When someone asks ChatGPT "who's the best HVAC company in South Hill?" they get a short list of named businesses with quick descriptions. The same query in Perplexity gets a similar list — different names sometimes, but the same kind of answer.
The question is: how does the AI decide which businesses to mention? And — more usefully — how do you make sure yours is one of them?
The mechanics, briefly
ChatGPT and Perplexity both perform what's called query fan-out. When you ask "best HVAC company in South Hill," the model doesn't just search that exact phrase. It rephrases the question multiple ways: "South Hill HVAC reviews," "top heating contractors Puyallup," "HVAC near me Pierce County." It searches each variant. Then it synthesizes the answers from across the results.
That fan-out behavior is what makes AEO different from SEO. In traditional SEO, you target a keyword. In AEO, you have to cover the cluster of related queries that an AI might fan out into.
Where AI assistants pull their answers
The patterns are consistent across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Google AI Overview:
Third-party listicles. "Best web designers in Seattle 2026." "Top 10 HVAC companies in Puyallup." These are gold for AEO citations. AI assistants treat them as authoritative summaries because they're already structured comparisons.
Niche directories. Industry-specific lists — HomeAdvisor, Houzz, Angi for home services; Clutch and DesignRush for agencies; Avvo for legal; Healthgrades for healthcare. AI assistants weight these heavily.
Local business databases. Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Apple Maps. Make sure your profile is complete, your reviews are recent, and your category is correct.
Your own site, but only if it's structured for extraction. FAQPage schema, direct-answer paragraphs, comparison tables, real numbers and named clients.
What to do this quarter
If you want to be cited by AI assistants for local commercial queries in your industry:
- 1.Find the listicles you should be on. Search "best [your service] in [your city]" in plain Google, then in ChatGPT, then in Perplexity. Note the third-party sites that come up. Reach out to each one with a real pitch: who you are, what you do, why you belong on their list.
- 1.Audit your Google Business Profile. Primary category specific? Service area accurate? Recent reviews? Real photos? GBP is foundational for local AEO.
- 1.Audit your industry directories. Are you listed on the relevant niche directories with accurate, consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone)?
- 1.Add FAQ sections to your top commercial pages. Wrap them in FAQPage schema. Direct-answer language. Real customer questions.
- 1.Write 1–2 monthly articles that answer specific long-tail questions people in your industry ask. These articles get pulled into AI citations far more often than your homepage does.
The honest expectation
AI citations are not directly purchasable, and they shift week to week as the underlying models update. What's stable is the pattern — the businesses that consistently show up are the ones doing the structured work above. The businesses that never show up are the ones doing none of it.
Pinnacle Air Control gets cited in Google's AI Overview for "heating repair south hill" because of this work. The same pattern is available to your business.
The work in steps 1–5 above is what I run as SEO & AEO optimization for clients who want it handled monthly instead of figuring it out themselves.