How to Optimise Your LinkedIn for AI Search (So the Right People Find You)

AI tools like ChatGPT are changing how people discover businesses online. The good news is that you don’t need a tech degree to take advantage of it. You just need to know where to show up – and right now, that place is LinkedIn.

Something worth knowing is happening to the way people find businesses online – and LinkedIn is right in the middle of it. Not LinkedIn the corporate networking platform where people post about being humbled and grateful. The actual LinkedIn. Your profile. Your posts. Your newsletter.

When you type a question into Google these days, you often get an answer sitting right at the top of the page – no clicking required. That’s AI search. It’s been rolling out since 2024 and it’s changing how people discover businesses, services and expertise online.

Why AI search tools are increasingly citing LinkedIn as a source

AI tools need to pull their answers from somewhere credible. For professional queries, they’re increasingly pulling them from LinkedIn – and the numbers from marketing platform Profound back this up.

Profound tracked millions of AI queries between November 2025 and February 2026. LinkedIn’s citation rate in ChatGPT responses doubled in that time. It is now the number one domain cited for professional questions – ahead of news sites, ahead of most business websites.

So when someone asks an AI “who should I hire to help with my accounts” or “what should I look for in an award-winning digital marketing agency,” the AI is reading LinkedIn profiles and posts to shape its answer. Your LinkedIn profile is, effectively, your CV for the machines. And unlike a human reader, the machines actually read the whole thing.

Worth knowing: AI tools can only surface publicly visible LinkedIn content. If your best thinking lives entirely in your head, in private messages, or in the verbal explanation you give every new client – it doesn’t count. Write it down.

What small businesses can do to improve their AI search visibility on LinkedIn

LinkedIn’s own response involved three things: correcting inaccurate information appearing in AI answers about their brand, publishing content structured for AI to understand and cite, and checking whether their LinkedIn activity was actually showing up in AI results. They called it an AI Search Taskforce. We’d call it doing your digital housekeeping – just with a better job title on it.

Here’s the version that doesn’t require a 24-person taskforce.

• Start by searching for yourself. Google your business name and ask ChatGPT about what you do. Do you appear? Is what comes up accurate? Most business owners are surprised by what they find – or don’t find.
• Rewrite your LinkedIn profile in plain English. A clear, specific description of what you do, who you help, and what makes you good at it. Not keywords, not jargon – the kind of straight answer you’d give someone who asked a proper question at a networking event.
• Answer the questions your clients actually ask you. Posts, articles, newsletters – format matters less than content. Specific, useful, written in your own voice. That’s what AI quotes.
• Consistency beats volume. One well-written post a week is worth more than five thin ones. AI tools build a picture of credibility over time – the same logic that’s underpinned good content marketing for the past 24 years, as it happens.
• Close the gap between what you know and what you’ve written down. That gap is exactly what AI can’t fill for you. Nobody’s going to do this bit except you (or us).

How AI visibility fits into a long-term marketing strategy for small businesses

This isn’t a new strategy. It’s the same strategy – clear positioning, genuine expertise, consistent communication – with a new audience added to the mix. One that doesn’t scroll past the first paragraph, doesn’t care how many followers you have, and isn’t swayed by a selfie at the gym.

“Professional visibility is no longer only about how people present themselves to others. It’s increasingly about how machines interpret them first.” – Erin Lanuti, co-founder, Lilypath

The businesses showing up well in AI search are largely the same ones that have always done the basics well. That’s either reassuring or annoying, depending on where you’re starting from – but either way, LinkedIn is the most practical place to begin, and the investment is smaller than most people assume.

Not sure what your AI visibility actually looks like right now? That’s a good place to start. Come and have a chat.

SOURCES

Profound / Axios: LinkedIn domain rank based on ChatGPT citations, Nov 2025 – Feb 2026

LinkedIn / Search Engine Land: How LinkedIn Marketing Is Adapting to AI-Led Discovery, Feb 2026

Lilypath: Erin Lanuti quoted in Axios, March 2026