Why AI assistants recommend your competitors instead of you (and what to do about it)
· 4 min read · MAALI team
You asked ChatGPT for the best option in your category and it named three businesses. None of them was yours. It's tempting to treat AI assistants as a black box, but they usually show their work: they say why they picked someone, and many link to the pages they used.
Read those answers carefully and they tell you what to fix. Here are the most common reasons a competitor gets named instead of you, how to spot each one, and what to do.
1. They're on the lists the assistant reads
How to spot it: the answer cites a directory, a review site or a "best of" article, and that page lists your competitor but not you.
Assistants with web search read the top pages for a question and summarise them. If the top pages are "10 best linen brands" articles and directories, the businesses on those pages get recommended.
The fix: get listed on the sites that keep coming up, with complete, accurate details. For articles and guides, contact the writer only if you're a genuine fit, and say plainly why. See getting listed where AI assistants look.
2. They have more (and better) reviews
How to spot it: the answer mentions ratings or review counts: "rated 4.8 from over 200 reviews", "customers praise their fast delivery".
Reviews are easy for an assistant to quote, and they're evidence that real people chose that business.
The fix: ask real customers for honest reviews where people look for your kind of business: your Google Business Profile, the main review site in your industry, your product pages. Make it easy with a link or QR code after a purchase. Never buy, fake or reward reviews: it's against most platforms' rules and consumer protection law in many countries.
3. Their pages answer the question; yours don't
How to spot it: the answer quotes a specific fact from the competitor: a price, a size range, a delivery promise, an opening time, "works with Shopify".
If someone asks for "linen dresses under $80 that ship to Canada" and only your competitor's site says clearly that it ships to Canada, the assistant has nothing to say about you.
The fix: make the facts customers ask about easy to find and quote, on the pages they belong to: prices or "from" prices, who it's for, sizes, locations and service areas, delivery and returns, what's included. Write them as plain sentences, not just inside images or PDFs.
4. You have no page for that question
How to spot it: you're named for some questions but missing from a whole topic, like comparisons ("X vs Y"), "alternatives to [competitor]", or a problem your product solves.
Assistants answer questions. If no page on your site addresses the question, there's little for them to find.
The fix: write a clear, honest page for each important question you're missing. Comparison pages work especially well for "vs" and "alternatives" questions. Advice articles cover the problem-first questions.
5. Your details don't match from site to site
How to spot it: the answer gets something about you wrong (an old address, a closed location, last year's prices), or describes you vaguely.
When your website, Google Business Profile, social profiles and directory listings disagree, assistants become less sure about you, and may pick a business whose details all agree.
The fix: go through every listing you can find and make the name, address, phone, hours, prices and description match your website. Close or update listings for old locations.
6. They can't read your website
How to spot it: assistants never cite your site, even for questions only you can answer, while they cite your competitors' sites freely.
Some websites block AI crawlers in robots.txt, sometimes by accident (a security plugin, a template, or a "block AI" setting meant only for training).
The fix: check your robots.txt. Allow the crawlers assistants use to answer questions, such as OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot and Claude-SearchBot. You can still block training crawlers like GPTBot if you prefer. Our guide to robots.txt and AI crawlers shows how. Adding schema markup helps assistants read your details correctly.
7. People talk about them more
How to spot it: the answer cites news stories, forum threads, podcasts or community posts about your competitor.
Assistants look for agreement across many sources. A business mentioned in local news, industry blogs and community discussions looks like a safe recommendation.
The fix: give people genuine reasons to mention you: a useful guide, a local story, a partnership, a talk, real answers in the communities your customers use. One honest mention on a respected site beats many low-quality ones.
What doesn't work
- Keyword stuffing or hidden "AI text". It doesn't help and can hurt your normal search results.
- Fake reviews and paid "AI placement". Nobody can guarantee what an assistant says, and fake reviews can break the law.
- Changing everything at once. Fix one or two causes, check again in a few weeks, and see what moved.
Where MAALI fits
MAALI's AI Visibility check does this diagnosis for you. It asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude your customers' questions, shows which competitors they name and which sites they cite, then writes an action plan from the evidence: pages to write (one click turns them into article ideas for the Writer), sites to get listed on, reviews to earn and facts to make clearer. It also checks whether your robots.txt blocks AI crawlers, for free. To do it by hand, follow how to check whether AI assistants recommend your business.
(The businesses in the examples are made up.)
Keep reading
A step-by-step way to see what AI assistants say when your customers ask for what you sell, which competitors they name instead, and how to track it over time.
AI assistants recommend businesses they find on directories, review sites and roundups. How to find the ones that matter, get listed honestly and stay accurate.
What generative engine optimization (GEO) means for a small business, how AI assistants decide what to recommend, and the practical steps that help.
People searching "X vs Y" are close to buying. How to write comparison pages that are fair, useful and rank, without trashing competitors.