More and more people don't search Google for “restaurant in Vielha” any more: they ask ChatGPT. And the assistant doesn't show a list, it gives a name. Here is what it takes for that name to be yours.
For an AI assistant to recommend you, you need three things: a site that can be read without running JavaScript, concrete facts published on it, and what your site says matching what Google Business Profile, maps and directories say.
Models don't recommend whoever sells themselves best. They recommend whoever they can pull clear facts from and verify in more than one place. That changes how a website should be written.
1. The page has to be readable without running anything
Many modern sites assemble their content in the browser with JavaScript. A person sees it fine. The system deciding whether to cite you may never see it at all.
That is the main reason not to build a business site on a visual page builder. If you open your page's source and can't find your menu or your opening hours written there, a model probably can't either.
2. Concrete facts, published
Prices, opening hours, how many people fit, whether there's a terrace, whether dogs are welcome, how long it takes to walk from the lift, which languages you speak. Vague marketing prose gives a model nothing to quote. Specifics do.
This is also the uncomfortable part: publishing prices feels exposing. But a concrete price is a quotable fact and nobody quotes a vague range.
3. Everything has to say the same thing
The same name, address and phone on the site, in Google Business Profile, in maps and in every directory you appear in. Contradictions make the machine unsure who you are. And when it is unsure, it recommends someone else.
It is the first thing we check in any diagnosis, because it costs nothing to fix and it is almost always wrong.
Why it matters now
76% of people who search for something nearby on a phone visit a related business within a day, according to Google's own data from 2016. That search increasingly runs through an assistant. If the assistant can't read you, someone else gets the visit.
This is called GEO, Generative Engine Optimization. SEO goes after a place in a list; GEO goes after being the answer.
Source: Figure: Think with Google, mobile searches with local intent (2016).