When a customer asks ChatGPT for the best plumber in their city, the AI returns 1 to 3 specific business names. Those businesses did not get there by accident. Here is what we know about how AI assistants pick which local businesses to cite, and what you can do to be in the cited set.
How AI assistants source local recommendations
ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews pull from a mix of training data (web content cached during model training) and live search retrieval (real time web search results). For local queries, the live retrieval dominates because business information changes frequently. The retrieval engine is essentially a search engine, and the citation engine prefers sources that are well structured, well reviewed, and authoritative.
The 5 things AI assistants reliably weight
Schema markup (LocalBusiness, Review, FAQPage). Reviews on third party sites with detailed text. Mentions on niche relevant directories and forums. A clean website with clear answers to the question being asked. Reddit and forum threads discussing the business positively. Get all 5 right and you sharply increase citation odds.
The Reddit and forum effect
Reddit threads are heavily weighted by ChatGPT and Perplexity for local recommendations. If your business has been mentioned positively in your city subreddit ("r/austin," "r/chicago"), you are far more likely to be cited. You cannot manufacture this directly, but you can ask happy customers to mention you when relevant threads come up. Also monitor "best [niche] in [city]" Reddit threads in your market and respond as the owner where appropriate (always disclose).
Detailed reviews beat short reviews
A 5 star review that says "great" gives AI nothing to extract. A 5 star review that says "John fixed our slab leak in 90 minutes for $400 when another plumber quoted $1,200, communicated clearly the entire time, and cleaned up afterward" is gold. AI cites businesses where the review corpus contains specific, descriptive language. Train your team to ask for detailed reviews ("if you have a moment, please mention what we did and how it went, not just a star rating").
Test and measure
Once a month, ask ChatGPT and Perplexity the exact queries your customers use. "Best [niche] in [city]." "[Niche] open now near [neighborhood]." "Affordable [niche] in [city]." Note whether you appear in the cited set. If not, look at which businesses do appear and reverse engineer their schema, reviews, and citations. Iterate.