Do I need to pay for a tool to check this?

No. Every step above can be done for free in the ordinary ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity apps. If you would rather skip the manual work, the free AI visibility checker on this site runs the same kind of test for you and reports the result in about a minute.

One check said yes and another said no. Which is right?

Both, in a sense. Assistants do not give the same answer every time, even to the same question, so a single test is not proof either way. Ask each one a few times over a few days before drawing a conclusion, and keep a note of what actually came back rather than relying on memory.

I checked today and my practice was not mentioned. Is that permanent?

No. Assistants update their picture of a business gradually as the web around it changes, so this is not a fixed result. It is a starting point for deciding what to fix, not a verdict on the firm.

Should I check what the assistants say about competing firms too?

It is worth doing once. Seeing which firms an assistant already names, and how it describes them, shows you the shape of the gap rather than just the fact that one exists.

Which assistant should a UK practice test first?

ChatGPT is the one most prospective clients are likely to already have open, so it is the sensible first stop. Testing Gemini and Perplexity as well only takes a few extra minutes and can turn up a different answer.

How to Check If ChatGPT Recommends Your Accounting Practice

This takes about five minutes and costs nothing. Open an AI assistant, ask it the question a prospective client would actually type, and read what comes back. Most practice owners have never done it, which is exactly why it is worth doing today rather than assuming the answer.

Below is the test itself, step by step, followed by what to do with the result. If you would rather not do it by hand, the free AI visibility checker on this site runs the same kind of test for you and reports back in about a minute.

Why this is worth five minutes of your time

Someone who needs an accountant increasingly opens ChatGPT rather than Google, types something close to "who are good accountants in [town]", and works from whatever names come back. If your practice is not in that answer, the enquiry never reaches you, and nothing on your website analytics will ever show you that it happened. The only way to know where you stand is to ask the same question yourself.

The test

Open a fresh chat. Do this in ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity if you have access to all three. Start a new conversation each time rather than continuing an old one, because earlier messages can quietly steer the answer, which is also why OpenAI's own memory FAQ lets you turn that behaviour off if you would rather each chat started from nothing.
Ask a recommendation question. Something close to what a stranger would type: "Can you recommend a good accountant in [your town]?" or "Who are the best accountancy practices for a small limited company in [your town]?"
Ask a direct question about your own firm. "What do you know about [your practice name] in [your town]?" This shows whether the assistant has any information about you at all, even if it would not have volunteered your name unprompted.
Ask a comparison question. "How does [your practice name] compare to other accountants in [your town]?" This sometimes surfaces firms the first two questions did not, and shows what the assistant thinks it knows about you next to your competitors.
Write down what actually came back. Which firms were named, in what order, and whether your practice was among them. Note anything the assistant said about you specifically, and where it said the information came from if it mentions a source. Perplexity is built around citing its sources, so that one is worth reading closely.

Read the result properly

A single run is not proof of anything, in either direction. Assistants do not give identical answers to the same question every time, so run through the same four questions again a day or two later before drawing a firm conclusion. What you are looking for is a pattern across several attempts, not a single yes or no.

If your practice comes up consistently, the underlying description assistants are drawing on is doing its job, and there is little to change here. If it comes up sometimes but not others, or is named only when asked about directly rather than volunteered, that usually points to a website that says something but not enough. If it never comes up at all, including when asked about your firm by name, that is the clearest possible result: there is currently nothing distinctive enough on the web for an assistant to recall.

What to do if you are not appearing

Assistants tend to be repeating back whatever is written clearly and specifically about a business somewhere they can read it, mainly the practice's own website. A firm described in the same generic language as every other local practice gives an assistant nothing distinctive to recall, however good the work actually is.

The fix is not a technical trick. It is making the website say something a stranger, or a machine reading on a stranger's behalf, can actually use: which town you are in, what kind of client you want, and which software you run, written in plain text rather than buried in a slider or a logo. Google's own guidance on how its AI features use website content says much the same thing about ordinary search. We cover the accountancy-specific detail in AI visibility for accountants, including what we found running this same kind of check across a spread of accountancy websites.

The faster way to do this

If working through four questions across three assistants is more than you want to do by hand, the AI visibility checker runs a version of this test for your practice and reports the result directly, without you needing to open anything else. It is free, and it takes about a minute.

Worth checking again later

This is not a one-off task. Assistants update their picture of a business gradually as the web around it changes, so a firm that improves its website today will not see that reflected immediately. Run the same test again in a few months, particularly after any change to the site, and keep the earlier notes so you have something to compare against.