How do I get my surveying firm recommended by ChatGPT and other AI assistants, and do they recommend surveyors at all?

This is website advice. It cannot promise that ChatGPT, Google’s AI features or any other assistant will name your firm, and nobody outside those companies could. It covers what the published figures show, what you can check on your own site this week, and how to keep a person responsible for what customers read. “In the sites we build” refers to the templates Harvey Rupert uses for surveying and utility locating firms.

Do people use AI assistants to find a surveyor?

Many people use AI tools. Whether they use them to choose a surveyor or a utility locator was not measured in anything we found in October 2026. These figures show general use only.

• Australia: 58% of Australians aged 14 and over used AI tools in an average four weeks (Roy Morgan, fieldwork January to March 2026, 14,646 people).
• UK: 54% of UK adults use AI tools (Ofcom, published 2 April 2026, fieldwork 29 September to 28 November 2025, 7,533 adults).
• US, general search: among 900 US adults and 68,879 searches (Pew Research Center, data collected March 2025, published 22 July 2025), people clicked a link in 8% of visits when Google showed an AI summary and 15% when it did not. Only 1% clicked a link inside the summary, and summaries appeared on 18% of searches.

Firms are adopting AI too, but these figures describe businesses, not their customers. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (25 June 2026) reports that 12% of Australian businesses used AI in 2024-25, with 24% in professional, scientific and technical services and 6% in construction. The Office for National Statistics (2 April 2026) reports 26% of UK businesses using AI in late March 2026, 8 percentage points higher than a year earlier. That is the ONS figure for businesses as a whole, not for one size of firm. None of these sources reports surveyors or utility locators separately.

None of this measures how people choose a surveyor. It supports two modest points: assistants are in common use, and a summary can answer a question without a click, so your page needs to be right wherever it is read. It does not show that you lose work by doing nothing or win it by doing something.

How do AI assistants decide which firms to mention?

The vendors do not publish it, and we found no published study of how assistants pick surveyors. What they do document is how their search features find pages:

• Google: to be a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode, a page must be indexed and eligible to appear in Google Search with a snippet. Google lists no additional technical requirements and says specific optimisation is not required; the usual search fundamentals still apply.
• OpenAI: OAI-SearchBot is the crawler for ChatGPT’s search features, and a site that opts out will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, though it can still appear as a navigational link. GPTBot is a separate crawler for training, and ChatGPT-User visits pages when a person asks a question.
• Anthropic: Claude-SearchBot supports search results and Claude-User fetches pages when a person asks. Anthropic says disabling either may reduce a site’s visibility in Claude’s answers.
• Microsoft: the AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools (public preview from February 2026) shows when pages are cited in Copilot and in AI summaries in Bing. Microsoft notes it does not measure rankings or importance.

The common thread is dull and useful: a page that cannot be crawled, indexed and read cannot be quoted. Some answers may also draw on what a model learned in training, which a firm cannot edit; OpenAI’s crawler list separates the two uses. The part you control is the page.

What can you check today?

1. Ask the questions your clients ask. Use plain wording, such as “who does feature and level surveys (topographical surveys in the UK) near [your town]?” or “who can locate underground services on a site in [your town]?” Ask in ChatGPT, Google’s AI Mode, Copilot and Perplexity. Write down the exact wording, the date and the answer.
2. Read the sources each answer shows. Are they your pages, a directory, a council page or a competitor? Are your firm’s name, area and phone number right? Does it say you do work you do not?
3. Treat one answer as a sample. Answers change from one asking to the next.
4. Check that your pages are indexed. Google’s URL Inspection tool in Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools both show whether a page is in the index. Searching a distinctive sentence from the page in quotation marks is a quick extra check.
5. Check nothing blocks the crawlers. Google says crawling should be allowed in robots.txt and by any CDN or hosting layer in front of the site.
6. Check your Google Business Profile. Google lists up-to-date Business Profile details among its basics for AI features.

What should the site say so a person or an assistant can read it?

This is mostly the advice for a person reading the site. The fuller version is in the guide to what a surveying firm’s website needs.

