GEO by Industry: What AI Engines Check About Your Kind of Business

The engine stays the same, the witnesses change

ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews do not keep one rulebook for roofers and another for credit unions. They search, read and summarize. What changes is the pile of documents waiting for them. Say a homeowner in Boerne asks for a licensed electrician who installs EV chargers. The useful pages are a Business Profile, a couple of review sites and the state's license search. Ask the same engine for a fee-only adviser and the pile becomes a firm website, a regulatory filing and a BrokerCheck record. Same machine, different evidence locker.

That is why a generic checklist only goes so far. The shared parts are real: one consistent name and address, a site whose text sits in the HTML, honest reviews, pages that answer real questions. Our main GEO guide covers them, and the definition of generative engine optimization covers the term itself. But the records that tip an answer, and the rules on what you may say about yourself, are set by your trade. According to a 2024 BrightLocal study of local searches in ChatGPT, business websites made up 58% of cited sources, third-party mentions 27% and directories 15%. Which directories and which mentions depends on what you sell.

No engine reads your slogan. It reads whoever is allowed to vouch for you.

Four families and the records that vouch for them

Here is the short map. Each family has an overview page that goes deeper, and each row names the kind of source an engine can check without taking your word for anything.

Two patterns jump out. First, much of what an engine trusts is not yours to write: a license board, a bank regulator or a review platform publishes it. Your job is to make sure those records exist, are current and match what your own site says. Second, the regulated families carry rules about testimonials and claims that cap what content can do, and those rules change the plan more than any engine quirk does.

Trades: a license number, a neighbor and a letter grade

For contractors, the evidence is local and checkable. Texas homeowners can look up AC, electrical and mold licenses through TDLR's License Search, plumbers through the State Board of Plumbing Examiners, and pest control firms through the Department of Agriculture's Structural Pest Control Service. Yelp says its reviews and business details are surfaced inside ChatGPT and also power Apple Maps, Alexa+ and Bing (announced August 10, 2026). Nextdoor Faves come from verified neighbors and cannot be bought. A BBB letter grade weighs complaint handling, licensing and advertising issues, and leaves customer reviews out of the grade.

The trade decides which of those carry weight. Roofers in Texas have no state license to point to, so manufacturer programs and reviews do the vouching. A mover lives by its TxDMV and U.S. DOT numbers. A tree service has the ISA's Find an Arborist directory. The home services overview lays out the whole family, and the trade pages go further:

• HVAC and plumbing: emergency questions, state license lookups, and Carrier or NATE locators that name certified technicians.
• Roofing: no statewide license, searches that arrive with the hail, and a Texas law against advertising to pay or waive an insurance deductible.
• Electricians and solar: TDLR licenses and, for solar sellers, TDLR registration rules that apply from September 1, 2026.
• Pest control and landscaping: Department of Agriculture licensing for anyone applying pesticides for hire, and a ban on calling pest treatments safe or organic.
• Moving companies: registration numbers that Texas requires on the home page itself.

Retail: the feed is the shop window an engine looks through

Stores are judged on product data at least as much as on reputation. Google says Merchant Center free listings can show products at no cost across Search, Maps, Gemini, YouTube and Lens, though nothing guarantees a product appears. It also recommends putting Product markup in the initial HTML and stating shipping and return policies at the organization level. On January 11, 2026 Google launched the Universal Commerce Protocol, built with Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target and Walmart, to power checkout inside AI Mode and the Gemini app. Shopify says its Agentic Storefronts channel sends eligible merchants' catalogs to ChatGPT, Copilot and Google's AI surfaces automatically.

So most of a retailer's GEO work is data hygiene: titles that say what the thing is, prices that match the page, availability that is true today. The e-commerce overview explains the family. Category pages handle the wrinkles: Shopify stores, fashion and apparel, beauty and cosmetics, jewelry under the FTC's Jewelry Guides, supplements under FDA and FTC claim rules, and local retail, where in-store stock can appear through a local inventory feed linked to a Business Profile.

