Will ChatGPT recommend my business if it just opened?

Yes, ChatGPT can recommend a business that has only just opened, sometimes within weeks. In our Malaysian test, it recommended four of six businesses that opened around mid-2026, but neither of the two new cafés. All four it named had their own website; the two cafés appeared only in new-opening guides.

When we put this article's title question to ChatGPT ("How long after opening will ChatGPT recommend my new business?"), it said it could start "within days or weeks of opening". In our check, a gym open only weeks in a Petaling Jaya mall came first in both of its answers.

Which new businesses did ChatGPT recommend, and which did it miss?

ChatGPT recommended the new gym, the new salon and both new clinics at least once, and missed both new cafés. We asked a chatty question for each business's trade and area twice, such as "I work near [a mall] in PJ. Which gym nearby would you recommend? I'd like one that's open early before work."

The cafés weren't invisible: both turned up when asked about by name. But their only pages were "new openings" round-ups. Our reading is that a round-up says a café exists, while a recommendation needs a page that matches what the customer asked for: brunch, cake, a quiet corner.

Does ChatGPT know about my new business if a customer asks for it by name?

ChatGPT knew all six new businesses when a customer-style question named them, as in "Someone told me about this café in [an area of] JB. Is it new? Where exactly is it and what are the opening hours?" It gave an address every time and said each was new or recently opened, hedging on the one it couldn't date.

The pages it read for the new businesses fell into four groups:

• the business's own website, for the gym, salon and both clinics, including a free Google Sites page with the gym's hours;
• food and lifestyle guides, the only source for both cafés;
• directories and listings, such as a clinic directory, a store listing and a Waze place page;
• social posts, a LinkedIn post about a clinic's opening and a visitor's Lemon8 post about a café.

No Instagram or Facebook page was cited, which matches what we found for Instagram-heavy businesses.

What did ChatGPT get wrong about the new businesses?

ChatGPT's biggest slip was an opening date. It said one café opened "around July 2026", citing a food guide that lists the café among its September openings. It couldn't find an exact date for two other businesses: one clinic it couldn't date at all, and the gym only to the month.

Hours were shakier than addresses:

• Another branch's hours. For the clinic branch it found no hours, so it gave another branch's hours and said they "may not apply".
• Hours from other people. A café's hours came from a visitor's social post, and the salon's from a food guide. The salon's own outlet page lists none.
• Temporary hours. The gym's came from its own soft-opening page, flagged as temporary, which is what a new business wants.

Does a new business get recommended less than an established one?

Our test is too thin to say. We could only line up an older business in the same trade and city for three of the six, so we can't compare new against old. How quickly AI crawlers find a fresh page is a separate question, covered in how long it takes ChatGPT to find a new page.

What can't this test tell me about ChatGPT and new businesses?

• Whether this holds for your trade. It's six businesses in four trades, two answers each. Café questions may simply be more crowded.
• The ChatGPT app. We used OpenAI's API on one day. The app adds maps and your chat history, so a customer's answer can differ.
• Whether a page caused the recommendation. We saw which pages were cited, not why ChatGPT chose them.

What should a new business publish in its first week so ChatGPT can recommend it?

Publish the facts ChatGPT looked for, in your own words, before a guide or a visitor does it for you.

1. Request EasyFound's free check. See whether ChatGPT names your new business when customers ask for one like it, and what it says about your opening date and hours, then go through it with us on a free call.
2. Put up one page of your own. List what you offer, your area, your exact address and your hours. A free page works: the gym's hours came from one.
3. Write your opening date and any temporary hours on it. That gives ChatGPT a date from you instead of a guess, and soft-opening hours it can label as temporary.
4. Fill in your Google Business Profile. It wasn't cited in our ChatGPT answers, but for Google's own AI answers, Google says profiles "can help your products and services to be visible in both AI responses and other Google Search results"¹.
5. Get onto one listing your customers use, such as a clinic directory or your mall's store list, with the same details.

It's worth doing early: 45% of consumers now use AI tools to find local business recommendations, up from just 6% a year earlier². EasyFound, an AI SEO service for Malaysian businesses, checks six AI tools in English, Malay and Chinese and gets a new shop's facts in front of them while you're still unpacking. Start with the free check below.