AI is the new hotel concierge. Is it sending anyone your way?

The concierge test

Picture it. You've checked into a hotel in a city you don't know. You're hungry. You wander down to the front desk and ask the concierge for a good Italian place nearby.

They don't hand you the phone book. (Remember those? Thick as a brick, mostly used to boost small children up to the dinner table.)

They don't read you every restaurant within two kilometres either. They lean in and say, "Try Nonna's, around the corner. Or Trattoria Sole, if you don't mind a short walk." Two or three names. Places they know, places they trust, places they've heard good things about from other guests.

And off you go. You don't check the other forty restaurants. Why would you? The concierge has done the filtering for you.

That's how a growing number of your customers now look for a business.

ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews are the new concierge

For twenty years, getting found online meant ranking on Google. Someone typed "plumber Adelaide", got a page of ten blue links, and clicked around. If you were on page one, you were in the running.

That still matters. But more people now ask an AI the question instead. "Who's the best plumber in Adelaide?" "What's a good accountant for a small business in Norwood?" "Which physio near me is good with running injuries?"

And the AI answers like a concierge. It doesn't give a list of ten links to sort through. It names a couple of businesses, says why, and moves on.

Google is doing the same thing at the top of its own results with AI Overviews and AI Mode. (We wrote about why everyone has stopped clicking if you want the longer story.)

Here's the bit that keeps me up at night on behalf of our clients: if the AI has never heard of you, you're not on the list. It doesn't matter how good your work is. It doesn't matter that your customers love you. The concierge only recommends who it knows.

The concierge only recommends who it knows. Make sure it knows you.

How does the AI decide who to recommend?

No AI company publishes its exact recipe, and anyone who tells you they know it precisely is selling something. But the pattern is clear enough from watching what these tools recommend, day in, day out.

Think about how a good concierge builds their list. They hear from guests. They read the local paper. They know which places other people in the industry rate. They've seen the menu and know what's on it.

The AI works in a similar way. It leans on:

• What your business says about itself, on your website and your Google Business Profile.
• What customers say about you, mostly in reviews.
• What other people say about you, on sites the AI already trusts: local media, industry bodies, respected directories, articles and lists.
• How clearly you answer the question being asked. If someone asks "who fixes hot water systems on a Sunday?" and your website says nothing about hot water or Sundays, you're hard to recommend for it.

The businesses that show up are rarely the ones with the flashiest website. They're the ones the AI can find, understand and back up with other sources.

Three ways to get on the concierge's list

1. Be easy to find: a complete Google profile and fresh reviews

Your Google Business Profile is the business card you leave at the front desk. Google's AI Overviews pull from it, and other AI tools read the same public information.

Fill in every field. Pick the right primary category, and add the secondary ones that fit. List your services properly, with a sentence or two on each. Keep your hours current. Add photos of your work, your team and your premises.

Then keep the reviews coming. Not a burst of twenty in one week and then nothing for a year. A steady trickle, from customers who mention what you did for them. "Fixed our hot water system on a Sunday morning" tells the concierge far more than "great service".

If you're in Adelaide, our local SEO guide walks through the profile setup step by step.

2. Be talked about on other trusted sites

A concierge trusts a restaurant more when other people they respect rate it too. AI works the same way. Mentions of your business on sites it already trusts carry real weight.

Where do those mentions come from?

• Local media: a story in the local paper or a community news site.
• Industry associations and member directories.
• The directories people in your industry use (not the spammy ones that list everyone).
• Supplier and partner pages that mention who they work with.
• Podcasts, guest articles and "best of" lists in your area.

This is old-fashioned PR with a new reason to do it. Every mention is another guest telling the concierge you're worth recommending.

3. Answer your customers' questions on your website

Go through the last month of phone calls and emails. What do people ask before they buy? How much does it cost? How long does it take? Do you service my area? Can you come on a weekend? What's the difference between option A and option B?

Now check your website. Are those questions answered, clearly and in plain English? Or is your services page three sentences and a stock photo of a handshake?

When someone asks an AI a specific question, it looks for a specific answer. The business that has written that answer down, clearly, on a page the AI can read, has a much better chance of being the one it recommends.

Good FAQ sections help. So do service pages that go into detail, and blog posts that answer one question properly. We cover how to write that kind of content in content that ranks on Google and gets quoted by AI.

What about my existing SEO?

Keep it. Everything above helps your Google rankings too. A complete profile, steady reviews, mentions on trusted sites and pages that answer questions properly are the same things that have always helped you rank.

The difference is the finish line. Ranking on page one used to be enough. Now you also want to be one of the two or three names the concierge mentions. Think of it as SEO with a higher bar: not just being in the phone book, but being the place the concierge recommends.

If you want the full playbook, our flagship post on how to show up in ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Gemini goes deeper on the technical side.

A quick check you can do tonight

Open ChatGPT or Gemini and ask it the question your best customer would ask. Something like "Who's a good [your service] in [your suburb or city]?"

Then try a couple of variations: "best", "near me", "open on weekends", "for small businesses".

Write down who it recommends. If you're on the list, great: find out why and do more of it. If you're not, look at who is, then look at their Google profile, their reviews and where else they're mentioned. That's your homework, and it's usually pretty obvious once you look.

Make sure the concierge knows you

The front desk has moved. More of your customers now ask an AI for a recommendation before they ever look at a list of links. The businesses that win are the ones the concierge knows: easy to find, talked about by others, and clear about what they do.

None of this is magic, and none of it happens overnight. But every review, every mention and every question answered on your website adds your name to the concierge's notebook.

If you'd like a hand working out where you stand, our team does exactly this through our WISE™ approach: we look at what the AI engines see about you before we touch a thing. Start a conversation and we'll have a look.