Here is the quick answer. The fastest way to check whether ChatGPT recommends your business is to ask the assistants yourself: open ChatGPT, Google AI, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot and ask each one for the best business like yours in your suburb, then see whether you are named. For ongoing tracking, connect Microsoft Clarity's free AI visibility dashboard to your Google Search Console, and only step up to a paid tracker like Otterly, Peec or Profound when you need continuous, competitor-level monitoring. The rest of this shows you how to do each properly.
The fastest free check: ask the assistants yourself
You do not need a tool to start. Open each assistant in a fresh chat (or a private window so your own history does not skew it) and ask the kind of question a real customer would ask. Try a few phrasings, because the answer changes with the wording.
- "Who are the best [your service] in [your suburb or city]?"
- "I need a [your service] near [suburb], who do you recommend?"
- "Best [your service] for [the specific job a customer wants done]?"
Run the same prompts in ChatGPT, Google AI (the AI Overview at the top of Google), Perplexity and Copilot. Note whether you are named, which competitors come up, and whether the assistant describes you correctly. If you are absent or described wrongly, that is the gap to fix.
Why a one-off check is not enough
AI answers are probabilistic, not fixed. The same question can name different businesses depending on the exact words, the location it infers, the device, and the day. So a single check is a snapshot, not the score. If being recommended matters to your revenue, you want to watch it over time and across phrasings, which is what AI visibility tools do.
The tools that track AI visibility, compared
These tools run your prompts on a schedule, record whether you are named, and (the better ones) show your citation share against competitors. They sit on a clear ladder from free to enterprise. Prices below are entry points as of 2026 and move often, so check each tool's own pricing page before you buy.
| Tool | Best for | What it tracks | Free option | From (2026) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Clarity (AI Visibility) | A free baseline for any business | AI referral traffic and which of your pages AI cites, connected through Google Search Console | Yes, fully free | Free |
| Otterly.AI | Solo operators and small businesses | Your chosen prompts across ChatGPT, Google AI and Perplexity | Limited entry plan | about US$29/mo |
| Peec AI | Agencies and marketing teams | Citation share against competitors across the major LLMs | Trial only | about EUR89/mo |
| Profound | Enterprise and large brands | The widest set of answer engines: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, Google AI Overviews and more | No | about US$499/mo |
Which one should a small business use?
For most local businesses, start free. Run the manual check above, then connect Microsoft Clarity's AI visibility dashboard to your Google Search Console so you can see when AI starts sending you traffic and which pages it cites. That covers the baseline at no cost. Add Otterly if you want scheduled tracking of specific prompts without an agency budget. Peec and Profound are built for agencies and large brands tracking many prompts and competitors, and are overkill for a single local business.
Tracking is not the same as fixing
This is the part people miss. A tracker tells you that you are invisible. It does not make ChatGPT recommend you. AI assistants build local answers from a specific layer: your Google Business Profile and Bing Places listings, genuine reviews, business details that match everywhere, and content written so an assistant can quote it cleanly. Improve that layer and the recommendations follow. The tool just measures the result.
If you would rather not assemble tools and run checks yourself, that is exactly what we do. Our free AI Visibility Check shows you, in plain language, whether the assistants name you today and where the gap is. Clearway Found then fixes the underlying layer so you start getting named.