Finance and practices: a regulator writes the first paragraph

For a bank, an adviser or a physician, the most authoritative page about the business is often a government or self-regulatory record. FINRA BrokerCheck shows registrations, employment history and disclosures for brokers and investment adviser representatives. FDIC BankFind confirms a bank is insured and lists its branches and mergers. Texas sends mortgage borrowers to NMLS Consumer Access, and CPAverify covers licensed CPAs from 53 participating state boards. On the practice side, the Texas Medical Board's lookup shows verified license status and disciplinary actions, and the State Bar of Texas runs a Find a Lawyer directory.

Those records are hard to influence and easy for an engine to trust, so the first job is agreement: the firm name, the people, the addresses and the services on your site should match what the regulator shows. Start with the financial services overview, then the trade: registered investment advisors, community banks, credit unions, mortgage lenders, insurance agencies or accounting firms. Professional firms have their own pages for dental offices, restaurants, real estate and SaaS companies, where G2 and Capterra reviews do much of the vouching.

Testimonials: who may quote a happy customer, and how

Reviews feed AI answers in every family, but the rules for asking for them and showing them on your own site differ sharply. The floor is the same for everyone. The FTC's rule on consumer reviews and testimonials, in force since October 21, 2024, bans fake and AI-written reviews, rewards tied to positive sentiment and review suppression. Google's Maps policy goes further and bans any incentive at all, plus asking only the customers you expect to be happy. Above that floor, licensed professions stack their own layers.

• Investment advisers: the SEC Marketing Rule allows testimonials only with clear disclosure of whether the person is a client, whether they were paid, and any conflicts.
• Broker-dealers: FINRA Rule 2210(d)(6) requires testimonial disclosures, and 2210(d)(8) requires a readily apparent BrokerCheck link on the firm's website.
• Medical and dental practices: HHS's Office for Civil Rights has fined practices for revealing patient details in replies to online reviews, so replies stay general.
• Texas lawyers: Rule 7.01 bars statements likely to create unjustified expectations about results, and an advertised settlement must show what the client actually received.
• Restaurants and shops on Yelp: Yelp's guidelines say businesses should never ask customers to write reviews there at all.

How to use your industry page in fifteen minutes

Every industry page works through the same questions, though the answers differ by trade: what customers ask the engines, which sources the engines lean on, which rules limit what you publish, what content they can quote, how reviews work, and a first 30 days. Each also pairs with a marketing plan for the same trade and a website page, so the three efforts point the same way instead of pulling apart.

1. 1

   Ask the question your customers ask

   Run it through the free AI visibility check, which queries ChatGPT and other engines live through their APIs and shows who was named. API answers can differ a little from the consumer apps.

2. 2

   Find your family, then your trade

   Open the overview for your family, then the trade page. Note the two or three sources it names that you have never looked at.

3. 3

   Check the records that vouch for you

   Look yourself up in the license search, regulator database or credential locator your trade uses. A lapsed or mismatched record undercuts everything else you publish.

4. 4

   Fix the listings before the prose

   Google Business Profile, Apple Business (which replaced Apple Business Connect on April 14, 2026) and Bing Places should carry the same name, address, phone and hours.

5. 5

   Decide what to hand off

   A free GEO audit comes back with a fix list and a fixed monthly quote. The GEO pricing page explains what moves the number.

If your trade has no page yet

The section keeps growing, and some businesses fall between pages. The mechanics carry over. Read how AI chooses which businesses to name, why entity optimization matters when your name collides with someone else's, and how reviews shape AI recommendations. Then ask the trade question: who, besides you, is allowed to say you are legitimate? A licensing board, a manufacturer, a professional body, a marketplace. That list is the first draft of your plan.

If you would rather hand it off, GEO is part of DataCram's monthly SEO programs. They start at $625 a month with no long contract, and most local businesses land between $625 and $2,250, per the SEO pricing page. Read how we run AI and GEO search optimization, or call (210) 346-0848. We are based in San Antonio and work with businesses across the US.