How to Make Your Business Easier for AI to Understand

AI systems are increasingly answering questions that people used to search for themselves. When someone asks an AI assistant for a recommendation, the assistant needs to understand what businesses actually do.

That creates an interesting opportunity for businesses: make the information about your business easier for machines to understand.

Start With a Clear Business Description

One of the simplest things you can do is clearly explain what your business does, who it serves, where it operates, and what problems it solves.

Example: A Local Plumber

Before

We are a Calgary plumbing company providing quality plumbing solutions to residential and commercial customers.

After

We provide emergency plumbing services to homeowners throughout Calgary, including burst-pipe repair, sewer backups, and overflowing toilets. We operate 24 hours a day and prioritize active water leaks and flooding.

The second description gives a machine substantially more useful information. It identifies the business, its service, its location, its customers, its specific problems, and its availability.

Make the Meaning of Your Website Clear

Your website should explain your business in language that people can understand. Clear headings, useful descriptions, and specific examples make the subject matter of a page easier to interpret.

Structured data can provide additional context. For example, JSON-LD can identify a business as an organization, an article as a blog post, and an author as a person.

Don't Write for AI

The goal isn't to write strange content designed to manipulate an AI system. Write useful information for people first, then make the meaning of that information clear to machines.

The better a business explains what it does, who it helps, and what makes it relevant to a particular question, the less an AI system has to guess.