The New Word-of-Mouth: Whispering Your Questions to a Machine
Go ahead. Open a tab. Fire up ChatGPT. Or Gemini. Or Perplexity. Or whatever AI assistant you’ve got sitting in your digital toolbox.
Now ask this question:
“What is the best [insert what you offer] on the [insert your region]?”
Then take a look. Are you in there? Did you get recommended?
If yes — lovely.
If not — well, that’s what we’re here to talk about.
Because more and more, people are asking questions like this. About everything.
- Where to find the best sushi on the Central Coast
- What to do if your back hurts and you live in Umina
- Which accountant is good with sole traders
- What kind of tile holds up best in coastal weather
- I’m spending the day on the Central Coast, what should I do
- Why my husband insists he doesn’t need directions but is now definitely lost in Erina
They’re not typing it into Google like they used to. They’re saying it out loud to Gemini. Or whispering it into ChatGPT. Or asking Perplexity in a tone that sounds like they’re texting a mate.
The machines — they’re listening. And answering.
Cue Darth Vader theme song…
The Rise of Robot Recommendations
By 2026, a quarter of all search traffic is expected to bypass traditional search engines. And honestly? It makes sense. People are tired.
Tired of unlocking their phone (three seconds).
Opening Google (another three).
Typing the thing they want but can’t quite phrase yet (five). Wondering why their fingers seem chubbier each day (one)
Then scrolling past the ads, the map pack, the sponsored local who definitely paid to be “#1,” and the SEO blog from 2014 still hanging onto life (twenty long seconds).
That’s thirty-two seconds, minimum.
Thirty-two seconds of finger gymnastics.
Thirty-two seconds of squinting at tiny text.
Thirty-two seconds they could’ve spent doing literally anything else — stretching, blinking, breathing, contemplating their existence, or remembering why they walked into the room in the first place.
And that’s why people are skipping the whole circus and just asking the nearest robot instead.
More and more, AI models are now the front door. Knock knock!
They’re summarising. Recommending. Suggesting names. Products. Places.
If you’re not there — if your business isn’t being pulled into those summaries — it’s not a visibility issue. It’s a disappearance issue.
(Darth Vader theme song rises softly and then fades).
So here’s the big, itchy question:
“How do I show up in AI search results?”
Let’s walk through it.
Is It Just Good Seo?
The basics are boring, but they matter. Here’s the lay of the land on how to get recommended:
- Write clear, useful content that answers real questions
- Structure your pages with headings and FAQs
- Use schema markup (that’s code that tells robots “this is a service” or “this is a review”)
- Be mobile-friendly and fast
- Mention your location, repeatedly but naturally
- Get real, recent reviews
- Be consistent across platforms — Google Business Profile, socials, directories
And here’s the quiet truth behind all of that:
It’s just good SEO.
All the same things we’ve been told for years. The same things we’ve been doing here in the Oddball realms with stellar success. But now, instead of climbing up page one of Google, we’re being filtered through an AI’s mental Rolodex.
The robots aren’t changing the rules. They’re just enforcing them differently.
But Here’s What’s Actually New
Now things get interesting.
There’s a shift happening under the surface — not just in the way people search, but in how AI interprets intent.
Traditional SEO was simple by comparison. You picked a keyword. You ranked for it. End of story.
But AI? It doesn’t see a query as a neat little line from A to B.
It sees it as a network. A cluster. A branching map of meaning.
GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) is the name for this new world — the practice of making your business discoverable inside AI-generated answers, not just inside Google’s result pages.
And powering GEO is a concept called Query Fan Out.
Let’s say someone asks:
“Who’s the best renovation business on the Central Coast?”
A traditional search engine would return a list of pages that match those words.
But AI platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and even Siri’s new LLM-based engine do something far more complex.
They expand the question.
They blow it out into a constellation of related mini-queries, such as:
- Top-rated home builders in Avoca
- Builders with experience in coastal renovations
- Which materials handle salt air best?
- What to look for in an NSW renovation contract
- Are fixed-price builds reliable in 2025?
- Local builders with verified reviews
- Renovation timelines for older coastal homes
Each platform has its own retrieval method, too:
- ChatGPT uses retrieval-augmented generation plus a mixture of curated sources, high-authority content, and pattern recognition.
- Perplexity performs live web pulls, citing sources and cross-checking them in real time.
- Gemini leans heavily on semantic mapping and entity relationships across Google’s vast index.
- Claude focuses on clarity, authority, and well-structured information in long-form content.
They’re not reading your website like a human.
They’re evaluating it — for depth, authority, structure, clarity, and contextual value.
So if your site only answers the first question — “best renovation business on the Central Coast” — but not the dozens of related micro-questions AI generates behind the scenes?
You don’t just miss a keyword.
You miss the fan — the entire cluster of intent the AI uses to decide who gets mentioned, quoted, or recommended.
This is where visibility is won or lost in 2025 and beyond.
So What Can You Do?
You shift how you write. Not radically. Just purposefully.
Build depth, not density.
Instead of repeating one keyword 20 times, cover the whole topic. Write like you’re anticipating questions before they’re asked.
Include context.
Comparisons. Use cases. FAQs. Entity mentions. If you’re a builder, talk about timber types. Talk about slope. Talk about council approvals. Talk like someone who’s done the job a hundred times and still has dirt under their fingernails.
Be quotable.
AI pulls snippets. It needs tight, clear sentences. Not waffle. Not marketing fluff. A phrase like “We’ve renovated over 80 homes in the Central Coast, many on tricky blocks” is perfect. It’s specific. It’s citable. It’s alive.
Track AI visibility.
This is new. Tools are starting to track not just what ranks in Google — but what appears in AI summaries.
Because this isn’t about search rank anymore.
It’s about retrievability.
Are you the kind of business that gets name-dropped by a machine when someone’s hunting for help?
And Yes — It’s Still Evolving
This isn’t finished. AI search is still being tested, prodded, updated daily. What works today might wobble tomorrow. What’s “visible” in ChatGPT may not appear at all in Google’s SGE next week.
But the direction is clear.
People are changing the way they look for solutions. They want answers, not links. They want clarity, not choice fatigue. And the AI models are getting better at giving them just that.
Soon — and not sci-fi soon, but this time next year soon — AI assistants will be how most people discover businesses. Especially local ones. Especially when the stakes are high, like choosing someone to knock out a wall or manage your books or fix your back.
Final Thought: Be Useful. Be Quotable. Be Findable.
This new world isn’t terrifying. It’s just more honest.
Because here’s what it’s asking of you:
- Be useful, not salesy.
- Be specific, not generic.
- Be easy to quote.
- Be human.
And if you can manage that — consistently, and with a bit of curiosity — you could show up. Even when the question is being asked to a robot. Even when the question has five arms and three follow-ups. Even when you’re not in the room.
Sure, this whole shift might sound like the start of the Imperial March — foreboding, heavy, a touch “galactic empire.” But maybe you’re mishearing it. Maybe it’s actually Vivaldi’s Spring, telling you that visibility isn’t dying… it’s simply changing key.
