Vander Els Partners
AI search is when someone asks a question and gets an answer instead of a list. They type "who should I call for a leaking roof near me" into ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity, or they see Google's own AI answer at the top of the results, and they get a paragraph that names two or three companies. They call one of them. They never see page one.
Yes, it matters. It is not the biggest source of calls for most contractors today, and anyone telling you otherwise is guessing. But it is growing, and the mechanism that decides whether you are named is one you can influence now, while most of your competitors are ignoring it.
How you end up in the answer
The models assemble their answer from what they can read about you: your website, your Google listing, reviews, directories, articles, anything public. If those sources are accurate, consistent and specific about what you do and where, you are easy to cite. If your site says one thing, your listing says another, and half the directories have an old phone number, you are hard to cite, and the model moves on to a company that is easier.
So the work is less mysterious than it sounds. Make the facts about the business correct everywhere they appear. Say plainly, on the site, which services you do and which towns you serve. Keep the listing alive. Write the pages a model would want to quote: a direct answer to a real question, in plain words.
What cannot be promised
Placement. No one can guarantee that an AI will name you, and the answer changes from one day to the next and from one person's phrasing to another's. What can be done is to make you accurate, consistent and easy to cite, and then measure whether you are showing up by asking the tools the questions your customers ask, on a schedule. Influenced, never guaranteed. Anyone selling guaranteed AI placement is selling something that does not exist.
The short version
AI search is a new front door, and the way in is to be the company whose facts are correct everywhere and whose pages answer the question. It is worth doing now. It is not worth being oversold on.