What ChatGPT Says About Your Business (and How to Change the Answer)
- Karla Margeson
- Nov 10
- 3 min read
When was the last time you asked ChatGPT about your business? If you haven’t, now’s the time. Why? Because generative AI isn’t just a productivity tool anymore. It’s swiftly becoming a place people find things, learn things, and make important decisions.
Customers, investors, job seekers, and even journalists are asking AI about companies, oftentimes even before they head to Google. The answer they get could determine whether they click through, reach out, or move on.
That makes AI’s answers about your company a matter of actual impact. Fortunately, you can influence the answer.
Why Do AI Answers Matter?
AI answers matter because AI tools are often used for research and users really trust what they say. Search has always been about visibility. But the answers people get on AI seem to carry extra weight: They’re conversational, confident, and presented as fact.
When ChatGPT gives a response, most people treat it like the definitive version of the truth. That means if your company shows in AI answers, the quality and accuracy of that response is already shaping perception.
And if your company doesn’t show up in AI answers? Well, “I don’t have enough information to answer that” is not the impression you want prospects to get when asking about your business.
What Shapes ChatGPT’s Answers?
AI tools don’t magically know things. ChatGPT learns from the web. That means it’s learning from:
Your owned content: Website copy, product descriptions, and blog posts all feed into the ecosystem
Structured profiles: LinkedIn, Crunchbase, Google Business, Glassdoor, Wikipedia, and review sites
Consistency: Conflicting information (like old product names, outdated leadership, or mismatched descriptions) confuses the models, which leads to muddy answers
Authority and freshness: AI leans on content that’s both established and up to date
What Common Gaps Do Businesses Face?
When startups and lean teams ask AI about their own business, they often find one of four problems:
Silence: The tool can’t answer at all
Stale info: It returns outdated details about pricing, features, or leadership
Confusion: The AI mixes your business up with someone else
Vague responses: A thin, generic description that doesn’t communicate your real value
None of these build confidence in would-be customers.
How Do You Influence ChatGPT’s Answer?
You can’t control ChatGPT’s output directly, but you can control the ecosystem it learns from. Here’s how to start shifting the narrative:
Audit your presence. Run prompts like “What does [Your Company] do?” or “Who leads [Your Company]?” in ChatGPT. Document the answers.
Update your owned content. Refresh your website, about page, and product descriptions. Make them clear, specific, and accurate.
Strengthen your profiles. Keep LinkedIn, Crunchbase, Google Business, and other key platforms current. Those are common AI data sources.
Invest in thought leadership. Publish articles, blogs, and industry commentary. Generative AI leans heavily on credible sources, so make sure your voice is part of the conversation.
Stay consistent. Align key facts across every channel—founding date, leadership team, core offerings. Small discrepancies create big confusion.
None of this will influence ChatGPT’s answers overnight, and that’s okay. You’re playing the long game. This work has a compounding effect. Every update, every article, every profile builds momentum in shaping the answers about you.
That’s a good thing.
AI will only get more embedded in daily workflows. The businesses that build strong, consistent digital footprints now will be the ones AI models know best later.
Your Brand, Your Narrative—Even with AI
You don’t get to choose whether people ask ChatGPT about your business. But you can influence what it says about it when they do.
The key is showing up consistently, clearly, and credibly in the places AI looks first.
Curious what ChatGPT is saying about your business today? Ask it. Then, if you want help shaping those answers into something that works in your favor, let’s talk. We’d be happy to help you get optimized.
