AI Search for Small Brokers: What You Can Actually Control When Your Network Owns the Website

I was talking to a broker this week who wasn't quite sure what all this AI search talk means for his firm. Fair enough. Most of what gets written about it assumes you already know what it is, and assumes you run your own website. Plenty of small brokers do neither.

Here is the short answer. AI search means people asking ChatGPT, Google's AI answers, Perplexity or Copilot who to use, instead of typing a search and clicking links. If your firm is not in the answer, or the answer gets your details wrong, you lose the enquiry before you ever knew it existed.

You do not need to be technical to deal with that. You do need to know what you control.

If you trade through a network or franchise, start here

A lot of small brokers trade as an appointed representative, or on a franchise or network template. That often means someone else owns the website, writes the pages and decides what goes on them.

That does not make you invisible. It changes where you put your effort.

Things you may not control, depending on your agreement: the main website, the page template, the wording of your service pages, and the technical set-up behind them. Check your agreement before you assume either way. Arrangements vary a lot between networks, and I have not seen yours.

Things you almost always control: your Google Business Profile, your reviews, your listing on the FCA Register (through your principal), your LinkedIn page, the directories you appear in, and what you say when someone asks you a question in public.

That second list is not a consolation prize. It is where a lot of the answers come from.

What the AI actually looks at

In our testing, AI engines assemble an answer from a mix of places rather than from your website alone. Roughly, they draw on:

• your own web pages, where they exist and are readable
• business listings and directories
• review sites and your Google Business Profile
• press mentions and other people writing about you

We found that when these disagree, the answers get shakier. Your phone number on one site and a different one on another is the kind of thing that causes it. This is our experience from testing, not a published rule, so treat it as a working guide.

Google has said that its AI answers have no extra requirements beyond the normal basics of search, and keeping your Business Profile up to date is one of those basics. Google also says that complete, accurate information and good reviews can help your local ranking, and that you cannot pay for a better one. Those are the parts you control.

The free twenty-minute check

You can do this yourself, with no tools and no spend. We use a longer version when we test properly for clients, and this is the version we published for anyone to run.

1. Open a clean session. Log out, or use a private window, so you see what a stranger sees and not what the system has learned about you.
2. Ask three plain questions. Who is [your firm]? Where are they and how do I contact them? Who are the best insurance brokers in [your area]?
3. Check every answer line by line against your real details, including whether any link works. Do it on two different AI engines.
4. Trace any wrong fact to its source. It is usually a directory, an aggregator or an old press mention, not your own website.

Write down what you find. That list is your to-do list. We go through the method in more detail in how to measure accuracy, not just mentions, and there is a quicker two-minute version on our page for brokers who are not showing up in ChatGPT.

What to do this month

Keep it small. Four things, in this order:

1. Fix your Google Business Profile. Opening hours, phone number, address, services, categories. Make it match everything else.
2. Check your FCA Register entry. The FCA tells consumers to check that contact details match the Register, and so will anyone trying to work out whether your firm is real. Appointed representatives appear on the Register too, alongside their principal. If something on your entry is wrong, that is a conversation with your network.
3. Ask for reviews. Three recent honest reviews beat a hundred old ones. Ask clients you have just helped.
4. Fix the wrong facts from your twenty-minute check, starting with the ones found on directories you can edit yourself.

If you want the wider picture behind this, our beginner's guide to AI visibility walks through it chapter by chapter, with a checklist you can tick off.

Be careful with clones

If a firm is copying your name or details, or a site is pretending to be you, AI engines can mix the two up. We covered how that happens in our piece on clone firms. If you suspect it, tell your principal and the FCA.

When it is worth paying someone, and when it is not

You probably do not need to pay anyone to do the four things above. If you did the check, fixed your profile and your listing, and your answers are now correct, you have done most of what an adviser would tell you first.

Paying for help starts to make sense when:

• the wrong information is coming from a site you cannot change and your network will not fix it
• you trade across several locations and cannot keep them consistent
• you want to know how you compare with local competitors, not just whether you appear
• you have done the basics and still do not show up

Our AI visibility audit is built for those cases. If you are not sure whether you are there yet, a conversation costs nothing.

Where to start

Do the twenty-minute check this week. If you are not sure what you are looking at, or you would like a second pair of eyes, book a free discovery call.