Not long ago, your online reputation was measured by typing your name into Google. Today, your customers also put the question to ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini or Copilot. And they get a written answer, with no links to compare.
That answer describes your business, compares you with your competitors and recommends you, or not. It may be accurate, approximate, outdated, or even invented. It forms a new layer of your online reputation, one that most businesses have never looked at.
This article explains how AIs build their answers, how to test them, and what you can do to correct them. It extends our content on GEO, or optimisation for AI.
AIs to test: ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini
to run your first AI reputation test
How an AI builds its answer about your business
A generative AI answers in one of two ways. Either it draws on what it learned during training, knowledge frozen at a certain date, or it searches the web live and summarises the pages it finds, citing its sources. In both cases, what it says about you depends on what exists about you online:
- Your website — Is it clear about who you are, what you do, where, and for whom?
- Your reviews — Google, Trustpilot, industry directories: rating, volume, content.
- Press and mentions — Articles, press releases, citations by other sites.
- Directories and listings — Contact details, opening hours, categories, descriptions.
- Social media — Company and executive profiles.
An AI does not like answering "I don't know". Faced with missing or contradictory information, it may fill the gap with a plausible answer. This is known as a hallucination. See our guide to AI errors.
The ten-minute test
Open three assistants (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini) and ask them these questions, in your own words:
- "What do you know about [company name] in [city]?"
- "What is the general opinion of [company name]?"
- "What are the best [your business activity] companies in [city]?" (is yours cited?)
- "Is [company name] reliable?"
- "Who runs [company name]?"
For each answer, note four things: what is right, what is wrong, what is missing and the sources cited. The sources are the key: they are the pages to work on first.
Correcting and improving what AIs say
You cannot write to an AI and ask it to change its mind. You act on what it reads:
- Make your site crystal clear — A home page and an "About" page that say in one simple sentence who you are, what you do, where, for whom, and since when.
- Answer the real questions — An FAQ that answers, without detours, what your customers ask: prices, service area, delivery times, guarantees.
- Mark up your data — Schema.org (Organization, LocalBusiness, Person, FAQPage) helps machines understand and connect information.
- Harmonise your listings — The same name, address, phone number and description on Google Business Profile, directories and social networks.
- Collect authentic, recent reviews — They feed the answers about your reliability.
- Be cited elsewhere — Local press, partners, professional associations: mentions on reliable sources strengthen trust.
- Keep it up to date — Outdated information on your site gets repeated as if it were current.
This is exactly the work of a GEO strategy, combined with traditional online reputation management.
What the experiment shows: AI believes what is written most clearly
This mechanism is not theoretical. In a publicly run experiment, we created a fictional character and institute from scratch, announced as such, to observe what the AIs would do with them. The finding: faced with an information vacuum, a clean, dated and consistent site is cited as a source.
The lesson for a business is clear: if you don't write your story, someone else, or a machine, will write it for you.
And for executives and personal brands
The same mechanisms apply to your name. An AI can confuse namesakes, mix up two careers or invent details. See our guide to an executive's online reputation.
Want your teams to know how to run this test, spot errors and fix them? It is a module in our SEO & GEO training.
Your questions about online reputation and AI
Can ChatGPT wrongly say bad things about my business?
Yes. It can pick up an isolated negative review, confuse your business with a namesake, or invent a detail for lack of information. The remedy is to publish clear, up-to-date and consistent information, and to look after your reviews.
How do I get an error made by ChatGPT about my business corrected?
You cannot directly edit its answers. You correct the sources the AI consults: your site, listings, directories, reviews and mentions. Some AIs also let you report an inaccurate answer.
Can my business be cited by AIs?
Yes, if its information is clear, accessible, consistent and confirmed by other reliable sources. That is the purpose of GEO (Generative Engine Optimization).
Does traditional online reputation still matter?
More than ever: AIs rely on the same elements (reviews, press, website, listings). A good traditional online reputation is the foundation of a good reputation in AI.
Find out what AIs say about you.
We test your presence in the main AIs and draw up a correction plan.