GEO tips: getting AI assistants to recommend your local business

On October 16, 2026, DEV Community published an article on how local businesses can get mentioned by AI assistants. The piece notes that customers who once typed queries like "What's a good family dentist near me?" into Google Maps now increasingly ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or Google's AI Overviews instead. Those assistants return a short answer naming only a few businesses, so a business that is not among them never gets a chance to compete.

The author argues that the signals AI systems rely on overlap heavily with solid local SEO. Two practical steps are suggested: first, make business information consistent across directories and the company's own website; second, test each assistant one by one using the questions real customers would ask, checking whether the business is mentioned and whether the details returned are correct. The article also introduces GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), describing it as structuring a website and related listings such as Google Business so that generative engines can pick them up. The excerpt provided ends at that point and does not include further methods, results or data.