AI search is when a tool such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot or Google’s AI Overviews answers a question in full sentences instead of handing you a list of links. For a local business the question is usually something like “best barber in Rathmines that does walk-ins on a Saturday”, and the tool answers by reading websites, Google Business Profiles, reviews and directories, then naming two or three places with a line on each. It matters because if your hours, services and prices are not written somewhere a machine can read, the tool names someone else.
Nobody knows how big a share of local searches will end up in these tools. It is growing, and that is as far as we will go, because the honest position is that the groundwork for being readable by them is the same groundwork that helps you on Google today.
The tools, and where they get their facts
| Tool | Who makes it | Where it mainly gets local facts | Shows its sources? |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI Overviews and AI Mode | Google, inside normal search | Google’s index and Google Business Profiles | Yes, as links beside the answer |
| Gemini | Google, as a standalone assistant | Google Search and Maps data | Usually |
| ChatGPT search | OpenAI | Its own crawlers over the web, leaning on Microsoft’s Bing index as we understand it | Yes, as citations |
| Copilot | Microsoft | Bing’s index | Yes |
| Perplexity | Perplexity AI | Its own crawler and index | Always, prominently |
Which of these features appear in Ireland, and how they look, changes as the companies roll things out, so treat the table as the position when this was written.
Two things stand out from that table. First, Google’s Business Profile data sits behind the two Google tools, so the work described in what local SEO is carries straight over. Second, Bing matters again, because ChatGPT and Copilot lean on it, and most Irish small businesses have never looked at Bing in their lives.
How a tool answers “best barber in Rathmines”
It helps to picture what happens in the few seconds after someone types that.
The tool works out what is being asked: a barber, in Rathmines, probably open soon, probably for a man’s haircut. It then goes looking, either in a search index it has already built or by fetching pages live. It reads whatever it finds: Business Profiles with their ratings and hours, barbers’ own websites, review text, a directory listing, maybe a Reddit thread or a local news piece. Then it writes an answer that picks out two or three names and says something specific about each: open till eight on Thursdays, walk-ins welcome, known for skin fades, good reviews mentioning a particular barber.
Notice what it needed. It needed facts, stated in words, that it could match to the question. “Walk-ins welcome until 7pm” is usable. A photo of a chalkboard that says the same thing is not. A page that says “a premium grooming experience” tells it nothing it can repeat.
What changes for a small business
The questions get longer and more particular. People do not ask an AI tool for “barber Rathmines”. They ask whether you take walk-ins, whether you do children, whether there is parking, how much a beard trim costs, whether you are open on the bank holiday Monday. Every one of those is a fact that is either on your site or is not.
Being clear beats being loud. The tools are not impressed by adjectives. They are looking for the business whose details answer the question, and they tend to repeat details that agree across several sources: your site, your Business Profile, your reviews, a directory. If your site says you open at nine and Google says ten, the tool either picks one or leaves you out.
Reviews become evidence rather than decoration. When a tool says a place is “known for skin fades”, that phrase came from reviews. The more customers describe what they actually had done, the more the tool has to work with. A direct review link sent after each visit, and never a paid or invented review, is the way to grow them.
And the answer often arrives without a click. Someone asks, gets your name, hours and a line about you, and rings or walks in. You may never see that visit in your website statistics. That is a reason to make sure the facts the tools find are right, not a reason to panic about traffic.
What your site needs so machines can read it
Most of this is plain good practice, which is the reassuring part.
Facts written as facts. Name, what you do, where you are with the Eircode, opening hours including bank holidays, prices or “from” prices, and which areas you cover. In text, not in images or PDFs.
Questions answered in full sentences. A page or a section that asks the questions customers ring about and answers each in a paragraph: “Do you take walk-ins?”, “Is there parking on Rathmines Road?”, “Can I book for two people together?”. This is the content the tools quote most readily, because it is already shaped like an answer.
Structured data. A block of code (LocalBusiness, with FAQPage for the questions and Service for each service) that repeats your facts in a form any machine can parse without guessing. Google has used it for years; the AI tools benefit from the same clarity.
Crawlers allowed in. Your robots.txt file should not block GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot or Bingbot. Some website builders and security plugins block them by default, and the owner never knows. If you want to be found, the door has to be open.
A fast, plain page. Tools fetching pages live give up on slow ones just as people do. Text on the page beats text loaded by scripts.
An llms.txt file. A short markdown file at yourdomain.ie/llms.txt that summarises who you are and links to your key pages, following the proposal at llmstxt.org. The big AI companies have not confirmed they read it, so we will not pretend it is decisive, but it costs nothing and takes ten minutes. We have written up what llms.txt is separately.
Bing Webmaster Tools. Submit your site there as well as to Google Search Console, since two of the tools above draw on Bing.
For the practical steps in order, see how to show up in ChatGPT answers.
What not to do
Do not stuff your pages with every town in Leinster. The tools are reading for facts, not counting words, and a page that claims to serve everywhere reads as serving nowhere. Do not write or buy reviews; they are banned under the Consumer Rights Act 2022 and the tools lean on exactly that text. Do not pay anyone who promises to get you “ranked in ChatGPT”. There is no ranking to buy, and the people selling it know that. And do not block the crawlers out of a general unease about AI if your aim is to be found.
What we do for clients
Every site we build comes with the groundwork above as standard: facts in plain text, a question and answer section written from the calls you actually get, LocalBusiness and FAQPage structured data, crawlers allowed, an llms.txt file, and the site submitted to Bing as well as Google. That is part of the Essentials plan at €499 to set up and €50 a month, and the detail is on the AI search services page.
The Complete plan goes a step further. As well as reading about you, an AI assistant can act for a customer: book an appointment through ChatGPT or Claude using a standard connection called MCP, or chat on your own site with an assistant trained only on your details that hands the conversation to your WhatsApp when it reaches the edge of what it knows. That is described on the AI agents page.
What we will not do is promise you will be named in anyone’s answer. We put the facts where the tools can read them and report each month on what we can measure.