More and more buyers ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity who to choose, and go with the names they hear. Visits from AI assistants to US retail websites grew 693.4% last holiday season compared with the year before. Here is what actually helps a business get named, based on what we did for Young Fashion Show and on what Google and OpenAI say themselves.

What we measured

We tested Young Fashion Show with 41 real questions, asked the way a parent or a sponsor would ask them, across 7 AI assistants. Before the new website launched, ChatGPT named the show in 29 of the 41. Ten days after launch, it named the show in 34 of 41 and linked to its website in 31. Google's AI Overviews named it in 16, up from 9. Read the full case study.

1. Open the door to search and AI crawlers

AI assistants can only recommend what their crawlers are allowed to read. ChatGPT's search uses OpenAI's OAI-SearchBot: if your robots.txt blocks it, your pages won't appear in ChatGPT search answers. Training is a separate crawler, GPTBot, so you can allow search and still say no to training. Check the same for Googlebot, Bingbot, PerplexityBot and Claude's search crawler. For Young Fashion Show we let in 10 search and AI crawlers.

2. Say what you do in plain words, on your own pages

Assistants quote pages. If your homepage says "elevating your journey", there is nothing to quote. Write who you serve, what you make, where you work and how to start, in the words your buyers use. One page with the basic facts about your business, kept up to date, gives every assistant the same answer.

3. Label every page for machines

Structured data tells search engines what a page is: your organisation and its official profiles, your services and prices, your events, your FAQs, your articles and your videos. Google says no special AI markup is needed, so this is the same structured data that helps normal search, kept accurate and matching what the page shows. Young Fashion Show's pages carry 22 kinds of it.

4. Describe your videos and images

A video with no title, description or transcript is invisible to a search engine. Give every video a name, a description, a transcript or captions, and list it in a video sitemap; give every image a real description. We described all 34 Young Fashion Show videos for search.

5. Be described the same way everywhere

Assistants cross-check. Your name, what you do and your website should read the same on your site, your Google profile, your social media profiles, directories such as Clutch, and the press. When Google's AI Mode answered questions about Project 66 Studio, the source it cited was our Clutch profile.

6. Test with real buyer questions, and keep testing

Write down 20 to 40 questions your buyers really ask, by audience and by city if it matters. Ask them across ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and AI Overviews, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Copilot. Record whether you are named, whether the details are right and which page is cited. Then fix the pages behind the wrong answers, and test again a month later.

Questions people ask

Can I pay to be recommended by ChatGPT?

No. ChatGPT's answers are not paid placements. What you can do is make your business easy to find, read and quote: open your site to the search crawlers, say clearly what you do, and be described the same way across the web.

Do I need an llms.txt file or special AI markup?

Google says you don't need new machine-readable files, AI text files or special markup to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. A short llms.txt map can help some assistants find your key pages, but it is optional. Clear pages and accurate structured data matter far more.

Which crawler decides if I appear in ChatGPT search?

OpenAI's OAI-SearchBot. If your robots.txt blocks it, your pages won't appear in ChatGPT search answers. GPTBot is separate and is only used for training, so you can allow search and still block training.

How long does it take?

Changes to robots.txt take about a day to reach ChatGPT, according to OpenAI. New pages still have to be crawled and indexed by Google and Bing. For Young Fashion Show, the first re-test ten days after launch already showed ChatGPT naming the show in 34 of 41 buyer questions, up from 29.

Can anyone guarantee an AI recommendation?

No. AI answers change with the question, the person and the day. Test with real buyer questions, measure how often you are named, and keep improving the pages the answers come from.

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Sources

1. OpenAI, Overview of OpenAI crawlers (read 26 Oct 2026).
2. Google Search Central, AI features and your website (last updated 10 Dec 2025; read 26 Oct 2026).
3. Adobe, 2025 holiday shopping season: traffic to US retail sites from generative AI tools up 693.4% on the year before (January 2026).
4. Project 66 Studio, Young Fashion Show AI test: 41 questions across 7 AI assistants, 17–18 Oct and 26 Oct 2026.