Key Takeaways

When AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overview answer a question, they pull information from real web pages — so traditional SEO is still the foundation of AI visibility.
Structuring your content as clear questions and answers dramatically increases the chances that an AI will extract and cite your content in its response.
Schema markup helps AI systems understand who you are, what you do, and where you operate — making you a more reliable source to recommend.
Being listed in “best of” roundups, directories, press releases, and industry publications increases the number of sources that reference your business, which AI tools use as a trust signal.
You can track how much traffic you are already receiving from AI tools using a simple GA4 regex filter — most NZ business owners are surprised by what they find.
New Zealand businesses have a real first-mover advantage right now because very few local competitors are actively optimising for AI search.

AI SEO in 2026: How to Get Your Business Recommended by ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI

Author: Jason Poonia, Founder & Director of Lucid Media

Something has quietly shifted in how your potential customers find businesses like yours.

A growing number of people — especially younger, time-poor professionals — no longer type a search query into Google and scroll through results. Instead, they ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google’s AI Overview a direct question: “What’s the best web design agency in Auckland?” or “Which accountant should I use in Wellington?” and they act on whatever the AI recommends.

The AI does the searching for them. It reads the results, synthesises the information, and hands back a recommendation — often with a short list of businesses by name.

If your business isn’t in that list, you’ve lost the lead before you even had a chance to compete for it.

This is the new reality of search in 2026. And the good news is that optimising for it is far less mysterious than the jargon suggests.

How AI Tools Actually Find Information

Before we talk tactics, it helps to understand what’s actually happening under the hood when someone asks ChatGPT or Perplexity a question about a local service.

Most people assume these AI tools are just drawing from their training data — a snapshot of the internet from whenever the model was last trained. That’s only partially true. For time-sensitive queries like “best plumber in Christchurch” or “top SEO agency in NZ 2026,” tools like ChatGPT (with browsing enabled), Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overview perform what’s called query fan-out: they send multiple live searches to Google or Bing in real time, read the top-ranking pages, and use that information to build their answer.

In other words, if you don’t rank well on Google, you won’t show up in AI search either.

This is important because it means there’s no shortcut. AI optimisation isn’t a replacement for traditional SEO — it builds on top of it. Get the foundations right first, and the AI visibility follows.

GEO and AEO — What the Jargon Actually Means

You might have come across the terms GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) and AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation). They sound complicated, but they both describe the same practical goal: making your content easy for AI systems to read, understand, and confidently recommend.

GEO focuses on optimising for AI-generated responses in tools like Perplexity and ChatGPT. AEO focuses on getting your content used as the direct answer to a question — whether that’s in Google’s featured snippets, AI Overview, or a voice search response.

For practical purposes, the two overlap significantly. The same content improvements that help you appear in Google’s AI Overview will also make you more likely to be cited by Perplexity or ChatGPT. So rather than thinking about them as separate disciplines, think of it as one unified approach: make your content the clearest, most trustworthy answer to the questions your customers are asking.

Practical Steps to Get Recommended by AI Search Tools

1. Rank Well on Google First

This one isn’t glamorous, but it matters more than anything else on this list. AI tools with live search access pull from the top results for the queries they generate. If you’re not on page one — ideally in the top three to five results — you’re invisible to them.

That means investing in on-page SEO, building quality backlinks, optimising your Google Business Profile, and making sure your site loads quickly and works well on mobile. These aren’t optional extras. They’re the price of entry.

2. Structure Your Content as Clear Q&A

AI systems are incredibly good at extracting answers when content is written in a question-and-answer format. When a potential customer asks Perplexity “how much does SEO cost in New Zealand?”, it’s looking for a page that directly addresses that question — ideally with a clear heading that matches the query, followed by a concise, informative answer.

Go through your key service pages and blog posts. Add FAQ sections. Use H2 or H3 headings phrased as actual questions. Write the answer in the first sentence or two below each heading. This structure doesn’t just help AI — it also improves your Google rankings and makes your content more readable for humans.

3. Use Schema Markup

Schema markup is structured data you add to your website to help search engines and AI systems understand your content in a machine-readable way. It tells them things like: this is a local business, it operates in Auckland, it provides web design services, here are its opening hours and contact details.

For local NZ businesses, the most important schema types to implement are:

LocalBusiness (or a more specific subtype like ProfessionalService, HomeAndConstructionBusiness, etc.)
FAQPage for your FAQ sections
Article or BlogPosting for your blog content
Review or AggregateRating if you have customer reviews

Schema markup won’t guarantee AI recommendations, but it significantly reduces the chances of an AI misunderstanding who you are or what you do — which is half the battle.

