Does AI Know Who You Are?

50 years ago, it was “Do you have a listing in the yellow pages?”

The basic listing with your name, address, and phone number was free. Your clients could pick up the book and search for you. To make sure they’d find you, you could pay to upgrade your listing with enhancements, placement, and advertising.

The internet put the Yellow Pages out of business. Rather, Google put the Yellow Pages out of business. Because then it became, “Do you have a web page?” Your clients could Google search for you. To make sure they’d find you, you could pay Google to upgrade your listing with enhancements, placement, and advertising.

I think the question is about to change again. I think it’s gonna be, “Does AI know who you are?”

Your clients are asking AI:

“Who can help me with this?”
“What product should I use?”
“Who knows how to solve this problem?”

And AI will give them an answer.

So what’s the new Yellow Pages listing? What’s the new web page? And what do you need to do to make sure AI knows you exist?

When you ask AI itself this, it provides the following:

That means the future version of “being listed” may not be about owning a webpage. It may be about making your business legible to AI: clearly stating what you do, who you help, where you operate, what problems you solve, what your products are, and why someone should trust you.

I don’t yet know how we do that, but I think we’re about to find out.