren that handles insurance claims” beats “roofing Detroit.” Include two prompts about your business by name (“Is [business] any good?” and “What does [business] do?”). Pass: 10 prompts saved in a sheet, with the date. Why: the same 10 prompts, asked the same way each month, are the only honest way to see change.
2. Run each prompt, logged out, in five engines. Look at ChatGPT with search, Google AI Mode (and note whether an AI Overview appeared in regular search), Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot and Ask Maps inside Google Maps. Pass: all 50 runs recorded with the businesses named, in order. Why: the engines draw on different sources, so one engine’s answer tells you little about the others.
3. Record the cited sources. Look at the links or source cards each engine shows next to its answer. Perplexity and Copilot show them plainly; ChatGPT and AI Mode show them on request or in a side panel. Pass: for every prompt where a competitor was named, you know which page or directory the engine drew on. Why: those pages are your target list for Section 4.
4. Check accuracy of what is said about you. Look at the two prompts about your business by name. Compare the hours, address, services, founding year, price range and descriptions the engine gives against the truth. Pass: no factual errors in any engine. Why: a wrong fact is a lost customer, and it points you to the stale source that produced it. BrightLocal’s 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey found 82% of consumers read AI-generated review summaries and 23% would rely on those summaries alone.
Section 2: Business facts (20 points)
AI tools reconcile what they find across sources. A disagreement anywhere gives every engine a reason to hedge or to pick the wrong version.
5. Legal name and brand name. Look at your website footer, your structured data, Google Business Profile, Apple Business, Yelp, Bing Places, LinkedIn and Facebook. Pass: one spelling, one punctuation, one suffix (LLC or not) everywhere. Why: “Smith Roofing,” “Smith Roofing LLC” and “Smith Roofing & Siding” can be read as three businesses.
6. Address and phone. Look at the same eight places plus any industry directory your customers use. Pass: identical street address, suite format, ZIP code and primary phone number everywhere, with no dropped numbers from old campaigns. Why: Google’s local ranking help page says “businesses with complete and accurate info are more likely to show up in local search results.” The same holds for the engines that read Google.
7. Founding year and ownership. Look at your About page, LinkedIn company page and Google Business Profile “opening date” field. Pass: same year everywhere, and the owner or founder named on the site. Why: engines answer “how long has this company been around” from whichever page states it.
8. Hours, including holiday hours. Look at Google, Apple, Yelp, Bing, Facebook and your site. Pass: identical regular hours, and special hours set for the next holiday. Why: Whitespark’s 2026 Local Search Ranking Factors survey of 47 experts ranked “business is open at time of search” fifth among local pack factors. An engine that thinks you are closed will not recommend you.
9. Service list. Look at the services named on your site, in your structured data, in your Google Business Profile services section and on your LinkedIn and Yelp pages. Pass: the same core services, in the same words, in all of them. Why: if the site says “aerial imaging,” the profile says “drone photography” and Yelp says “photographer,” you have split your own signal three ways.
Section 3: Google Business Profile (24 points)
The profile feeds Google’s AI Overviews, AI Mode and Ask Maps directly, so it is the heaviest section.
10. Primary and additional categories. Look at your category list. Pass: the primary category completes the sentence “This business IS a,” the additional categories cover real lines of business, and none are chosen as keywords. Why: Google’s category guidance says to “use as few categories as possible to describe your overall core business,” and Whitespark’s 2026 experts ranked primary category the single strongest local pack factor.
11. Services with descriptions. Look at each service entry. Pass: every core service listed, each with a written description that matches the matching page on your site. Why: this text is quotable. Empty service entries give Ask Maps nothing to say about you.
12. Products or menu. Look at the Products section (or menu, for food). Pass: at least your main offerings listed with a price or price range where you publish one, and a photo. Why: buyers ask what things cost, and the engine will answer from someone’s data. Better that it is yours.
13. Photos and video, current. Look at the newest upload date and the mix of exterior, interior, team and work photos. Pass: at least one upload in the last 30 days and no photo older than two years still representing the business. Why: Google says you can “show customers what you offer and tell the story of your business with photos and videos,” and AI summaries describe what they can see. Our guide to Google Business Profile photos and video has the shot list and specs.
14. Posts. Look at the date of your latest post. Pass: a post within the last 30 days, written in plain language about a real service, event or offer. Why: posts are dated evidence that the business is active, in your current wording.
15. Reviews: count, recency and reply rate. Look at your total review count, the date of the newest review and how many reviews have an owner reply. Pass: 20 or more reviews, at least one in the last 30 days, and a non-templated reply on every review from the last year. Why: BrightLocal’s 2026 survey found 47% of consumers will not use a business with fewer than 20 reviews, 74% only consider reviews from the last three months, 89% expect owners to respond, and 50% are unlikely to choose a business that uses templated replies. Earn reviews the legal way; our guide to FTC rules for reviews and influencer posts covers what is not allowed.
