Does Ranking in AI Matter?

 

AI is more than a buzzword–it’s reshaping how customers find and choose you. But with so many platforms, tools, and promises flying around, how do you know what really matters?

 

Google just wrapped their annual marketing event last month, unveiling more ways in which Google is leveraging AI, with Gemini integrating more deeply in Google’s platforms and advertising. ChatGPT’s partnership with Apple for its generative Apple Intelligence feature has been a hot mess, while others like Microsoft’s Copilot and xAI’s Grok offer competing apps.  You’ve no doubt had solicitors spamming your inbox or leaving voicemails, promising to grow your business with revolutionary AI tools or get you ranking in AI results.

 

Let’s take a moment to demystify AI— how they compare, what the Treehouse is doing to ensure your success as these technologies evolve, and what you can be doing to stay ahead of the curve.

 

How They Compare: Search Results vs. AI Answers

 

Search results and AI answers are two different things. We know that Google factors countless contextual signals into its search results, so its AI Overview uses much of the same criteria to determine what information to display—proximity, prominence, and pertinence are all important. How close your business is to the searcher’s location, how well-known or authoritative your company is in the local community, and how relevant your services are to a user’s query will determine the results. Where the user is searching from, your local listings and customer reviews, and whether you offer the services they’re looking for, play a huge role.

 

Unlike traditional search engines, AI tools like ChatGPT, Grok, and Copilot don’t just pull links—they generate answers.  These tools are powered by large language models (LLMs), which are trained on massive amounts of text to understand and mimic human-like responses. They learn patterns and relationships between words and phrases, allowing them to respond to prompts and generate answers, often very literal answers. Asking AI models for a recommended sump pump repair company in a specific city could quite literally result in information about the town’s resident plumber.

 

What is Treehouse doing?  Monitoring & Testing

 

Now more than ever, maintaining consistent business information is critical to ensuring search engines and AI models are working with the most accurate and up-to-date information.  One benefit of hosting your Supercharged website with the Treehouse is that our Local SEO team monitors and manages hundreds of local listings for your business–ensuring that your company name, address, and phone number (NAP)—among other vital business information—is the same across the web.

 

We’re also investing in technology to monitor traffic coming from AI models (ChatGPT does pull in some Bing results), but the vast majority of search volume is still coming from Google. Google is determined to leverage AI “to find your most valuable customers and move them from discovery to decision faster and more efficiently.”1 One advantage contractors have is that Google is integrating ads into AI Overviews.  Google says advertisers who are already using Performance Max and Search campaigns with broad match, including AI Max for Search campaigns, will be eligible to have their ads appear in AI Overviews. Many contractors in our network are already running Search and PMax campaigns on Google, which means your ads could soon show in AI Overviews (fistbump)!  AI Max is another story–we’ll be running some tests to make sure we get results before rolling out AI Max campaigns.

 

What Can I Do?  E-E-A-T Right & Thrive

 

E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. It's a framework Google uses to evaluate the quality and reliability of website content.  We know that the top two things homeowners are looking for when hiring a contractor are past work examples and social proof–photos and videos of recent jobs and glowing testimonials and reviews demonstrating your quality workmanship and proving people have great experiences with your company. The best way you can influence AI–whether in search results or generative answers–is to consistently provide quality local content that people are looking for and that Google rewards, complete with titles and descriptions reflecting where you work and what services you offer..

 

Don’t be fooled by agencies pushing multiple local websites and business listings with fake addresses to get you to rank better locally.  Your Google Business Profile is the central source of truth about your business on Google, and your website is your main hub for lead generation—invest time and resources to keep these updated, and don’t put them at risk by trying to trick the system.  With AI, it’s only going to get easier to fake assets, so original and authentic content will be the most valuable. Hacking results won’t end well and will just end up creating more noise that algorithms and chatbots will have to sift through to determine what’s real, anyway.

 

What's Next?

 

At the end of the day, the fundamentals still matter. While AI continues to evolve and reshape the digital landscape, the Treehouse is here to help you navigate every twist and turn. By sticking to proven best practices—like maintaining accurate business info, showcasing your work, and building trust through authentic content—you’re setting your business up for long-term success. We’re keeping a close eye on the latest AI developments so you don’t have to, and we’ll continue to test, adapt, and guide you every step of the way.

 

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1Philipp Schindler (SVP/Chief Business Officer, Google) at Google Marketing Live 2025.