When clients ask about "AI search," they almost always mean ChatGPT. It's the name they know, so it's the name they worry about. A recent report gives you a sharper story to tell them — and a cleaner service to sell.
The Locafy AI Search Visibility Report examined how leading assistants handle local queries like "best roofer near me." The headline: Perplexity, Grok, and Google's AI Overviews cite their sources far more often than ChatGPT. In plain terms, a citation is the named, linked source an AI shows behind its answer — the thing a customer can actually click.
For local clients, that reframes the whole conversation. ChatGPT tends to answer generally, without naming businesses. The citation-heavy engines are where an AI answer becomes a click, a call, or a booking. So the engine your client fears most may be the one least likely to move their revenue.
How to position it
Don't sell "AI optimization" as a vague upgrade. Sell visibility in the engines that cite — because those are the ones tied to leads. Frame it the way clients already understand local marketing: "We're making sure the assistants that link to businesses can find, trust, and quote yours."
This lands especially well with clients who've plateaued on traditional local SEO. It's a new surface with the same underlying discipline they're already paying you for.
How to package it as billable work
Three tiers work cleanly:
Audit — a fixed-fee baseline showing where the client appears (and doesn't) across Perplexity, Grok, Google AI, and ChatGPT, with a prioritized fix list. This is your foot in the door and it demos well, because you can screenshot a query where a competitor gets cited and they don't.
Cleanup — the implementation: profile accuracy, consistent name/address/phone across listings, and clear on-page statements of what the business does and where. Much of this overlaps with local SEO you already deliver, so margins are strong.
Monitoring — a recurring retainer line. Citations shift as models update, so "are we still being cited?" is a real, ongoing question. Recurring revenue, low delivery cost.
What it means for your own shop
The report is useful cover for a pricing conversation. "AI visibility" is new enough that clients don't have a reference price, which protects your margin from the race-to-the-bottom that commoditized basic SEO. Move now, while it's a differentiator rather than a checkbox everyone offers.
One caution: don't overpromise placement. You can't guarantee a citation any more than you could guarantee a #1 ranking. Sell the process — accuracy, clarity, consistency — and report on measured presence across engines. That keeps expectations honest and renewals easy.
SimpleAIO is built for exactly this workflow: run audits across all the major assistants, hand clients plain-English fixes, and re-test to show movement. It's the fastest way to turn this report into a service you can quote this quarter — and a line item that keeps billing after the setup is done.