What owners ask me about AI

Whether tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews mention your business when customers ask about what you do -- and whether what they say is true. It's now your marketing and your reputation at the same time.

I run a fixed set of questions your customers actually ask across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google. I record whether you're named, how you're described, what's wrong, and which sources the engines rely on. Each engine gets reported separately because they rarely agree.

SEO helps a page rank. AI visibility measures whether an AI system trusts your business enough to name it in an answer. That depends far more on reviews, the directories your customers use, and local press than on your site's code. In a study of 10,000 businesses, structured data and similar technical fixes "barely moved the needle."

Sometimes, but not reliably. Plenty of businesses rank on page one and never come up when someone asks AI for a recommendation. Showing up in Google's local map results matters much more. In the same study, 75% of the most-recommended businesses appeared there, compared with 21% of the least-recommended businesses.

Mostly because of the volume of public evidence. The most-recommended local businesses averaged 304 reviews, while the least-recommended averaged 118. Star rating barely mattered. The engines reward businesses that lots of people have bothered to talk about.

No, and be careful with anyone who says they can. Nobody controls what these engines say. What I can do is find out what they're saying now, fix what's wrong, and build up the evidence they rely on.

No. No affiliate links and no referral fees from software vendors. If I recommend a tool, it's because it's the right one for you.

Every engagement has a fixed fee, quoted after an initial conversation. If you continue with ongoing work, the audit fee is credited toward it in full.

I work with owner-led businesses outside the tech industry, especially multi-location dental and physical therapy groups, private clubs, and regional law and financial advisory firms.

No. I'm based in Northern California and work with businesses anywhere in the U.S.

Yes. Call 415.385.4264 before you post anything.

Agencies sell activity: posts, ads, pages, and campaigns, usually delivered by a team you rarely meet. A fractional CMO runs your entire marketing function. Red Dog does something narrower and deeper: I find out what AI and your customers hear about your business, rank what needs fixing first, and build a system your own team can run. You work with me directly. If you need ad management or a full marketing department, hire an agency or a CMO. If you already have one, I work alongside them.

No. SEO firms help your website rank on Google, and that still matters. But when someone asks ChatGPT or Google's AI for a recommendation, the answer leans heavily on what others say about your business: your reviews, your Google Business Profile, the directories your customers trust, and local press. Technical fixes help AI read your site, but they rarely determine whether you get recommended. I look at the whole picture, including what AI says when someone asks about you by name, and whether it's true.

You might. Several tools now check whether AI mentions your business, and some will write and publish pages for your site. If missing pages are your real problem, a tool may be enough. What software doesn't do is decide which of a dozen problems to fix first, uncover the stories your business has never put into words, or tell you what to say when something goes wrong. If a tool is the right answer, I'll recommend one. I take no commissions on anything I recommend.

Keep it. Those platforms are good at asking for reviews and making them easy to answer. What they don't show you is which directories AI actually draws on in your field, what your reviews add up to when someone asks AI about your business, or where you're falling short compared with the competitors it recommends instead. The audit shows you all three, and what to change first.

PR firms are built for press coverage and big-company announcements. Crisis firms usually show up after something breaks. I spent 25 years in that world, leading communications at eBay, at HP through the Mark Hurd resignation, and at LinkedIn through its IPO and the $26 billion Microsoft acquisition. Red Dog brings that experience to owner-led businesses before a crisis hits: knowing what's being said about you, fixing what's wrong, and having a plan and someone to call if things go sideways.

Some of it, yes, and they should. Asking ChatGPT about your business is a good first look. But asking the right questions across every assistant your customers use, checking each answer against the facts, tracing a wrong answer to its source, and deciding what to fix first is a different job. That's what the audit does. After that, the goal is for your team to run the system, not to depend on me.