--- title: What does ChatGPT ask before it recommends a business? canonical_url: https://tkmstudio.com/library/what-chatgpt-asks-before-recommending-a-business language: en last_updated: 2026-10-27 organization: TKM Studio, AI Visibility & Adoption Studio, Madrid, working worldwide --- # What does ChatGPT ask before it recommends a business? By TKM Studio · Reviewed by [Tarik Kaan Muslu](https://tkmstudio.com/about) · Published 27 October 2026 We asked ChatGPT 162 times for a photographer, a lawyer, an accountant, a dental clinic, a hotel and, as a control, a coffee machine. For services it named businesses first and asked questions second. What it asked, what it relied on, and what your website should answer. On 21 October 2026 Rankscale published a study of 7,313 ChatGPT answers to buying prompts in Germany, the UK and the US. In about four of five buying prompts, ChatGPT showed a short form before recommending anything, and 87.1% of those forms asked for the budget. OpenAI's own help page on shopping research for products says the same: ChatGPT asks follow-up questions such as preferred brands, size ranges and what matters most to you. Their test covered products: washing machines, laptops, running shoes. Most businesses we work with sell a service. So we ran our own test with services. ## What we tested On 27 October 2026 we asked ChatGPT for five kinds of service business: an architectural and corporate photographer, a business lawyer, an accountant for a small business, a dental clinic and a hotel for a business trip. We chose photography because it is a category we could check from the inside; more on that below. As a control we asked about a coffee machine in the same way. We used three phrasings ("I need...", "Help me choose...", "Which ... should I choose?"), three languages (English and Spanish for Madrid, Turkish for Istanbul) and three repeats of each. That is 162 answers, all in a Temporary chat on the ChatGPT website, with the connection in Spain. It is one paid account, one evening and a small sample. Read the numbers as what we saw, not as a rule. ## We did not see the form Rankscale describes a clickable form with options already ticked. In our 162 answers it did not appear once. ChatGPT asked its questions in plain text at the end of the answer. We do not know why. It may depend on the country, the account or the date. ## ChatGPT names businesses first, then asks In all 135 service answers, ChatGPT first showed a map and a short list of named businesses. Only then did it ask something, in 134 of them: tell me this and that, and I will narrow it down to two or three. The shortlist comes before the buyer has said anything about their needs. If your business is not on that first list, the buyer has already met your competitors. ## What it asks depends on the service For services, the budget question is not a given. Out of 27 answers per category, ChatGPT asked for a budget: - Hotel for a business trip: 27, together with where the meetings are (27) and the dates (25). - Architectural and corporate photographer: 25, together with what needs to be photographed (26). - Coffee machine, our product control: at least 24. - Dental clinic: 9. It asked which treatment in all 27 and which neighbourhood in 23. - Business lawyer: 5. It asked what the lawyer is needed for in 26. - Accountant for a small business: 1. It asked about the business in all 27: self-employed or limited company, number of employees, invoices per month, turnover. In English it also asked in 8 of 9 answers whether the buyer needs service in English. ## For some services, ChatGPT talks about the price itself In 19 of the 27 accountant answers, ChatGPT mentioned a price on its own, without being asked. In at least 15 of the 54 accountant and lawyer answers, it gave the buyer a list of questions to ask before hiring. In 12 of those lists, one question was about what the fee includes and what is billed on top. Others: who will actually do the work, how fast you reply, whether a fixed or capped fee is possible. A buyer may come to your first call with those questions already in mind. ## Where its information came from ChatGPT linked to the sources it relied on. For several services they were not the businesses' own websites: - Dental clinics: rating sites such as madriddentalrating.com (in 11 of 18 Madrid answers) and istanbuldentalrating.com (7 of 9). - Business lawyers: The Legal 500 (15 of 27) and Chambers (8 of 27) rankings. - Accountants: in Madrid, local directories and best-of lists; in Istanbul, the professional chambers and the tax authority's own site. - Hotels: the official Madrid tourism site esmadrid.com (8 of 18 Madrid answers) and booking sites. - Photographers: mostly the photographers' own websites, plus two international photographer directories. Photographers were the exception. The rest largely matches what we described in [Why AI engines cite platforms, not websites](https://tkmstudio.com/library/ai-engines-cite-platforms-not-websites). ## What to put on your website - Answer the questions ChatGPT asks in your category, in plain words on your service pages. An accountant: which business types you work with, up to what size, in which languages. A clinic: which treatments, your address and neighbourhood. A photographer: what you photograph. - Say what is included. If you charge a monthly fee, list what it covers and what is billed separately. - If you can, give a price level or a starting point. We did not measure whether this changes who gets recommended. - Be present on the sources ChatGPT uses in your category: the rating site, the directory, the ranking, the official listing. Keep your name, address and services the same everywhere. - Check every language your customers use. We included photography because we could check the result against a business we know: TKM Photo, our founder's own studio. For the same need in the same city it appeared in 8 of 9 English answers and in 1 of 9 Spanish answers. A second run, logged out, showed the same gap. Same business, different language, different list. ## Repeat it for your own business Use a Temporary chat. Ask for the same need three ways, in each language your customers use, more than once. Write down the businesses named, the question at the end and the sources. Our guide [How can I check my business's AI visibility?](https://tkmstudio.com/library/how-to-check-ai-visibility) walks you through it. Can it find you? Can it read you? Can it trust what it reads? This test looks at the first question: whether you are on the list at all. AI gives different answers to different people, at different times and to different wordings. Nobody can promise what it will say. We make the information about your business clear and track what AI actually says about you. ## Sources - [Rankscale, The Form Before the Answer: How ChatGPT Questions Buyers Before Recommending Anything](https://rankscale.ai/blog/chatgpt-follow-up-form-study) (published 21 October 2026, checked 27 October 2026) - [OpenAI Help Center, Using shopping research in ChatGPT](https://help.openai.com/en/articles/12911370-using-shopping-research-in-chatgpt) (checked 27 October 2026) - TKM Studio, own test of 162 ChatGPT answers, 27 October 2026, Temporary chat on chatgpt.com from Spain ## Read next - [Why isn't my business showing up on ChatGPT?](https://tkmstudio.com/library/why-isnt-my-business-on-chatgpt) -> https://tkmstudio.com/md/en/why-isnt-my-business-on-chatgpt.md - [Why AI engines cite platforms, not websites](https://tkmstudio.com/library/ai-engines-cite-platforms-not-websites) -> https://tkmstudio.com/md/en/ai-engines-cite-platforms-not-websites.md See what an Answer Share Audit measures: https://tkmstudio.com/services/answer-share-audit