If you run a small business in Spokane and you’ve felt like Google has been changing under your feet, you’re not imagining it. The way customers find businesses online is shifting from a list of blue links to a conversation with an AI. ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, and Bing Copilot are now part of how real people research, compare, and decide who to call.
I put together an infographic to make this easier to digest, and this post walks through what each section means in plain language, with sources. One thing to say up front: this is a snapshot. AI search optimization is moving fast and changing often. Numbers shift quarter to quarter, platforms change their citation rules, and what worked six months ago may not work today. That is exactly why working with someone who tracks this every week matters.
Here’s the breakdown.
1. The Platforms
Four platforms make up the bulk of AI search activity right now: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews (powered by Gemini), Perplexity, and Bing Copilot.
The scale is bigger than most business owners realize:
- ChatGPT has 900 million weekly active users (TechCrunch, Feb. 2026)
- Google’s Gemini app has 400 million monthly users, and AI Overviews reach 1.5 billion users per month (Adapting Social, summarizing Google I/O 2025)
- Perplexity has around 30 million monthly active users (Backlinko, Jan. 2026)
For context, Spokane’s population is about 230,000. ChatGPT alone gets nearly 4,000 times that many people every week.
These tools are now part of everyday discovery. People ask ChatGPT for a good HVAC company before they ask Google. They scan the AI Overview at the top of their search results before they click anything. If your business is invisible in those answers, you are invisible to a growing slice of the market.
2. The Terms
You’ll hear these acronyms thrown around. Here’s what they actually mean:
- GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) – the practice of optimizing content so AI engines can understand, summarize, and cite your business
- AIO (AI Optimization) – a broader umbrella term covering the same idea
- LLM (Large Language Model) – the underlying technology behind ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and similar tools
- Citations – the source links AI systems reference when they generate an answer. Getting cited is the AI search equivalent of ranking on page one
Two stats from a Semrush study published in March 2026 put the urgency in perspective: 85% of AI users use these tools at least weekly, and 77% use AI alongside traditional search rather than replacing it. Your customers are doing both at the same time.
3. How AI Picks Who to Recommend
This is the part business owners ask about most. How does an AI decide which businesses to mention?
Four factors come up consistently:
- Trust – authoritative sources, legitimate businesses, established presence
- Clarity – clean page structure, headings that match what the page is about
- Citations – verifiable details, named sources, real data
- Structure – direct answers to direct questions, organized in a way machines can parse
The good news for businesses already doing solid SEO: a BrightEdge study from September 2025 found that 54% of AI Overview citations now come from organic rankings. Strong traditional SEO is the foundation of strong AI visibility.
The trust angle matters too. According to a Yext press release from July 2025, 62% of consumers now trust AI tools for brand discovery. That is a remarkable shift, and it tells you something important: people are taking AI recommendations seriously, and they are acting on them.
4. What Makes a Site AI-Friendly
If you want AI to recommend your business, your website needs to be readable by AI. That means a few specific things:
- FAQ sections with self-contained answers – every Q&A should make sense on its own, not require context from the rest of the page
- Schema markup – structured data that explicitly tells search engines what your page is about
- Clear service definitions – say what you do, where, and for whom in plain language
- Strong internal linking – connect related pages so AI understands the relationships
- Crawlable pages — no JavaScript-only content that bots cannot read
- Fast load times – slow sites get skipped
Two final stats to ground this. According to Semrush data published in February 2026, AI Overviews triggered on 13.14% of U.S. desktop searches in March 2025. Semrush’s Year in Review from December 2025 reported AI visibility peaked at 24.6% of results during 2025.
Those numbers are already outdated. By early 2026, AI Overviews are triggering on closer to half of all searches, and growing. That brings me to the most important point in this whole post.
This Is a Moving Target
Everything you just read is a snapshot of where AI search is right now. The platforms keep changing how they choose citations. New AI tools launch every few months. Google adjusts AI Overviews almost weekly. The percentage of searches triggering AI answers has roughly tripled in the past year, and nobody serious is predicting it slows down.
What that means for your business: you cannot set up your website once and assume it will keep showing up in AI search. The sites that win are the ones being maintained, updated, and optimized as the rules shift.
This is not a “build it and forget it” channel. It is closer to running ads, where the work is ongoing and the people doing it well are watching the data every week.
If you want to know whether your Spokane business is showing up in ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, or Perplexity right now, that is exactly what we look at in our free website and AI search audit. We run searches an actual customer would run, see whether you come up, and show you what is missing. No cost, no obligation.
Get your free AI search audit at 20milesnorth.com or call 509-475-1177.
Sources
- ChatGPT reaches 900M weekly active users — TechCrunch, Feb. 27, 2026
- Google I/O 2025 recap: Gemini app 400M monthly users, AI Overviews 1.5B users per month — Adapting Social, June 10, 2025
- Perplexity AI statistics — Backlinko, Jan. 19, 2026
- 62% of global consumers trust AI tools for brand discovery — Yext, July 22, 2025
- 85% of AI users use it at least weekly, 77% use AI plus traditional search together — Semrush, Mar. 5, 2026
- AI Overview citations 54% from organic rankings — BrightEdge, Sept. 18, 2025
- AI Overviews triggered on 13.14% of U.S. desktop searches in March 2025 — Semrush, Feb. 4, 2026
- AI visibility peaked at 24.6% of results in 2025 — Semrush Year in Review, Dec. 23, 2025