What actually makes ChatGPT or Google AI recommend one local business instead of another?

Andrew Shotland, founder and CEO of Local SEO Guide, joins Jason AI Wade to break down what his team is testing right now across local SEO, AI visibility, citations, service pages, and multi-location businesses.

Andrew’s core point is simple: the fundamentals of SEO still matter. A machine has to understand what your business does before it can recommend you. The difference now is that AI systems are assembling that understanding from more pieces of evidence and using it inside conversational answers.

That changes how businesses should think about visibility.

It is not enough for a plumber to say, “We’re a plumber.”

If the business wants to be recommended for water heater replacement, emergency service, or storm drains, those specific services need to appear clearly across the company’s website and the third-party sources AI may use to corroborate them.

Andrew describes those external citations almost like additional sides of a die: the more relevant sources that connect a business with the right location, service, and attributes, the more opportunities an AI system has to encounter the same association.

Then he shares a real test.

His team analyzed search data across a 160-location company and found a missing concept around construction job-site bathrooms and toilets. They added that language to the Google Business Profiles and local citation network for 20 locations.

Within days, visibility changed in Google AI Mode.

Later, the test locations began improving in ChatGPT while the untouched locations initially remained flat.

Roughly a month later, visibility began increasing across the wider network as well.

Andrew’s working theory: enough pages had connected the brand with the concept that AI systems began applying that relationship more broadly across the entity.

The conversation also gets into competitor-focused content, local search strategy, agentic SEO, automation, content-gap analysis, and what Andrew calls the “infinite conversational paths” created by AI search.

The practical lesson is not to wait for a perfect GEO playbook.

Test something.

Measure whether visibility changes.

Then apply what works.

Andrew compares the process to baseball: even a great hitter misses most of the time. The advantage comes from taking enough intelligent swings.

Andrew Shotland
Founder and CEO of Local SEO Guide.

Andrew has worked in search for roughly two decades and now focuses heavily on local SEO, AEO, multi-location businesses, and how AI systems understand and recommend companies.

He describes the current period as one of the most interesting moments he has experienced in search.

AI recommendations for local businesses
Local SEO and GEO
Google AI Mode
ChatGPT visibility
Local citations
Entity corroboration
Service-page strategy
Content gaps
Competitor alternatives
Conversational search
Agentic SEO
Multi-location testing
AI visibility experiments

Andrew Shotland / Local SEO Guide
https://www.localseoguide.com/

Andrew Shotland on LinkedIn
Andrew identifies LinkedIn as his main social platform and where he posts most often.

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