AI search is worth checking where buyers research, compare and seek explanations before deciding. Its importance to your business should be established through buyer questions and data. The existence of a new technology alone is not enough reason to change your entire marketing plan.
A new research format
Google describes AI Mode as an experience for more complex questions, comparisons and further exploration, with links to sources. Different systems and search modes can produce different answers and sources. Google Search Central.
The business question is therefore: is the information needed to choose your product clear, accurate and available where buyers look?
Start with five real conversations
At your next sales or reception meeting, try this exercise. Choose five recent enquiries without personal data. Write down what people wanted to know before they were ready to talk: price, service suitability, alternatives, timing or confidence in a specialist.
Turn these questions into a small initial sample. Do not build it solely from queries already containing your brand name. Otherwise, you will mainly test how the system describes a known company rather than whether it discovers it as relevant to a problem.
A three-step check
- Record the conditions. Use the same question wording, system, language, date and relevant context. Save the answer and sources.
- Check accuracy. Are the correct service, location, terms and qualifications conveyed? Are there claims your website does not support?
- Connect the finding to a page. Which specific page could answer the question better? What needs adding, and who on your team can verify it?
For the next step, use the sequence for improving company information for AI search.
Repeat the check at another time. One answer is not a stable ranking and does not represent all users.
For Google's experiences, there is a separate guide: AI Overviews and AI Mode: what to change on your website and how to check the result.
What one answer cannot tell us
If a system mentions you, that does not prove new clients arrived. If it omits you, it does not mean you disappeared from search. A mention is a signal for further investigation alongside traffic, sales questions and recorded business outcomes.
A useful question for new clients is, “How did you first hear about us?” Store the answer as a self-reported source, separately from the technically recorded website visit. If they differ, keep both rather than arbitrarily declaring one correct.
For stores applying this check to a catalogue, I have prepared a detailed guide to AI shopping and ecommerce.
The next step
Choose one important service and check whether its page resolves the concerns from those five conversations. That is a concrete start even without advanced tracking tools.
Explore our AEO / GEO approach and the audit measurement method. For the sales connection, read how to measure marketing's contribution.