How to help AI assistants answer correctly about your business

What AI assistants read

When an assistant answers about a business, it uses what it learned in training and, more and more, what it finds on the web at that moment: your website, your Google Business Profile, review sites and directories.

If those say different things about your hours or prices, the assistant may pick the wrong one. Consistency matters more than volume.

Steps that help

• Keep your Google Business Profile complete and current: hours, menu or services, photos, attributes like "dog-friendly".
• Put the facts in plain text on your website, not only in images or PDFs. Hours, prices, address and what you offer.
• Answer common questions in full sentences on one page. Assistants quote those well.
• Keep the same name, address and phone number everywhere.
• Ask happy customers for reviews that mention what they liked: "great for laptops", "quiet on weekdays".

Give assistants a page made for them

Some sites now publish an llms.txt file: a plain-text summary written for AI tools. It is a proposal, not a standard: Google says it doesn't use it for Search, and few assistants are known to read it. It costs nothing to have, so treat it as a bonus, not a strategy.

Every askmyaiagent agent publishes one automatically from what you approved, plus a one-link way for an assistant to ask your agent a question directly.

What doesn't help

Hidden text, keyword lists and paid "AI ranking" schemes. Search engines penalise hidden text and keyword stuffing, and assistants lean on the same search results, so these tricks tend to cost more than they gain.