July 17, 2026
Try something. Ask ChatGPT or Google's AI to recommend someone who does what you do, in your suburb. "Who is a good physio in Cronulla" or "best dentist near Miranda" will do. Read the answer carefully. Either you are in it, or your competitors are.
This is not a prediction about the future of search. It is already how a slice of Shire customers behave. Some still scroll a list of blue links. Others now ask a question and get a written answer with two or three businesses named in it. Being one of the named businesses is the new version of ranking first, and most local businesses have never once checked whether they appear.
There is no separate AI directory you can pay to join. These tools build their answers from what already exists: your website, your Google Business Profile, your reviews, and the places around the web that mention you. That is good news, because it means the work is knowable. It is the same raw material as SEO, held to a higher standard.
The higher standard is the important part. A search engine ranks pages and lets the customer judge. An AI answer makes claims, so it favours sources it can quote cleanly: pages that answer questions directly, business details that agree with each other everywhere they appear, and evidence a business is real and active. If you want the theory behind that shift, I compared traditional and answer-engine optimisation in SEO vs AEO for Shire businesses.
Answer questions in plain sentences on your website. AI tools lift answers from pages that state things directly. "A standard switchboard upgrade in the Shire takes most of a day" is quotable. A paragraph of adjectives about quality workmanship is not. Write the questions your customers ask, then answer them like you would on the phone. One deep page built this way outperforms a dozen thin ones, which is the argument of why one deep page beats ten thin service pages.
Make your details agree everywhere. Name, phone number, suburb, hours, services. If your website, your Google Business Profile and the directories disagree about whether you are in Caringbah or Caringbah South, you look unreliable to a system that has to decide what is true before repeating it.
Keep your Google Business Profile genuinely current. Real photos of real jobs, accurate hours, services listed, reviews you actually respond to. It is one of the strongest signals these systems have that a local business exists and is trading. My Google Business Profile guide walks through it section by section.
Earn real mentions. A supplier page that lists you as an installer, the junior footy club you sponsor, the local business chamber, an industry directory that verifies members. Mentions from real organisations are hard to fake, which is exactly why they carry weight.
Do not fake anything. Invented reviews and AI-written filler pages are the fastest way to disappear from systems built specifically to detect what is trustworthy. One caution for the Shire's medical and allied health businesses: AHPRA's advertising rules apply to your web presence no matter who, or what, is repeating it. Get the source material compliant and the AI answers inherit it.
Keep this in proportion. The customer who asks an AI still has to call you, and plenty of Shire jobs are still won and lost on whether anyone picks up, which is a whole topic of its own in what a missed call actually costs a Shire tradie. And for demand you need this month rather than this year, Google Ads still puts you in front of the searcher today while the slower signals build.
Once a month, ask the big three (ChatGPT, Google's AI results, Perplexity) the two or three questions a real Shire customer would ask before hiring you. Note who gets named and what gets said about you. It takes ten minutes and it is the same habit as checking your rankings, one layer up.
I build this into the AI marketing work I do for Shire businesses, because it is not a separate project. It is the same fundamentals, done properly, measured in a new place. If you want to know how your business shows up when the Shire asks an AI, get in touch, call 1300 429 512 or email hello@shiremarketing.com.au and I will run the check with you.
