What to Do When ChatGPT or Google's AI Gets Your Business Wrong
A customer shows up expecting a warranty you don’t offer, hours you don’t keep, or a product you stopped making, because an AI tool told them so. Here’s why it happens, how often, and how to fix it at the source.
The short answer
AI tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews mostly repeat what they read about you online: your website, your Google Business Profile, directory listings, and old pages you may have forgotten. When one of those sources is wrong, vague, or out of date, the answer is too.
So the fix is not arguing with the AI. It’s finding the source of the wrong detail, correcting it, publishing the right answer plainly on your own small business website, and then telling search engines the page has changed.
Most of this you can do yourself in an afternoon. The step-by-step version is below.
How often AI gets business details wrong
More often than most owners assume, and more customers are asking.
| Finding | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Consumers who use ChatGPT or other AI tools for local business recommendations | 45% | BrightLocal Local Consumer Review Survey, 2026 |
| Google AI answers about a local business that included something the business doesn’t publish | 27% | Herringbone Labs, September 2026 (600 businesses) |
| ChatGPT answers about a local business that included something the business doesn’t publish | 20% | Herringbone Labs, September 2026 |
| Google AI accuracy when a business publishes the detail clearly vs. vaguely or not at all | 84% vs. 63% | Herringbone Labs, September 2026 |
| ChatGPT accuracy when a business publishes the detail clearly vs. vaguely or not at all | 89% vs. 73% | Herringbone Labs, September 2026 |
| Businesses in the same study that published their hours one clean way | 55% | Herringbone Labs, September 2026 |
The encouraging part is the gap between clear and vague. Businesses that state their details plainly get noticeably more accurate answers from both tools. That part is in your control.
Where the wrong information usually comes from
- Your own old or careless pages. A blog post, a promotion page, or a product page that was never updated. If someone else writes content for your site, a single made-up sentence about a warranty or a discontinued color can end up repeated to customers.
- Your Google Business Profile. A setting picked once and never checked again, like hours set to “Open 24 hours” when you really mean your phone is answered around the clock. In the Herringbone study, 46 of 59 businesses that showed no hours on their own website had their Google listing set to “Open 24 hours.”
- Directories and review sites. Old listings with a previous address, phone number, price list, or menu of services.
- Your website disagreeing with itself. The contact page says one set of hours, the footer says another, and the behind-the-scenes code that labels your details for search engines (often called structured data) says a third.
- Silence. When your site doesn’t say something customers ask about, such as your warranty, your service area, or which insurance you take, AI tools often fill the gap from somewhere else.
How to fix it, step by step
Ask the AI tools what your customers would ask
Open ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google (look at the AI answer at the top of the results) and ask plain questions with your business name in them:
Screenshot every answer, including any sources it lists. This is your before picture. If you’d rather not do it by hand, our free AI check runs a quick version for you.
Find where the wrong detail came from
Click the sources the AI shows. Then search your own website for the wrong detail, including blog posts, old promotion pages, and the footer. Check your Google Business Profile line by line, and look up your business on the directories and review sites you know you’re listed on.
Correct it at the source
Edit or unpublish the wrong page on your site. Fix the setting in your Google Business Profile. Update or claim the directory listings that are out of date. If a page belongs to someone else, contact that site and ask them to update it.
Publish the right answer plainly, in the same words everywhere
Don’t just delete the wrong version. Give AI tools a correct one to read. Write it as one clear sentence, such as “All wallets come with a 2-year warranty” or “Office hours are Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; our phone line is answered 24/7,” and use the same wording on your FAQ, the relevant service or product pages, and any policy page. Then make sure your hours, phone number, and address match your Google Business Profile exactly.
Answering common questions on your own site matters. In our study of 97 NYC dental websites, 52% had no FAQ at all.
Tell search engines the page has changed
- Google: In Google Search Console, use URL Inspection and click “Request indexing” for each corrected page. If you deleted a page or changed it a lot, the Removals tool can temporarily hide the old URL, or clear the old snippet, while Google catches up. Google says a temporary removal lasts about 180 days.
- Bing: Submit the corrected pages in Bing Webmaster Tools. Bing’s index is used by Microsoft’s Copilot and other tools.
- ChatGPT: OpenAI says its search feature uses its own crawler, called OAI-SearchBot, and that sites blocking it won’t appear in ChatGPT search answers. Ask whoever manages your website to confirm your site isn’t blocking it.
Check again in a week or two
Ask the same questions and compare against your screenshots. Answers can take a while to change, and they can differ from one week to the next, so one check isn’t enough. A quick monthly check is a good habit.
If someone else writes content for your website
Hiring help with blog posts, product pages, or ads is reasonable. Just set a few rules before anything goes live:
- Nothing publishes without your approval. Ask for drafts first, every time.
- Give them a one-page fact sheet. Your warranty, return policy, prices, hours, service area, and current products, including what you’ve stopped selling.
- Know who can publish to your site. Keep the main login yourself, give helpers their own accounts, and remove access when the work ends.
- Ask for a full list of what they published. Every page and post, not just the most popular ones, so you can check them all.
More visits only help if they come from people who might buy from you. A post that ranks well but promises something you don’t offer costs you more than it brings in.
What you can’t control (honestly)
- You can’t edit an AI answer directly, and you can’t force it to update on a schedule.
- No one can guarantee what an AI tool will say about your business. Be cautious with anyone who promises that.
- Answers can vary between tools and over time, even when your information is correct.
What you can control is the quality of what they read. That’s where to spend your effort. If you’d like a second pair of eyes, our AI Visibility Audit ($750, credited 100% toward any plan or build) reviews your website, business information, and reputation, and gives you a 90-day plan. For ongoing help getting recommended by AI, see our monthly plans. You can also read the five fixes we recommend to dental practices, most of which apply to any local business.
Frequently asked questions
Can I contact ChatGPT or Google to correct an answer about my business?
Not directly. There is no form that lets a business edit what an AI tool says about it. You can use the feedback buttons in ChatGPT or Google, but the lasting fix is correcting the places the AI reads: your website, your Google Business Profile, and the directories that list your business. Once those sources say the right thing, the answers tend to follow.
How long does it take for AI answers to update after I fix my website?
There is no fixed timeline, and nobody can promise one. It depends on how soon search engines revisit your pages. You can speed up Google by requesting indexing in Search Console, and Google's Removals tool can hide a deleted page from Google Search for about 180 days while it catches up. Check the answers again every week or two until they change.
Should I delete the wrong page or edit it?
If most of the page is useful, edit the wrong sentence and keep the page. If the whole page is wrong or no longer relevant, unpublish it and use the Removals tool in Google Search Console so the old version stops showing in Google. Either way, publish the correct answer somewhere clear on your site so there is a right version to replace the wrong one.
Why do ChatGPT and Google give different answers about my business?
They use different systems and often read different sources, so their answers can disagree even on the same day. Google itself notes that AI Overviews and AI Mode may use different models and show different results. That is why it is worth checking more than one AI tool, and why your details should say the same thing everywhere they appear.
Disclosure. GoCited is a bilingual (English/Korean) web and AI-visibility studio in New York. We sell the audit and monthly services mentioned in this guide. Every step above can be done without us.
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