Your customers are asking AI who to call. Is it saying your name?
41% of Ontarians now use AI to guide what they buy and who they hire. When they ask, they get a short list of names and pick one. Does your business show up while they're deciding? We check for free. If you're not there, we get you there.
Source: Léger survey for National Bank, June 2026, 1,518 Canadians. National figure 39%.
Within one business day you'll get our analysis, whether your website is blocking the AI crawlers, and a few fixes you can do yourself to improve how your business shows up in AI answers.
We tested Potentia on 48 GTA heating and cooling companies. Nearly half never showed up when customers asked for help.
The companies AI skipped weren't the weak ones. Several had decades of history and hundreds of reviews. But their reputation lives in places AI doesn't read: word of mouth, a truck people recognize, a website that says "call for a quote." AI builds its answer from what's written down and repeated across the web. If that record is thin, decades of good work are invisible to it.
Why good businesses don't show up in AI answers
Google gave your customers a list of links to choose from. AI gives them an answer. That one change is the whole problem.
AI answers. It doesn't list.
Ask Google and you get ten links and choose one. Ask an AI assistant and it reads what's out there, decides which businesses it trusts, and writes a single answer. Being on page one of Google doesn't put you in that answer.
It trusts what others say about you.
The AI decides who to recommend from the web as a whole: review sites, directories, local forums, news, and how consistently your name and details show up across them. Your own website is one voice among many. If the rest of the web is quiet about you, so is the AI.
It needs facts it can lift off the page.
AI pulls from pages that state things plainly: what you do, where, what it costs, how fast. "Call for a quote" gives it nothing to work with. A page that answers the question gets used. A page that hints gets skipped.
Your reviews and your Google ranking still matter. They're the foundation. AI adds a new test on top: is your business written down, in the right places, clearly enough for a machine to trust it and repeat it?
Getting recommended by AI is built in layers. Start now, because it compounds.
There's no switch to flip. AI trust builds the way a reputation does: in layers, over months. The businesses being recommended today started earlier, and every month you wait, their lead grows. Here's the order it has to happen in.
Make sure AI can read your site.
Fast, secure, works on a phone, nothing blocking the crawlers. If AI can't get in, nothing else counts.
Put real substance on your pages.
Real prices, real timelines, photos of real jobs, a named person behind the business. AI can tell first-hand from recycled.
Answer the questions people actually ask.
One clear question, one clear answer, at the top of the page. Not buried in a paragraph about your family history.
Get talked about beyond your own site.
Complete listings on the review sites and directories AI reads, the same name and details everywhere, and reviews that mention the actual job.
Measure, then keep going.
Ask the AI the same questions every month, see what moved, fix the next gap. This is where it compounds.
We find out where you stand, then do the work with you until AI recommends you.
The free check is the measurement: we ask the AI assistants the questions your customers ask and tell you where you stand. The audit finds which layers you're missing and why the businesses being recommended aren't missing them. The 90-day program climbs the ladder with you, one layer at a time, and re-measures every month so you can watch it compound. It's the same kind of measurement enterprise brands pay for, plus a team that does the work.
What it costs
Free to find out where you stand. Paid only if there's a gap worth closing, and then we close it with you.
Where you stand in AI answers today, who's being recommended instead, whether your site is blocking the AI crawlers, and a few fixes you can do yourself.
Get my free checkEvery answer we collected, the sites the AI relied on, which layers you're missing, and the fix list in order. Includes a 30-minute walkthrough.
Credited against your first month if you go ahead with the program.
Ask about the auditWe do the work, layer by layer, re-measure every month, and give you a written verdict at day 90. $6,000 in total, no contract beyond that.
Founding offer: $5,000 for the full 90 days for the first three businesses in each industry, in exchange for letting us publish your results.
Book a callOntario may pay for part of this. The Digital Main Street grant gives storefront businesses up to $2,500 for digital consulting. We'll help you apply.
Questions owners ask us
Is this just SEO with a new name?
No, but it builds on it. SEO is about getting your website to rank on a page of results so someone clicks it. When a customer asks an AI assistant, there is no page of results. The AI reads across the web, decides which businesses it trusts, and writes one answer, sometimes with sources listed and often without.
Getting into that answer takes the same foundations as good SEO: a healthy site, real content, a good reputation. It also takes things SEO never asked for. Pages that state facts plainly enough for a machine to lift them. A consistent presence on the review sites, directories and forums the AI reads. And a way to measure whether you're being mentioned at all, since there's no ranking to look up. If your SEO is solid, you're partway there. It's not the whole way.
What does the free check actually look at?
Three things. First, we ask the AI assistants the questions a customer would ask before hiring a business like yours, several times each, and record whether you're named, where in the list, and who is named instead. Second, we check whether your website is quietly blocking the AI crawlers, which is more common than you'd think and takes minutes to fix. Third, we look at the sites the AI relied on for its answers and whether you're on them. You get all of it in one plain email, with the fixes you can do yourself.
Which AI assistants do you check?
ChatGPT, Google's Gemini and AI Overviews, Claude, and Perplexity. They work differently. Some search the web live when you ask, others lean on what they learned in training, and they don't always agree with each other. That's why we check all four and ask each question several times rather than trusting one screenshot.
How long before I see results?
Months, not days. AI trust builds the way a reputation does, one layer at a time, and there's no shortcut past the layers. That's also why starting matters: the businesses being recommended today started earlier. Our 90-day program measures every month, and at day 90 you get a written verdict on whether it's working.
Will I need a new website?
Usually not. Most of the work is on the pages you already have: stating prices and timelines, putting the answer at the top of the page, adding a named owner, and making sure the site loads fast and isn't blocking crawlers. We rebuild only when the site itself is stopping AI from reading it.
What if the check shows I'm already being recommended?
Then we'll tell you that, and tell you to keep your money. Some owners still take the audit to see what's holding the position and what a competitor would need to do to take it.
Do you guarantee results?
No, and be careful of anyone who does. AI answers change from one ask to the next, which is why we run each question several times and report rates rather than one-off wins. What we guarantee is the work, done in the right order, and honest monthly measurement. At day 90 you get the numbers and a written go or no-go.
I'm not in home services. Does this apply to me?
If customers find you by asking around (clinics, trades, lawyers, accountants, anything local), yes. The principles are the same in every industry. Only the questions people ask change.
Search is turning into an answer. Ask an AI assistant who to call, and it gives you a name, not a page of links to sort through yourself. Most small businesses have no idea whether their name is one of them.
Big brands already know this. They're spending thousands of dollars with agencies to make sure ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and other AI engines recommend them first, and that spending is only going up. Google isn't going anywhere, and the SEO fundamentals that got a business found for the last twenty years still matter, they're the floor everything else stands on. But there's a new layer on top now, and small businesses, the ones with the least time and the smallest budgets, are the ones least equipped to see it coming or do anything about it. An HVAC company, a clinic, a local accountant can have twenty years of reputation built one satisfied customer at a time, and none of it matters if an AI engine has never heard of them. I've spent 18 years building content and measurement systems for companies that could afford to get this right. Potentia is that same practical toolkit, aimed at the businesses nobody's helping yet: find out where you stand, fix what's fixable, and keep your reputation intact in a market that's changing faster than most owners have time to notice.
Find out if AI is sending customers to you, or to someone else.
Within one business day you'll get our analysis and a few fixes you can do yourself.