Search for Your Brand in ChatGPT Right Now

This is the simplest visibility test you can run, and most brands haven't done it. They're optimizing for Google, investing in SEO, tracking their search rankings—and meanwhile, 81% of U.S. adults are using AI search tools where they have no idea if they even exist.

Gen Z—35% of them now use AI chatbots for search queries instead of Google. That's not experimental behavior anymore. That's habitual. And if you're not discoverable in AI search, you're invisible to them.

What the Test Actually Reveals

Search for your brand name in ChatGPT. Then Claude. Then Gemini. Then Perplexity. Ask: "What does [your company] do?" or "Tell me about [your company]."

What comes up? Does it describe you accurately? Does it mention you at all? Does the description match your positioning? What sources is it citing?

Then search for your category. "Who are the best [whatever you do] companies?" or "What companies help with [your main service]?" Do you show up in those results?

If the answers vary wildly across platforms, that's a signal your messaging is inconsistent across your public presence. If you don't show up at all, that's a signal you don't have enough authoritative content or your positioning isn't clear enough for AI to understand.

Why Most Brands Fail This Test

Brands must be present where AI pulls its information. That's using a blend of public content, structured data, citations, and high-authority signals. If clients don't publish enough credible content, they'll fall out of the AI ecosystem entirely.

Most brands fail because they haven't published with AI discoverability in mind. They optimized for Google's algorithm, not for how AI synthesizes information across multiple sources.

AI doesn't just look at your website. It looks at everything—your social profiles, your press mentions, your team's LinkedIn posts, your customer reviews, your Reddit mentions. Then it synthesizes all of that into an understanding of what you do.

If you don't have enough authoritative content across those sources, AI can't form a clear picture. If your messaging is inconsistent across sources, AI gets confused. Either way, you become undiscoverable.

The Four Failure Modes

First: You don't appear at all. When someone asks about your brand or your category, AI doesn't mention you. This means you don't have enough authoritative presence for AI to recognize you as relevant. You're not publishing enough credible content, or the content you're publishing isn't being indexed by AI platforms.

Second: The description is wrong. AI mentions you but describes what you do incorrectly. This usually means your messaging is inconsistent across platforms, so AI synthesized contradictory information into something that doesn't match your actual positioning.

Third: You're cited but not recommended. AI knows you exist but doesn't surface you when asked for recommendations in your category. This means AI doesn't view you as authoritative enough compared to competitors, usually because you lack strong third-party validation or citations.

Fourth: The information is outdated. AI describes your company based on old information—services you don't offer anymore, positioning you've moved away from, leadership that's no longer there. This means your recent content isn't authoritative enough to override older, more established information about you.

Why This Matters Now

At the start of the year, Google was dominant and AI was supplemental. Now, AI is almost becoming a first stop shop for research and information. The frequency matters—one in five adults use AI tools regularly, concentrated heavily in people 30 and under.

This isn't future planning. This is current reality. Your prospects are searching for solutions in AI chatbots right now. Your competitors might be showing up. If you're not, you're losing opportunities you don't even know about.

And unlike Google, where you can track rankings and traffic, AI search is invisible. You don't get analytics. You don't know how many people asked about your category and didn't see you mentioned. You just lose the business and never know why.

The Consistency Connection

For AI to read your site and your brand, you almost need to have consistent messaging across all platforms. That would be your leadership team, the website, all your social platforms. AI is grabbing information from all of that, so consistent messaging gives you a better shot of being understood correctly.

This is why the test matters. When you search across multiple AI platforms and get different descriptions, that tells you your messaging isn't consistent. AI platforms are synthesizing different information and coming to different conclusions about what you do.

The fix isn't to optimize for each AI platform individually. The fix is to create consistent, authoritative messaging across all the sources AI pulls from—your website, your social presence, your press coverage, your team's content.

What To Do About Bad Results

If you run this test and don't like what you find, here's the action plan:

Audit your public presence

Look at your website, LinkedIn, social profiles, press mentions, team content. Is your core positioning consistent? Can someone read all of those sources and come away with a clear understanding of what you do and who you serve?

Publish more authoritative content

AI prioritizes credible sources. That means your own blog isn't enough. You need press coverage, you need citations from industry publications, you need third-party validation. Content strategy matters, but so does PR.

Update your most visible sources

Make sure your website, LinkedIn company page, and other high-authority sources have current, accurate information. Those are the sources AI weights most heavily.

Build structured data

Use schema markup, FAQ sections, clear categorization. Make it easy for AI to understand what you do, who you serve, and what problems you solve.

Monitor regularly

This isn't a one-time test. AI models update constantly. Your competitors are publishing new content. The information AI has about you changes over time. Test quarterly at minimum.

The Competitive Opportunity

Most brands haven't run this test. Most don't know how they appear in AI search—or if they appear at all. That creates an opportunity for brands that take AI discoverability seriously.

If you optimize for AI now while your competitors are still focused only on Google, you gain advantage in the channel that's growing fastest. Gen Z is already there. Other demographics are following. Being discoverable early in that shift means capturing attention before competition intensifies.

This is similar to what happened with Google twenty years ago. Early adopters who invested in SEO when most brands were ignoring it gained massive advantage. The same dynamic is playing out now with AI search.

The Simple First Step

You don't need a comprehensive AI strategy to start. You just need to run the test. Search for your brand. Search for your category. See what comes up.

That fifteen-minute test will tell you if you have a discoverability problem. And if you do, that tells you where to focus: consistent messaging, authoritative content, strategic PR, structured information.

Because 81% of adults are using AI search now. Gen Z uses it more than Google. And if they can't find you, you don't exist.

Make Your Brand Discoverable Where People Actually Search

AI chatbots are the new search engines, but most brands are invisible in them. At Winsome Marketing, we help you build discoverability across AI platforms—with consistent messaging, authoritative content, and strategic positioning that AI can actually understand.

Ready to show up in AI search? Let's test your visibility and fix what's broken.