4. Get Listed in “Best Of” Roundups and Directories

AI tools love citing lists. When Perplexity recommends the “top five web designers in Wellington,” it’s often pulling that recommendation from a roundup article it found on Google. Being mentioned in those roundups — on industry blogs, local business directories, review platforms, and news sites — makes you far more likely to appear in AI-generated recommendations.

Actively pursue these placements. Reach out to industry publications and local business media. Submit your business to relevant directories (not just Google Business Profile — think industry-specific listings, Neighbourly, Localist, and others relevant to your sector). The more reputable sources that mention your business by name, the more likely AI tools are to treat you as a known, trustworthy entity.

5. Publish Press Releases and News About Your Business

Every time a credible website publishes information about your business — a new service launch, an award, a partnership, a case study — it adds another data point that AI tools can draw from. Press releases distributed through services like Scoop or Newsroom, media coverage in local news outlets, and guest articles in industry publications all contribute to this.

You don’t need to be making front-page news. Even a short press release about a significant new client win or a business milestone, picked up by a few relevant outlets, adds to the pool of credible sources that reference your brand.

6. Build Citations Across Multiple Platforms

Consistent, accurate business information across a wide range of platforms is one of the clearest signals that a business is legitimate and established. This includes review platforms (Google, Facebook, Trustpilot, industry-specific review sites), business directories, social media profiles, and any local or industry association listings.

Make sure your business name, address, phone number, and website URL are identical across every platform. Inconsistencies confuse both traditional search engines and AI systems — and inconsistent data can cause AI tools to quietly deprioritise recommending you.

How to Measure AI Referral Traffic

Most business owners have no idea how much traffic they’re already receiving from AI tools. Here’s how to find out in GA4.

Go to Reports > Acquisition > Traffic Acquisition. Add a secondary dimension for “Session source/medium.” Then create a regex filter on the source field with the following pattern:

chatgpt|perplexity|claude|copilot|gemini

This will surface any sessions where visitors arrived via one of these AI platforms. You may be surprised — particularly by Perplexity, which sends referral traffic more consistently than ChatGPT does.

Check this monthly. As AI search adoption grows through 2026, you should see this number increasing. If it’s not, that’s a signal that your content isn’t being cited, and the steps above will help address that.

The Google Search Console Trick Worth Knowing

Open Google Search Console and head to Performance > Search Results. Filter queries to show only those with seven or more words.

Long-tail, multi-word queries are a strong indicator of natural language search — the kind of conversational phrasing people use when talking to AI tools, and increasingly when searching Google directly. These queries reveal the specific questions your audience is asking, and they’re often far easier to rank for than shorter, more competitive keywords.

Use these insights to create dedicated blog posts and FAQ content that directly answers these longer queries. You’re not just capturing Google traffic — you’re positioning your content to be the source AI tools cite when they answer those same questions.

What Not to Do

A few things that won’t help — and may actively hurt you.

Don’t create content purely for AI. Writing thin, keyword-stuffed articles with the sole purpose of getting cited by ChatGPT is a short-term play. AI systems are getting better at identifying low-quality content, and Google’s algorithms penalise it. Write for your human readers first. Good content for humans is good content for AI.

Don’t abandon traditional SEO. Some businesses read about GEO and assume they can skip the fundamentals. They can’t. Backlinks, on-page optimisation, site speed, mobile experience — these still determine whether AI tools can even find you in the first place.

Don’t ignore your reviews. AI tools frequently reference customer reviews when making recommendations, particularly for local service businesses. A business with dozens of recent, detailed reviews on Google and Facebook carries more weight than one with a handful of generic five-star ratings. Actively ask satisfied customers to leave reviews, and respond to them.

The New Zealand Advantage

Here’s the thing most NZ business owners don’t realise: the businesses actively optimising for AI search in New Zealand right now can be counted on two hands. The market is wide open.

In the US and UK, larger businesses with dedicated SEO teams are already racing to secure AI visibility. In New Zealand, the vast majority of businesses are still focused purely on traditional Google rankings — if they’re focused on SEO at all. That means the businesses that move now, that structure their content clearly, build their citation footprint, and implement schema markup, will lock in a significant advantage before their competitors catch up.

The window won’t stay open forever. AI search adoption is accelerating, and it will only get more competitive. But right now, in 2026, a modest investment in AI optimisation can deliver outsized results for NZ businesses simply because so few are doing it.

Ready to Get Your Business Found by AI Search?

At Lucid Media, we work with New Zealand businesses to build SEO and content strategies that perform in both traditional Google search and the emerging AI search landscape. If you want to know where your business currently stands — and what it would take to start showing up in AI recommendations — we’d love to have a conversation.

Get in touch with the Lucid Media team and let’s put together a plan that works for your business.