• One page for each type of work, in the words buyers use, with both terms where the trade uses two. Say what the work is, when it is needed, what is delivered, the typical turnaround and the area you cover.
• Facts in text, not only in pictures. Google asks that important content is available in textual form, so keep phone numbers and service lists as text, not inside an image.
• Credentials beside the work they cover, only if true and current, with a link to the body’s own page. For Australia, see the guide to showing credentials against the work they cover.
• One version of your name, address and phone on the site, the business profile and any directory listing, so anyone comparing them can tell it is one firm.
• Dates on pages that change, and a habit of removing what is out of date: a closed job, a service you no longer offer. Jobs belong on your own site, one page each (see the guide to job posts for survey firms).

In the sites we build, the pages are plain HTML generated in advance, so the text is there without a script running. robots.txt allows all crawlers and points to a sitemap, and every page carries a canonical address. Each site also publishes structured data: a LocalBusiness and ProfessionalService entry (name, address, phone, areas served), a Service entry for each service page and a JobPosting entry for each job, generated from the same content as the page text. Google asks that structured data matches the visible text and says no specific optimisation is needed for its AI features, so we add it for search in general, not as an AI trick.

What should you avoid?

• Invented or bought reviews, and testimonials nobody gave.
• Paying for a promised mention. Be wary of anyone who guarantees that an assistant will name you. No one can.
• Hidden text. Google defines hidden text and link abuse as placing content on a page solely to manipulate search engines and not to be easily viewable by visitors. Text hidden from visitors to tell an assistant what to say about you is hard to defend under that definition.
• Piles of near-identical pages. Google’s spam policy defines scaled content abuse as many pages generated for the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings and not helping users. A town page needs something true and specific about that area.
• Publishing machine-written pages nobody checked.
• A credential you do not hold, or a logo you may not use.
• Blocking search crawlers by accident, through a plugin, a hosting setting or a copied robots.txt.

How do you keep a person in charge of what customers read?

Anything on your website or in your replies is your firm speaking, whoever or whatever drafted it. The rule is simple: AI may help draft, and a person approves before anything reaches a customer.

Among Australian small and medium businesses not using AI, 65% gave distrust of AI decision-making or a wish to keep human control as a reason (National AI Centre, Department of Industry, 3 June 2026, non-adopting SMEs only). That is the view of one group, not of every firm, but it matches the rule we work to.

That is how we run our service. On every plan, the surveyor emails an update, gets a preview back and replies to confirm before it goes live. Harvey Rupert does not build tools that decide depth, position or boundary, and no AI text reaches a customer without the firm’s YES. Where AI is used, and where it is not, is on the page on how we use AI. If you use AI anywhere in your office, say where and where not. If a professional body you belong to has rules on AI, read them yourself; this guide does not interpret any.

How do you track whether any of it is working?

• Ask the same ten questions once a month. Record the date, the assistant, the exact wording, whether your firm was named, which sources were shown and anything wrong.
• Read your enquiry sources. Ask “How did you find us?” on the phone and, if you can, on your enquiry form. Someone may read an assistant’s answer and then search your name or ring you directly, which analytics will not show as an AI visit.
• Use the free reports. Google says AI Overviews and AI Mode appearances count in the Web performance report in Search Console, and in June 2026 it announced separate generative AI reports, rolled out at first to a subset of sites. Bing’s AI Performance report covers Copilot citations. Both count appearances, not enquiries.
• Expect small numbers. Judge by enquiries, not by whether an assistant named you once.

What is the one-page checklist?

• I have asked ten of my clients' questions in two or more assistants, and written down the answers and the sources shown.
• Each page I want found is indexed in Google and Bing.
• robots.txt, and any security or hosting setting, lets search crawlers in.
• Each type of work has its own page, with scope, deliverables, turnaround and area in plain text.
• My phone number, address and email are text, not pictures, and match my business profile.
• Credentials sit beside the work they cover, and only true, current ones appear.
• Pages that change carry a date, and out-of-date ones are fixed or removed.
• No invented reviews, no hidden text, no near-identical pages.
• A person approves anything AI drafts before a customer can read it.
• I repeat the questions monthly and read my enquiry sources, and I do not rely on a single answer.