How long it takes to show up in AI answers
What moves in days, what takes a season, and what nobody can promise.
Worth being straight about, because the honest answer is uneven: some of this moves quickly and some of it doesn't move for months.
Days: the technical work
Crawler access, schema, llms.txt, a sitemap. Once a page is re-crawled the new version is what gets read. Fast, and entirely within your control.
Two to six weeks: your own details
Profile corrections, listing fixes, new pages. The change is made immediately; the delay is engines re-reading the source. Nothing to do but wait and re-check.
One to three months: being named
The gap between "AI describes us correctly" and "AI recommends us" is the longest stretch. It needs enough agreeing sources that naming you is the safe answer. This is where most of the patience goes.
Three months and beyond: reviews and mentions
A steady flow of recent, specific reviews and the occasional real mention. Slowest to build, hardest for a competitor to undo.
What nobody can promise
Anyone guaranteeing you'll be named by a specific date is guessing. There's no ranking to buy and no switch to flip. What can be promised is the work, done properly, and an honest monthly measurement of whether the answers are changing.
How you'll know it's working
Before being named outright, you'll see the engines describe you more accurately, mention you in more specific questions before general ones, and name fewer competitors alongside you. Those move first.
Curious where you stand? Run the free AI visibility check on your own website — it takes about a minute.