Search Engine Optimization

What AI assistants say about your business: a brand-accuracy check and how to correct errors

10 min readBy Davinder Kumar Meen

You cannot edit an AI assistant's answer, but you can change what it reads. Ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode, Copilot and Perplexity the questions your buyers ask about you, write down every fact they state, and mark each one right or wrong. For each wrong fact, find the source the assistant cited or most likely used, correct it there (your website, your Google Business Profile, Bing Places, directories and social profiles), make sure the corrected page can be crawled, and use each product's feedback button as a secondary step. Then repeat the same questions every month, because the answers change.

Key takeaways

  • Assistants that search the web answer from the pages they retrieve. OpenAI says ChatGPT's search results and citations "can be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect"; Microsoft says Copilot Chat grounds web answers in the Bing index; Perplexity runs a web search for each question and numbers its sources.
  • The fix is almost always at the source: one clear page of facts on your own site, Organization structured data that matches it, and the same facts on Google Business Profile, Bing Places and the profiles you link to.
  • Google says Business Profile edits "usually take up to 10 minutes to review, but sometimes it can take up to 30 days", and that it compiles profile data from owners, users, licensed third-party data and crawled web content. Inconsistent sources are what produce inconsistent answers.
  • Feedback buttons exist in every product (thumbs down, "Report a problem"), but none promises to change a specific answer. Treat them as a report, not a repair.

Why do AI assistants get facts about a business wrong?

Because they answer from whatever they find, plus what the underlying model already "knows". For questions about a specific business, most assistants now search first:

  • ChatGPT uses OpenAI's search crawler, OAI-SearchBot, which OpenAI says "is used to surface websites in search results in ChatGPT's search features". Its help centre warns that results and citations can be incomplete, outdated or incorrect, and asks users to open the cited source.
  • Microsoft Copilot: Microsoft's documentation for Copilot Chat says web answers are grounded in the public web in the Bing search index, with references so users can verify them.
  • Perplexity describes itself as running a live web search for each question and attaching numbered citations.
  • Google AI Overviews and AI Mode draw on Google's own index; Google says there are no special requirements to appear in them beyond normal Search eligibility.

Wrong answers usually come from one of five places: an old page on your own site, a directory or listing that was never updated, a profile you no longer control, a news item or review about a different business with a similar name, or the model's background knowledge from older text. The first two are the most common and the easiest to fix.

A typical example of the first: an About page that says one founding year, a ten-year-old press page that says another, and a services page that still lists an office you closed. An assistant that reads all three can quote any of them. Inconsistency on your own site is the first thing to remove.

Which facts should we check?

Check the facts a buyer would act on, not every sentence. A useful list for a service business:

Fact Example prompt Source of truth to fix
What you do and do not do "What does [company] do?" Home page, About page, service pages
Locations and service area "Where is [company] based? Do they work in Ontario?" About or contact page, Google Business Profile, Bing Places
Contact details and hours "What is [company]'s phone number?" Contact page, Business Profile, Bing Places
Founding year, size, leadership "How long has [company] been in business? Who runs it?" About page, Organization structured data, LinkedIn
Services and platforms "Does [company] build Shopify stores?" Service pages, menu, internal links
Prices, if you publish any "How much does [company] charge for X?" Pricing page, or a clear statement that you quote per project
Reputation "Is [company] reliable? Reviews?" Review profiles you control; you cannot rewrite others' reviews
Identity "Is [company] the same as [similar name]?" About page, sameAs links to your own profiles

How do we run a brand-accuracy check?

Plan on about two hours the first time and one hour a month after that.

  1. Write 10 to 15 prompts from the table, in your buyers' words. Add two or three comparison prompts ("best [service] company in [city]") to see whether you are described correctly when you appear next to competitors.
  2. Pick the assistants your buyers use. For most businesses: ChatGPT with search, Gemini or Google AI Mode, Copilot and Perplexity. Use a clean browser profile or a signed-out session, from the country your buyers are in, on the same day each month.
  3. Record one row per fact per assistant: date, assistant, prompt, the claim as stated, correct or wrong, the cited source (copy the URL), and a severity: high (wrong phone, wrong location, a service you do not offer, confusion with another business), medium (outdated details), low (vague wording).
  4. Trace every high and medium error. Open the cited source. If there is no citation, search the wrong fact in quotation marks on Google and Bing; the page that says it is usually the one the assistant read.
  5. Fix, then recheck in the next monthly run. Keep the prompt set unchanged so the results stay comparable.

This check is the accuracy half of AI search measurement. The visibility half (whether you are cited at all, how often, and what traffic results) is covered in measuring AI search traffic; the two can share the same monthly session.

