Here’s a marketing audit that costs nothing and takes less than ten minutes — and most business owners have never done it. Open ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google’s AI Overview, Microsoft Copilot, and Claude in five separate tabs. In each one, type: “Who are the best [your service type] in [your city]?” Then sit with what you see. For the vast majority of local business owners who try this exercise for the first time, the experience is somewhere between humbling and alarming. Here’s what typically happens — and what you can do about it.

What Most Businesses Find When They Test

In our testing across dozens of local markets and service categories, the results break down into three buckets. The first bucket — roughly 15% of businesses — appears consistently across most platforms. These are businesses that have, often without knowing it, built strong entity authority through high review volume, active Google Business Profiles, consistent NAP data, and at least some structured website content. They show up not because they’ve optimized for AEO intentionally, but because they’ve done the foundational work that AEO happens to reward.

The second bucket — roughly 40% — appears on some platforms but not others. This inconsistency usually traces back to one or two specific gaps: high review volume on Google but poor website structure, or great content but inconsistent NAP across platforms. These businesses have most of the pieces in place but a specific, fixable problem preventing consistent AI recommendation.

The third bucket — roughly 45% of local businesses — appears nowhere across any AI platform for their relevant queries. Not mentioned. Not cited. Completely invisible to the growing percentage of their potential customers who are starting their vendor search with AI. This is where most local businesses actually are, and it’s the gap that AEO is specifically designed to close.

The Five-Platform Test You Should Run Today

Run each of these queries across all five platforms and log your results. First: “Who are the best [service type] in [your city]?” Second: “I need a [service type] in [your city] — who should I call?” Third: “What are the top-rated [service type] businesses in [your city]?” Fourth: “[Your city] [service type] recommendations.” Fifth: “Best [service type] near [your zip code or neighborhood].” These five queries represent the main phrasings your potential clients use. If your business doesn’t appear in at least two of them on at least two platforms, you have a measurable AEO gap.

How to Interpret What You Find

If you don’t appear at all: your entity authority signals are too thin across the board. The fastest fixes are review velocity (start asking every client for a Google review this week) and GBP completion (fill every incomplete field today). If you appear on Google but not ChatGPT or Perplexity: your GBP is doing its job for Google-adjacent AI but your broader entity footprint is weak. Focus on cross-platform consistency and website schema markup. If you appear sometimes but inconsistently: look for NAP variations across platforms — even minor differences confuse AI entity matching. If a competitor appears everywhere you don’t: reverse-engineer their digital presence. What platforms are they on? How many reviews do they have? What does their website content look like? That gap analysis is your AEO roadmap.

Make This a Monthly Habit

The five-platform test isn’t a one-time exercise — it’s a monthly report card. Run it on the first of every month and screenshot the results. As you implement AEO improvements, you’ll start to see your name appear more frequently, in more prominent positions, across more platforms. That progression is one of the most motivating things a business owner can track — it’s direct, visible evidence that the work is compounding. And the month you first see your business cited confidently by ChatGPT as a top recommendation in your market, you’ll understand exactly why this work matters.

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