How to get your company recommended by ChatGPT and AI Overviews
There's no position one in an AI answer. There are the sources it read.
Facts checked 13 Oct 2026 · by the AdSworn team
ChatGPT and Google's AI Overviews don't rank pages the way search results do: they answer from the sources they retrieve for a question, and they name the companies those sources name. So getting your company recommended comes down to three things: be in the pages an assistant reads for your buyer's question (your own site, and the reviews, comparisons and guides that cover your category), make those pages state clear facts about you in plain HTML, and measure what the answers actually say. Google says AI Overviews need no special optimisation beyond being indexed, and most AI crawlers don't run JavaScript.
How AI answers choose what to say
- Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode search the web for the question, often with several related searches (Google calls it query fan-out), and show links to the pages they drew on. To be one of them, Google says a page must be indexed and eligible for a snippet; there's no extra requirement.
- ChatGPT searches with OpenAI's OAI-SearchBot, which OpenAI says it uses to surface websites in ChatGPT's search features, and fetches pages for people with ChatGPT-User.
- Claude and Perplexity search the web the same way and cite the pages they used.
Each answer cites a handful of sources. A company gets named when those sources name it, clearly and more than once. That's why an answer about a category often lists the same few brands: they're the ones the top reviews and comparisons mention.
Be in the sources it reads
| Source | What you control | How to get there |
|---|---|---|
| Your own site | Everything | One clear page per question your buyers ask, with facts near the top |
| Reviews and comparisons | Nothing, unless you're in them | Earned (outreach, PR) or a labelled sponsorship inside the page |
| Videos | Your own channel; a sponsor line on others | Tutorials and comparisons your buyers watch; descriptions are public HTML |
| Forums and communities | Your own answers | Helpful, disclosed answers where your buyers ask |
Start from the questions, not the engines. For each buying question, write down the pages that rank and the pages AI answers cite. Those are the places to be. A real example, checked on 13 October 2026: Google's AI Overview for "design pickle reviews" cited 11 sources, including a review page on logodesign.org, and named Design Pickle, Penji and Kimp, the companies those reviews discuss.
| Real search | AdSworn's reading | Clicks, last 4 weeks |
|---|---|---|
| “freelance marketplace” | Buying intent | 6 |
| “freelancer marketplace” | Buying intent | 4 |
| “flocksy reviews” | Buying intent | 4 |
| “best freelance marketplace” | Buying intent | 3 |
| “batman logo” | Research | 575 |
| “batman symbol” | Research | 104 |
| “logo batman” | Research | 16 |
Write facts that can be lifted
- One definition sentence"<Company> is a <category> for <who> that <does what>." It's the sentence most likely to be quoted whole.
- Concrete factsWhat's included, how it works, what it costs. Numbers beat adjectives.
- Who it's for, and who it isn'tAnswers to "is it right for me?" are what comparison questions need.
- One honest comparison"Unlike hiring a freelancer per project, …" Comparison questions are where buying decisions happen.
- Plain HTMLVercel and MERJ found OpenAI's, Anthropic's and Perplexity's crawlers don't run JavaScript (Google's does). Text a script adds is invisible to them.
Measure what the answers say
Answers change from one run to the next, so measure them like a poll, not a ranking. Each week, ask the engines your buyers use your most important questions, and record the sources they cited and whether they named you. Report counts ("named in 3 of 8 answers this month"), and count separately the answers that named you and cited a page you're in: those are the ones your work caused. Visits from AI assistants also show up in your analytics; see how to track AI search traffic.
How AdSworn does it
On AdSworn you sponsor a page your buyers read, chosen by the Google searches that bring its readers. Your sponsored post is a briefing about your company, approved by the publisher and labelled Sponsored post, and it goes into the page's HTML, where AI crawlers read; we check every day that it's there. Each week we ask Google's AI Overview and Claude the page's main search and show you what they cited and whether they named you. We can't promise a citation, and nobody honestly can; we show you exactly what happened.
The 12 Best Online Video Editors of 2026 (Free and Paid)
- Sponsored post$2,000 / year
Straight answers
How do I get my company mentioned by ChatGPT?
Be in the pages ChatGPT reads for your buyers' questions, including third-party reviews and comparisons, with clear facts about you in plain HTML, and don't block OAI-SearchBot on your own site.
Can you pay to rank in ChatGPT or AI Overviews?
Not for the answer itself. Ads in AI answers are separate, labelled placements. You can sponsor a labelled briefing inside pages AI reads, but no one can guarantee it will be cited.
What is LLM SEO?
Making your company show up in answers from AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews: being in the sources they read, with facts they can quote, and measuring what they say.
Do AI crawlers run JavaScript?
Mostly not. Vercel and MERJ found OpenAI's, Anthropic's and Perplexity's crawlers read a page's HTML without running scripts; Google's Gemini uses Googlebot, which does.