How Xomer helps local businesses get found in AI search
Ian Ho is CEO of Xomer, which helps local service businesses get found in AI tools such as ChatGPT and Google’s AI answers. This conversation looks at Xomer’s approach to answer engine optimization, where AI helps with prospect research, and why clear website information matters to customers.
AI can speed up prospect research, but deciding whether a business is a good fit still calls for human judgment. For local businesses, clearly stating services, pricing, contact or booking details, and service areas is a practical place to start.
What’s the quick origin story of your business, and what makes what you do genuinely different from the other options your customers are looking at?
I’ve been using AI since five days after ChatGPT first came out. I realized that more and more people would do what I was doing: ask AI to explain things and recommend things. That’s how Xomer started down the path of AEO (answer engine optimization), helping our clients get discovered and preferred by AI. What’s different is that we build the website for AI from day one, and every month we ask the AI tools the questions our clients’ customers ask and then use what AI says to grow their their AEO coverage.
Where does most of your new business come from today, and where do you wish it came from?
Today it comes from referrals and from outreach we run ourselves. Where I want it to come from is the thing we sell: a business owner asks ChatGPT who builds websites for local businesses, and it names us.
What’s one thing you’ve actually handed over to AI in the last year, and one thing you tried it on and went back to doing the human way?
I handed prospect research over to AI. It finds the business, checks how it shows up in search, and works out how we could help. AI used to make more of the decisions along the way, like whether we could help a business enough to contact them. I found that judgment still needs a human to get right, so that part came back to us.
Have you noticed a change in how customers find you or what they already know before they reach out? Is anyone arriving through AI assistants like ChatGPT yet?
Yes. Customers now arrive already informed about what they need. They know specifically what they want, so cutting out the fluff and answering their questions directly is what makes the sale.
If you were advising someone in your industry on all of this for the next 12 months, what would you tell them to actually do, and what would you tell them to ignore?
Build your website for AI: your services, pricing, contact or booking form, and the areas you serve, all stated plainly. It still needs to work for humans, but cut the filler content. AI doesn’t need it and can penalize it. Ignore anyone who promises a guaranteed top spot in AI answers. Nobody controls those.
Thank you to Ian Ho and the team at Xomer for sharing what actually worked with Leaders Perception readers.
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