Guides · 2 October 2026
Where does ChatGPT get local business information?
Short answerChatGPT can answer from what it learned in training and, when it searches the web, from live results and its own crawler, OAI-SearchBot. Reports say it sometimes uses Bing's index. OpenAI doesn't publish a full source list for local answers, so the safe approach is to be accurate and consistent everywhere an assistant might look.
What OpenAI says
OpenAI documents its crawlers, including OAI-SearchBot for search and GPTBot for training, and says site owners control them through robots.txt. If you block everything, you can't be found.
What is reported but not confirmed
Several industry guides say ChatGPT search draws on Bing's index as well as its own crawler. That is why we recommend Bing Places alongside Google and Apple.
What to do
- Make sure your robots.txt allows search crawlers.
- Complete Google, Bing and Apple listings with identical details.
- Put your key facts in plain text on your website.
- Ask ChatGPT about you and write down the result.
Questions people ask
Does ChatGPT use Google Business Profile?
OpenAI hasn't said so. Google Business Profile still feeds Google's own results and many sites that copy it, so it is worth completing either way.
Related guides
- Why isn't my business showing up on ChatGPT?
- Which business listings does AI use?
- How does AI decide which local businesses to recommend?
Sources
- OpenAI: Overview of OpenAI crawlers
- HubSpot: guide to ChatGPT search visibility
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