The share of homebuyers using AI tools to research agents jumped from 17% to 67% in the past 18 months, yet 91% of agents remain invisible in AI search.
This work has a name now: answer engine optimization, or AEO. It means making sure AI recommends you instead of a competitor when someone asks who to call.
Maybe you don’t have weeks to run the full audit. But you do have about an hour before your next listing appointment, and that’s enough time to change what AI says about you before you walk in the door.
Tackle these five fixes before your next appointment. Every one of them makes a difference, and the benefits compound as you work your way down the list.
#1. Run the Two-Minute AI Prompt Test First
Before you touch anything else on this list, find out what AI says about you.
Open ChatGPT and type one question:
Should I hire [Your Name] to sell my home?
Then ask a second question:
Who is the best real estate agent in [your neighborhood]?
If your name doesn’t turn up in that second answer, you’ve found your starting point for the day.
Phil Stringer, who led a BAMx session on training AI search to recommend real estate agents, suggests one more prompt before you close the laptop: ask ChatGPT to generate the questions buyers and sellers in your market are most likely to search when they’re looking for an agent.
Save what it gives you. It becomes your content plan later.
#2. Match Your Name, Phone, and Address Everywhere
When AI finds your name paired with different contact details in different places, it can read those as separate businesses instead of one agent, which splits your authority instead of building it.
Before your appointment, pull up these four spots and compare them side by side:
- Your brokerage page
- Zillow and Realtor.com (as well as Homes.com, etc.)
- Your social profiles
- Your website bio
Line up the spelling of your name and your phone number format across everyone. Match your address too, right down to whether you write out Suite or abbreviate it to Ste.
Ditto for these:
- Street / St
- Avenue / Ave
- Boulevard / Blvd
- Lane / Ln
- Road / Rd
- Apartment / Apt / Apt # / #
Mismatched details spread your authority across several weaker listings instead of building one strong one. Might sound super anal (or “extra”) to make everything look the same, down to the tiniest detail. It’s not.
Normalize standardizing everything. Because AI.
#3. Post One Update to Your Google Business Profile
Your Google Business Profile is one of the primary inputs AI checks before it decides whether to recommend you.
Research from Homebot found that complete, verified profiles turn up 80% more often in search results than incomplete ones. Businesses that post updates every week see a 26% increase in local impressions.
Before your appointment, post one update of about 100 words. Mention a neighborhood or a local landmark by name. While you’re in there, check your service areas and hours. Confirm your most recent photos are uploaded too.
#4. Send One Review Request That Actually Helps
A review from two or three years ago reads to AI like a business that stopped operating. A generic five-star review with no detail carries almost no weight.
Here’s what AI weighs instead. A review that:
- Names the neighborhood
- States the problem you solved
- Gives the outcome you delivered
After your next closing, send a request that asks for those same three details. Prompt your client with a question rather than a generic ask for stars. This gives AI something to work with, and gives your next client something to trust.
Here’s how you could phrase that request:
“Would you mention the neighborhood, what you were trying to accomplish, and how things turned out?”
This way your client has a clearer idea of what to write about in the review and you get a review that AI is more likely to cite in your favor.
#5. Check Zillow, Realtor.com, and the Directories You Forgot About
Business listing sites account for 42% of AI citations, right alongside your own website.
ChatGPT draws a large share of its real-time browsing from Bing, which makes your Bing Places profile a direct line into ChatGPT’s local data.
Before your appointment, check whether you’re claimed on:
- Bing Places for Business
- Apple Business Connect
- Yellow Pages
Claim whatever’s missing. Even a bare-bones profile beats no profile at all.
Zillow’s share of agent-discovery traffic fell year over year for the first time on record, as AI tools picked up a growing portion of that traffic. Buyers finding you there run you through AI before they call, so treat your Zillow and Realtor.com agent profiles the same way you treat your website: current, and matching everything else you’ve standardized.
What to Tackle After the Appointment
These five fixes take about an hour. They’re not a full strategy session, and they’re definitely not the end of the work.
The longer plays are still on the table:
- Hyperlocal content (social media posts, blogs, neighborhood guides, etc.)
- Earning mentions in local press
- Adding schema markup to your site
- Rewriting pages so they answer questions instead of opening with a tagline
BAM’s full ten-point audit covers all of it, if you want the whole list once this appointment is behind you.
