Should you optimise for ChatGPT and AI Overviews yet? An honest answer

Everyone's being sold AI search optimisation right now, so here's my honest answer for a normal local business: there's not much point pouring effort into optimising for AI search - ChatGPT, AI Overviews and the like - yet. The search volumes are still small. It's worth monitoring so you're not caught out later, but Google remains where the customers are.

The honest state of play

AI search is real and it's growing, and there's a whole industry rushing to sell you GEO (generative engine optimisation - getting your business mentioned in AI answers). But for a typical local service business, the number of actual buyers arriving through an AI tool today is still small next to ordinary Google search and the map results. Optimising hard for a channel that sends you a trickle, while your main channel is a river, is the wrong order of priorities.

Future-proofing is smart. Chasing a channel before it has volume is just being sold to.

Why it's still worth watching

That said, this isn't a reason to ignore it. Things are moving quickly, and you don't want to discover in a year that your competitors are the ones the AI recommends and you're invisible. The sensible position is to track it - measure whether you show up when people ask AI tools the kind of question your customers would ask - so you can see the moment the volume becomes worth acting on. Monitor now, invest when the numbers justify it.

What actually helps AI find you anyway

Here's the reassuring part: the things that make AI tools mention your business are mostly the same things that make Google rank you. Clear, well-structured pages about what you do and where, a solid reputation, consistent information across the web, good reviews. Do the fundamentals well for Google and you're already most of the way to being the business the AI picks up. There's rarely a separate AI strategy worth paying for on top.

So if someone's selling you an urgent, expensive AI-search package for your local business, be sceptical. Track your AI visibility, keep doing the Google fundamentals properly, and be ready to lean in when the volume arrives - which, for most local businesses, isn't quite yet.

The fuller position, including what genuinely helps and when I would change my mind, is in AI search for local business.