Your customers are asking AI who’s best in town. It answers with a few names.
Is yours one of them?
ChatGPT and Google’s AI answers now reply to the questions people used to type into a search box. The reply is a short list of businesses with a few links underneath. We check what it says about you, write it down, and never sell you the fix.
About a minute. It checks whether AI tools can read your website.
Want the real answer? We ask AI your customer’s question and send it in writing, $249 →
Here is what happens now.
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Step 1
A customer asks AI.
The same question they used to type into a search box. Who’s the best plumber near me?
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Step 2
It answers with a few names.
Two or three businesses, in a sentence or a short list. That short list is what your customer sees.
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Step 3
It points to the pages it used.
Links under the answer. Review sites, “best of” lists, directories. Sometimes your own website, often someone else’s page about you.
Read what the video says
Your next customer has a question. Instead of searching, they ask AI. Who’s the best dentist in town? It answers with a few names, and there’s no page two. Under the answer are the pages it used, and they’re not always yours. It’s the same for hotels, and the same for AC repair. So what about yours?
For local business recommendations, forty-five percent of U.S. consumers say they use AI tools. That’s from BrightLocal’s twenty twenty-six survey.
That answer is the new front page for your business. Have you read it?
NeverRanked asks six AI tools that question, more than once, with Bing’s regular search results alongside as a control. That’s the plain list of links, not Bing’s AI. Then we write down what came back. We check what AI says about you, and we never sell the fix. Nobody can promise AI will name you.
Start with one minute. The free check shows whether AI tools can read your website.
Try it now
Ask ChatGPT the question your best customer would ask. Not your business name. Their question. Then look at two things. Is your name in the answer? And whose websites do the links point to?
Ask again tomorrow. The answer may change, which is why one screenshot is a glimpse and not a measurement.
That answer is the new front page for your business.
Outside research, not ours
6 in 10
U.S. adults say they read the AI summaries at the top of search results, in a Pew Research Center survey from February 2026.
45%
For local business recommendations, 45% of U.S. consumers say they use AI tools, in BrightLocal’s 2026 survey.
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It happens before anyone reaches your website.
If the answer names someone else, your customer can make up their mind without ever seeing you.
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You cannot see it happen.
There is no ranking to check and no click to trace. You can audit a ranking. You cannot audit a conversation you were never part of.
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Your website is one voice among many.
AI tools lean on the sites that already write about your kind of business. Your own site is one of them, and often not the main one.
From one of our studies
On hotel questions, 17 of every 100 pages we counted were the hotels’ own websites.
That counts every page six AI tools pointed to, plus what plain Bing search returned, which we run as a control. Across the 13 hotels we tracked, in June 2026, over three full runs.
- 17% the hotels’ own websites
- 74% booking sites and travel editorial
- everything else
Hotels are one category. We have not measured yours. Read the hotel study →
We check what AI says about you. We never sell the fix.
Anyone who changes your website has a stake in the number that comes back. We never change it, so the number we hand you has nothing of ours to flatter.
What we do
- Ask six AI tools the questions your customers ask.Including ChatGPT and Google’s AI answers.
- Run the same questions through Bing’s regular search results, as a control.So the AI answers have something to be compared against.
- Ask more than once.The same question can get a different answer tomorrow.
- Write down what came back.Dated, with the questions saved, so anyone can check it again.
What we do not do
- Edit your website or touch your accounts.Your team, or anyone you hire, makes any changes.
- Sell fixes.So we have no reason to tell you a number moved when it did not.
- Promise that AI will say your name.Nobody can honestly promise that.
We published a result for a customer. It failed our own test. We pulled it within a day, and the retraction is still up. Read the retraction →
Want the whole method, the engagement and every study in one place? For teams and agencies →
Start free. Pay when you want the answer in writing.
Free check
Free
About a minute
Can AI tools read your website?
Paste your web address. Your score shows in seconds. The full result comes by email.
It reads your site. It does not ask AI about you.
Run the free checkWritten AI answer check
$249
One time · in writing within two business days
What does AI say when your customers ask?
Send the question your best customer would ask. We ask it, and up to nine like it, three times each across six AI tools, with plain Bing search alongside as a control. You get, in writing, which tools said your name, how often, and the sites they drew on when they named someone else.
Measurement only. No fixes. If you start an Audit within 60 days, the $249 comes off your first invoice. Pay by card. Lance emails you within one business day to confirm your question.
Buy the checkMonitor
$199
A month per category · month to month, cancel anytime
Is AI saying your name this month?
Every month: which of the six AI tools said your name, and which businesses they named in your place. Reported as a yes or a no, never as a percentage, because a sample this size cannot defend one.
Start MonitorAudit
$750
A month per category · on a three-month term
For when you have to prove it to someone else.
The questions and the businesses you are compared with are locked before the first run. Three full passes a month, and a written readout with the reasoning shown.
Rather not commit to three months? Month to month, the first month is $950 and it is $750 a month after that.
Scope an AuditA category is one kind of business in one market, like boutique hotels in Honolulu. Everything each plan includes →
Everything we publish, you can check.
Our studies
Every study we have published is public.
Hotels, real estate, home services, agencies and more. Each one is dated, with the questions and the counts behind every number.
Why plain search is not enough
Asked for the best hotel in Hawaii, plain Bing search returned an electronics store’s locator page in Elmira, New York.
Six of its ten runs, 3 to 9 September 2026. This is Bing’s regular list of links, not its AI. We run it beside six AI tools as a control, and none of the six pointed to that page once.
Keyword search matches words. It does not understand questions. That gap is the reason AI answers exist, and it is why a search ranking report cannot tell you what AI says about you.
Plain answers
Is my business invisible to AI?
Nobody can answer that in one word, including us. It is three separate questions. Can AI tools read your website? Do they say your name when a customer asks about your kind of business? And when they answer, do they point people to your site or to someone else’s page?
The free check answers the first in about a minute. The other two take asking the AI tools, more than once, and writing down what comes back. That is what the $249 written check and our monthly plans do.
What is AEO?
AEO is short for answer engine optimization, the industry’s name for showing up when people ask AI tools like ChatGPT about your kind of business. You do not need the term, only the answer to one question: what do those tools say when your customers ask?
How is this different from SEO?
SEO is about where your website lands in a list of search results. An AI answer has no list to climb. It names a few businesses and links to a few pages, and that answer is what we measure.
Which AI tools do you check?
Six: ChatGPT search, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Claude and Gemma. We also run the same questions through Bing’s regular search results, the plain list of links, as a control. We never count that list as an AI tool, and Bing’s own AI answers are not part of what we measure.
Do you change my website?
No. We never touch your website, your systems or your accounts. If you want changes made, your own team or anyone you hire makes them. We only measure.
Can you promise AI will name my business?
No. Nobody controls what AI tools say, and we do not sell anything meant to change it. What we promise is the measurement. We tell you what they said and when, question by question.
Who is behind NeverRanked?
Lance Roylo, in Honolulu. NeverRanked is a small research practice, not a software company. You deal with the person doing the work, and all of it can happen in writing.
Start with one minute.
See whether AI tools can read your website. When you want to know what they actually say about you, we will ask them and write it down.
Run the free check →