When AI gets your business wrong
Old hours, a dead phone number, or another company's details attached to your name.
Being absent from AI answers is one problem. Being present and wrong is worse, because a customer acts on it — turns up when you're closed, calls a number that doesn't ring, or books what they think you do.
Find out what it actually says
Ask each engine directly: "What do you know about [your business name] in [your city]?" Write down anything wrong. Be specific — a wrong closing time matters as much as a wrong address.
Wrong details usually mean two sources disagree
An engine cross-checks your site, your Google profile and directories. When they disagree it doesn't pick the truth, it picks whichever it saw most or most recently. Fixing your website alone rarely fixes the answer, because the stale version is somewhere else.
Start with the ones that get cited most: Google Business Profile, Apple Business Connect, Bing Places, Yelp, and any trade association or chamber listing. Make them identical — not similar. "Ave" and "Avenue" are different strings to a machine.
Confused with another business
Common with a generic name, or a shared address from a previous tenant. The fix is to make yourself more distinct rather than arguing: your full legal name on the site, your own phone number everywhere, your city stated plainly, and LocalBusiness schema so the details are declared rather than guessed.
Closed, moved, or sold — and still listed that way
This one is urgent. If a directory has you marked permanently closed, some engines repeat it, and every day it stands costs you calls. Claim the listing and correct it directly.
Then wait, and check again
Corrections aren't instant. Engines re-read sources on their own schedule — usually weeks, not days. Fix the source, then re-ask the same question in a month. If it's still wrong, there's another source you haven't found.
Curious where you stand? Run the free AI visibility check on your own website — it takes about a minute.