Section 4: Citations and lists (12 points)
Whitespark’s 2026 experts ranked “presence of business on expert curated best-of and similar lists” as the number one AI visibility factor, ahead of anything on your own site.
16. Directories each engine cites for your category. Look at the sources you recorded in check 3. Make a list of every directory, review site and roundup that appeared twice or more. Pass: you are listed, claimed and accurate on every one of them. Why: these are the pages the engines already trust for your category in your market.
17. The big four listings beyond Google. Look at Apple Business, Yelp, Bing Places and Facebook. Pass: all four claimed, with matching facts and current photos. Why: Apple launched Apple Business on April 14, 2026, replacing Business Connect, and BrightLocal found Apple Maps use for reviews rose from 14% to 27% in a year. Yelp licensed its reviews, ratings, photos and business information to OpenAI in July 2026, according to MarTech, so Yelp data now reaches ChatGPT. Microsoft’s redesigned Bing Places, as Search Engine Journal reported in October 2025, is free, imports from Google Business Profile, and was announced with deeper Copilot integration to follow.
18. Best-of lists and local press. Look at the best-of lists, neighborhood roundups and news articles that named competitors in your prompt test. Pass: your business appears on at least one credible list or article per core service. Why: Whitespark’s experts put the quality and authority of unstructured citations, meaning newspaper articles, blog posts, government sites and industry associations, fourth for AI visibility. These are earned, not bought, and they take months.
Section 5: Website pages (16 points)
AI answers are assembled from text they can quote. Your pages either hand them a sentence or they do not.
19. One page per service. Look at your navigation. Pass: every core service has its own URL, not a shared “Services” page with bullet points. Why: “dedicated page for each service” ranked second for AI visibility in Whitespark’s 2026 survey. A buyer asking about one service gets matched to a page about that one service.
20. Who, what, where and for whom in the first paragraph. Look at the opening paragraph of each service page. Pass: it names the business, states the service in plain words, names the city or area served and says who the service is for, all before the first subheading. Why: engines often extract the first substantive paragraph. “We offer a range of solutions” gives them nothing to extract.
21. FAQs written the way buyers ask. Look for a question-and-answer block on each service page. Pass: four or more questions phrased as a customer would type them, each with a self-contained answer of one to three sentences. Why: Google discontinued its Business Profile Q&A API on November 3, 2025, so your site is where “do you have parking” and “do you work with insurance” now get answered.
22. Case results and structured data that match visible text. Look at your proof: named projects with real numbers where you have permission, and your LocalBusiness or Organization markup. Pass: at least one specific result per core service, and structured data whose name, address, phone and hours match what a visitor can read on the page. Why: Google’s AI features guidance says “there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode,” that you “don’t need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, or markup,” and that there is “no special schema.org structured data that you need to add.” What it does recommend is “making sure your structured data matches the visible text on the page.” Treat markup as housekeeping, not a trick.
Section 6: Measurement (12 points)
23. Search Console generative AI report. Look in Google Search Console under Performance. Pass: you have verified your site and can see impressions in the Search Generative AI performance report. Why: Google announced the report on June 3, 2026, showing impressions, pages, countries, devices and dates for generative AI features “such as AI Overviews and AI Mode,” and notes it reached all websites worldwide by August 31, 2026. It does not split AI Overviews from AI Mode and it counts impressions, not clicks, but it is free and it is Google’s own number.
24. The lead-source question. Look at your intake form, your phone script and your booking confirmation. Pass: every new customer is asked “how did you find us,” with “an AI tool like ChatGPT” offered as an option, and the answers are logged. Why: Pew Research Center tracked 900 US adults in March 2025 and found they clicked a search result on 8% of visits when an AI summary appeared, against 15% without one. AI-sourced customers often arrive by phone or direct visit and look like word of mouth in your analytics unless you ask.
25. A monthly repeat. Look at your calendar. Pass: a recurring block, same prompts, same engines, same spreadsheet, with a column for what changed. Why: a single audit is a snapshot. Twelve of them are a trend you can act on.
Scoring. Add your points. Fix the lowest-scoring section first, because the sections build on each other: facts feed the profile, the profile and the citations feed the engines, and the pages give the engines something to quote. Rerun Section 1 every month and compare.
What to do with a low score
Most of this list is fixable in-house by an owner or marketing manager with a few hours a month, and our broader guide to how AI search picks local businesses explains the evidence behind each fix. The parts that are hard to do alone are earning list placements and press, and producing the current photos, video and written pages that make a profile and a service page worth quoting.
How we handle this at RAW Digital Group
If you would rather have someone else run this, RAW Digital Group offers an AI visibility audit for Detroit and Michigan businesses. We do not guarantee placement, because no honest agency can.