AI visibility: does your SME appear in ChatGPT?

When a prospective customer asks ChatGPT which provider to consult, your company either appears in the answer — or it doesn't. This presence can no longer be inferred from your Google position: an SME can hold the first page and still be absent from generated answers, or the reverse. SEO fundamentals remain the bedrock that produces visibility; what changed since May 2026 is the severity of their application, and the measurement that needs to be added to them.

Article published in September 2024, revised on 25 May 2026 following the Google Search Central publication. This page absorbs four de-indexed notes redirected here: "How to get cited by ChatGPT: 7 actionable strategies", "Taking back control of what AI says about your company", "Generative reputation: when AIs become your audience" and "AI visibility audit: the complete guide for executives".

What happened in May 2026

Two events, four days apart, shifted the question of visibility without overturning it. On 15 May 2026, Google Search Central published Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search, a page filed among the Search Central fundamentals, alongside the SEO Starter Guide^[1]. On 19 May, Google I/O 2026 presented the extension of AI Mode, the continuity between AI Overviews and AI Mode, multimodal search, and the first search agents capable of executing tasks on the user's behalf^[2].

The message of the 15 May page comes down to one sentence: generative features rely on the ranking and quality systems that already govern classic search. They add generation techniques to it, notably retrieval-augmented generation, but the eligibility foundation of a piece of content remains the one the documentation has described for years — useful, non-derivative content, technical crawlability, transparent sources, authority built over time. No new acronym, no new profession.

Taken together, these two events change what the word visibility covers, without changing what produces it.

Ranking well on Google, absent from ChatGPT: the case exists

A company's visibility is no longer just a position in a list of links. It's also its presence — or absence — in a generated answer that the user may never extend with a single click. On complex queries, those comparing providers or preparing a choice, the generated summary now often precedes the consultation of links: the reader remembers the cited sources and doesn't always scroll further.

Yet the selection criterion for citation isn't exactly the ranking criterion. The two correlate, imperfectly. A company that's properly indexed but editorially weak may find itself absent from generated answers on its most strategic queries, without having lost a single organic position. Conversely, a company with a clear editorial voice and rigorous sourcing can be cited without holding the very top positions.

It's this dissociation I refer to as citability. AI citability is the probability that a company will be cited, contextualised, or recommended in an answer generated by a language model. In 2026, it can no longer be inferred from organic position; it is measured separately.

Why the bar has risen

In a list of ten links, mediocre content could hold the seventh position and capture residual traffic. In a generated answer that cites three or four sources, that same content no longer appears at all. The rules haven't changed; the penalty has. What used to get through no longer does.

I draw a practical conclusion from this for an SME's leadership: your visibility budget shouldn't fund a supposedly new discipline, it should fund the actual quality of what your site publishes. That's the logic I applied to the redesign of mcva.ch: pages that each answer a precise question, dated data, cited sources, a structure models can read unambiguously. I describe this project under sites designed to be cited, because it constitutes the first lever — before any external optimisation.

Yet the market spent two years selling a discipline labelled GEO. The 15 May publication removed its main source of legitimacy; I devote a separate analysis to it, GEO vs SEO: is it really two professions?.

How do you know if you appear?

Traditional indicators — organic position, SEO traffic, ranking against competitors — remain valid, but they now describe only part of the situation. Leadership that tracks only these figures is looking at its visibility through a single window. That window remains important; it no longer covers the whole question.

A measurement therefore needs to be added, carried out where the synthesis happens: within the models themselves. I've stabilised this measurement under the GEO Score™ brand. It queries five generative environments — ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Mistral — using query baskets anchored in the company's business, then evaluates the answers across seven themes: citation presence, editorial prominence, citation context, factual accuracy, source grounding, cross-model consistency, temporal stability. The result: a score out of 100 and a detailed profile of the gaps to correct. The full method — building the query baskets, the grid, the cadences — is published in MCVA Cahier No. 1 — Measuring AI citability after May 2026.

A point of doctrine, because it grounds my practice: GEO as a sellable discipline left my vocabulary on 15 May 2026. The GEO Score™ as a measurement instrument, however, remains. I don't sell a new skill; I measure real visibility.

Where to start, without rushing

For a Swiss SME of five to fifty people, this shift requires neither hiring nor a media budget. It requires, first, a site where every page does precise work — that's the subject of the Sites page —, then a baseline measurement of your citability on the queries that matter, and finally correcting the gaps over time. When the need goes beyond visibility and touches your internal tools, that's a different project, that of custom-built solutions.

I laid out the overall trade-off — visibility, tools, compliance, budget — in What should a Swiss SME do about AI in 2026?. AI visibility is its first component, not the only one.

Key takeaways

— Your visibility now also plays out in generated answers, and it can no longer be inferred from your Google position. — SEO fundamentals remain the bedrock; what changed is the severity of their application. — Citability is measurable: five models, business-anchored queries, an explicit grid, tracking over time.

FAQ

What is AI citability?

The probability that a company will be cited, contextualised, or recommended in an answer generated by a language model — ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, or Mistral. It correlates with classic search ranking, but imperfectly. It is therefore measured separately, using queries anchored in the company's business.

My Google ranking is good. Am I necessarily cited by ChatGPT?

No. The selection criterion for citation isn't exactly the ranking criterion. A well-positioned but editorially weak company can be absent from generated answers on its strategic queries. Only a direct measurement on the models reveals this.

Should I hire a GEO specialist?

No, in the sense that GEO isn't a distinct profession: since 15 May 2026, Google files the generative fundamentals among the fundamentals of search. What's needed is applying these fundamentals with more rigour, then checking the result on the models.

How often should you measure your presence in AI answers?

A baseline measurement first, then a steady cadence — quarterly for most Swiss SMEs. Model answers evolve; it's the trajectory that informs, not the isolated snapshot.

Wondering whether you appear? The GEO Score™ pre-audit measures, free of charge, where your company appears — and doesn't appear — in the answers of ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Mistral. Quantified answer within a few days. Request a free pre-audit

Sources

[1] Google Search Central, Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search, 15 May 2026. developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide [↩]

[2] Google, Google Search's I/O 2026 updates: AI agents and more, 19 May 2026. blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/search/search-io-2026/ [↩]

Jérôme Deshaie is CEO and founder of MCVA Consulting SA, an augmented agency based in Valais. Fifteen years serving major international brands, now working directly with Swiss SMEs. Background.