Getting to the top of ChatGPT does not start in ChatGPT. An AI assistant does not invent restaurants. It reads what is already online about your business: your business profile, your listings, your menu as readable text and your reviews. If all of that is correct everywhere and complete, you show up in the answer. If something is missing, it names a venue nearby.

With two to twenty locations this becomes mostly a matter of volume, because your visibility comes out of dozens of small pieces of information per location. That work can be planned, as long as you take it location by location and work through it in a fixed order.

What decides whether an AI assistant names your business?

An assistant picks the venue its sources say the most about and disagree the least about. These are the same details that already decide your SEO and your visibility, only they are checked more strictly. A guest on Google still clicks through to your site to see whether you are open on Monday. An assistant does not: it gives one answer and leaves out whatever it is unsure about. So opening hours that show up differently in three places is not a cosmetic problem.

How often this happens has been measured. Local Falcon analysed 189,905 ChatGPT search results alongside the Google results for restaurant searches and found that 83% of restaurants cannot be found in ChatGPT, against 14% in Google. The same venues that are easy to find in Google therefore do not turn up in an AI answer.

You do not need new technology for it. Google writes in its own documentation on AI features: *“You don’t need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, or markup to appear in these features”*, and that no special schema.org markup exists for it either. The ordinary rules still apply, and the heaviest of those is that your information reads the same everywhere.

What does an assistant read about your business, and what does it not?

Without that link from your profile, a guest who has just found you does not end up on your own ordering page.

Seven steps to come up higher in ChatGPT and Google

The first four steps are about information that is correct, and without those four, everything after them adds up to very little.

1. Start by looking at what is being said about your business now. Ask an assistant where someone can eat tonight on the street your location is on, and then ask about the dish you are known for. Different wordings give different answers, so do it a few times. Location by location, because every location has its own neighbourhood and its own competition. *(In depth: what ChatGPT sees when someone looks for a restaurant.)*

2. Fill in your business profile completely for every location. Address, category, opening hours including public holidays, photos and a phone number that gets answered. This carries more weight than anything else, because almost every other source branches off it. *(In depth: where AI gets its information about your restaurant.)*

3. Put your menu on your site as text. Publish the menu as a pdf or as a photo and your dishes do not appear on any page about your business. For a venue with a speciality of its own, the menu is your largest supply of search questions: every dish and every speciality beer is something someone can ask about. *(In depth: where AI gets its information.)*

4. Make it identical everywhere, and keep it that way. With several locations this is the most work, because a change to your opening hours has to reach dozens of places and that is the same round every time. SOUS Spotlight pushes a change like that through to 45-plus platforms and search engines in one go, per location.

5. Keep bringing in reviews and answer them in your own tone. Reviews are one of the few signals you do not write yourself, which is why they count. In SOUS Spotlight you set per star rating what happens automatically: the high ratings run automatically, the low ones you keep for yourself. *(In depth: how AI assistants choose which restaurant to recommend.)*

6. Track the venues around you. Visibility is always a comparison: it is about how your business comes across next to the other venues on the same street. With SOUS Spotlight you track them and come up higher than they do, per location. *(In depth: how AI assistants choose which restaurant to recommend.)*

7. Repeat it, because the models change faster than your menu does. A profile you get in order once will slide back afterwards. SOUS Spotlight delivers 20 content suggestions a week and a report every two weeks, so there is something to act on. *(In depth: staying findable as the AI models change.)*

With several locations you do not do this everywhere at once. Start with one location and then copy what worked.

What can you measure from this?

Not everything. A guest who comes in through an assistant does not tell you how they found you, so an order cannot be tied back to a search. What can be counted: how often you appear on the map, how often someone opens your menu, how often a route is requested, how often someone calls from a search result and how much time the phone takes.

These are the figures that hospitality businesses working with SOUS have published themselves:

What does it cost to outsource this?

You can take the seven steps yourself. What you then have to work out is how many hours of upkeep each location takes, because step 4 and step 7 never stop.

Our prices for SOUS Spotlight:

That gets you the management portal with the AI dashboard, your information going out to 45-plus platforms and search engines, review replies per star rating, tracking of the venues around you, 20 content suggestions a week, a report every two weeks and onboarding by a specialist followed by a dedicated account manager. The amount applies per location, because every location has its own profile and its own neighbourhood.

Where the order lands

In August 2026 Google showed where this is heading: an assistant that places a takeaway order itself puts that order into the ordering system connected to the venue. If your takeaway runs through a delivery platform, that order arrives there, at the commission that comes with it.

A guest who already names your business does not have to come in through a third party. So put a link to your own ordering page in place from every location profile. That is what SOUS Commerce was built for, with 0% commission on direct orders.

Where you start today

With the baseline measurement, because otherwise you change information without knowing what is missing right now. The free AI scan from SOUS asks for the name of your business and your average spend per guest: take the free AI scan. After that you line up steps 2 to 7 per location. The 1000-plus restaurants working with SOUS include single venues and groups; the order is the same, you just run through it more often.

Frequently asked questions

Can anyone guarantee that ChatGPT recommends my restaurant?

No. A place in the answer cannot be bought or promised by anyone. What you do is make sure that everything an assistant can find about your business is correct and reads the same everywhere, and that brings you up higher than venues where it does not.

Do I need to put a special AI file or extra markup on my site?

No. Google writes in its own documentation on AI features that you do not have to create machine readable files, AI text files or markup for it, and that no special schema.org markup exists for it.

My guests are 55-plus and do not use AI. Why should I do this?

Because it does not depend on your guest whether they look up an AI tool. AI answers sit in the channels they already use: above the Google search results, in maps and in the search function of their apps.

Does this work if I do not have a website?

Yes, up to a point. Your business profile and your listings carry the most weight and they stand apart from a site. Without a site you do miss the place where your menu can sit as text, and that is the part with the most search questions in it.

How long does it take before I notice anything?

That depends on what is missing now; a half-filled profile shows a difference sooner than a profile that is already correct. It stays upkeep, so plan it as something that keeps running.

Does this apply per location or to my whole group?

Per location. Every location has its own profile, its own neighbourhood and its own competitors, and SOUS Spotlight is billed per location, at €90 per month with annual billing. So with four locations you run steps 2 to 7 four times.