The two things that decide whether AI recommends you
AI assistants answer buyer questions in two ways. Sometimes they answer from what the model learned during training — its parametric memory. Sometimes they browse the web live and answer from what they find — retrieval. Which one is surfacing you determines what you should do.
If you surface through retrieval, you can move the needle quickly. The assistant is reading the live web, so better pages and more citations from sources it trusts change your standing within weeks. Publish the definitive answer pages for your category — buying guides, comparisons, clear FAQs — and earn links from the review sites and roundups that AI leans on.
If you surface mostly through trained memory,the model already knows you — but you can't change its memory this quarter. The durable play is to become widely and consistently cited across the authoritative sources in your space. That wins retrieval now and, over training cycles, works its way into the model's memory too.
Either way, the fundamentals are the same: be a clearly-defined entity (consistent name, address and profiles), publish content that genuinely answers what buyers ask, and get named on the sources AI trusts. The AI Visibility Index tells you which lever is yours to pull first.