Where do wrong facts come from, and how do we fix each one?

Where the error comes from Fix
Your own site One page that states the facts plainly (name, what you do, founded, locations, contact, leadership), linked from the footer. Remove or update old pages that contradict it, and redirect retired pages.
Missing or wrong structured data Add Organization markup to the home or About page. Google says it helps it "better understand your organization's administrative details"; useful properties include foundingDate, address, contactPoint, logo and sameAs (links to your own profiles). Keep it identical to the visible text.
Google Business Profile Sign in and edit. Google may also update a profile from user reports and other sources, so check it monthly. If you do not manage the profile, "suggest an edit" or claim it.
Bing Places Microsoft says to "use Bing Places for Business to claim or update your business listing" for information in Bing Maps results; Copilot draws on Bing, so this one matters more than its traffic suggests.
Directories and old profiles Update or close listings you control; ask the site owner to correct the rest. Start with the ones the assistants actually cited.
Third-party articles and reviews Ask the publisher for a correction where a fact is wrong. Respond publicly to reviews; do not try to have accurate criticism removed.
A business with a similar name State your full legal or trading name, city and website on your About page and in sameAs, and use the same name everywhere.

Does reporting the answer to the assistant help?

It helps the vendor, and sometimes you, but slowly and without a guarantee. The channels, as each vendor describes them:

  • Google AI Overviews and AI Mode: rate the response with the thumbs-down icon and choose "Report a problem"; Google says the report includes your recent query and its results.
  • ChatGPT: OpenAI asks users to flag incorrect answers with the thumbs-down button. It also says reported content may be reviewed so that ChatGPT relies less on unreliable sources.
  • Microsoft Copilot: thumbs down with a description of the issue. Microsoft states it does not use this feedback to train the foundation models behind Copilot.
  • Perplexity: check the numbered source behind the wrong statement; the source is what you can fix.

Report high-severity errors, keep a screenshot with the date, and put your effort into the source.

How do we make sure the corrected facts are actually read?

A correction that no crawler fetches changes nothing. Check three things:

  • Crawler access. Your robots.txt and CDN rules must allow the search crawlers: Googlebot, Bingbot, OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot. OpenAI says it "can take ~24 hours" after a robots.txt change for its systems to adjust. Our guide to AI crawlers and robots.txt lists the user agents and the trade-offs.
  • Discovery. The facts page should be in your sitemap and linked from every page (a footer link is enough). Request indexing in Search Console and submit the URL in Bing Webmaster Tools.
  • Readable text. Put the facts in the HTML, not only in an image or a script-built widget.

Our GEO guide covers the wider work of making pages that assistants can quote.

How often should we check, and what should we report?

Monthly, alongside your other search reporting, with a one-line summary per assistant: facts checked, facts wrong, high-severity errors open, errors fixed since last month. Recheck immediately after anything changes in the business: a move, a new phone number, a new service, a rename. Expect corrections to show up unevenly; an assistant may keep repeating an old fact until the page it relied on is recrawled or another source outweighs it.

FAQ

Can I ask ChatGPT or Google to change what it says about my business?

Not directly. There is no form to edit an answer. You can report an inaccurate response with each product's feedback button, but the reliable fix is to correct the source the assistant used, such as your own site, your Google Business Profile or a directory listing, and make sure search crawlers can fetch the corrected page.

How long does it take for a correction to appear in AI answers?

It varies by assistant and by source. Google says Business Profile edits usually take up to 10 minutes to review but can take up to 30 days; OpenAI says robots.txt changes take about 24 hours to affect its search. Answers change only after the corrected page has been recrawled, so check again in your next monthly run.

Does structured data stop AI assistants from making mistakes?

No, but it removes ambiguity. Google says Organization markup helps it understand an organisation's administrative details and tell it apart from others. Mark up the founding date, address, contact point, logo and sameAs links, keep them identical to the visible text, and make sure the same facts appear on your About page.

What if an assistant confuses us with another business?

Make your identity unambiguous. Use one consistent name, state your city and website on your About page, link your own profiles with sameAs, and keep Google Business Profile and Bing Places accurate. Report the confusion with the feedback button, and check whether a directory has merged the two businesses' details.

Which assistants should a small business check?

The ones your buyers use. For most businesses in Canada, the US and India that means ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews or AI Mode, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot and Perplexity. Start with three if time is short, keep the same prompts every month, and add an assistant when you see it in your referral traffic.

Impinge Solutions runs brand-accuracy checks and fixes the sources behind them as part of its AI search visibility service. Contact us to check what assistants say about your business.

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