How AI tools change SEO: inside ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini

“AI SEO” is used for two different things. One is being recommended by AI: making sure ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini name your business. The other is using AI to do SEO: letting the same tools write, check and fix things for you. This article covers both — starting with how the assistants actually decide what to say.

How an assistant builds an answer

When someone asks an assistant for a recommendation, two kinds of knowledge come into play:

1. What the model learned in training. Large language models are trained on huge amounts of text from the web. Well-known brands that are written about a lot are “remembered”. Small and new businesses usually aren't — or only vaguely.
2. What it finds in a live search. For questions about products, services, places and anything recent, the assistant searches the web, reads a handful of pages and writes its answer from them, often with links to the sources.

For a small business, the second route is the realistic one. You can't make a model “remember” you overnight — but you can make sure that when it searches, it finds pages that describe you clearly.

The three assistants, side by side

Because the sources differ, so do the answers. In our own checks, the assistants regularly disagreed on which tools and businesses to name for the very same question. That's why it's worth checking all three — and checking again later.

What makes an assistant pick you

The assistants don't publish a ranking formula, but the pattern in their answers is consistent:

• Relevance in plain words. The page states clearly that you offer what was asked for, where.
• Consistency. Your name, services and location are described the same way on your site, your Google profile, directories and social media.
• Mentions from others. Comparison lists, reviews and directories are among the pages assistants read most. If your competitors appear there and you don't, the answer names them.
• Readable pages. Text that's in the HTML (not hidden in images or loaded late), a fast page, and no crawler blocks.

Using AI tools to do your SEO

The flip side: the same tools are excellent SEO assistants. Things they do well:

• Page titles and meta descriptions. Ask for five options under 60 and 155 characters, with your main service and area in them.
• FAQs. Give it your services and ask for the ten questions customers ask most — then write the answers with your real facts.
• Structured data. AI can write a schema.org JSON-LD block for your business in seconds. See our structured data tutorial for what it should contain.
• Clearer text. Paste your homepage text and ask: “What does this business do, for whom and where?” If the AI can't answer, neither can the assistants.

One warning: AI writes confidently, also about things it doesn't know. It will invent prices, opening hours and awards if you let it. Treat everything it writes as a draft, and check every fact before it goes on your site.

Putting it together

AI assistants reward the same things good salespeople do: being clear about what you offer, being consistent, and having others vouch for you. Use AI tools to get the writing and technical work done quickly, and spend your own time on the part machines can't do — getting real people and sites to talk about you.

SEO Joe combines both sides: he asks ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini your customers' questions, shows who they recommend instead of you, and then writes the fixes for you — or makes them on your website once you approve.