OTT 14 - Is Your Private Practice Website Invisible to AI?

So let's talk about how people search now.

And I know we've talked about this a little bit on the podcast before.

So So a few years ago, it was simple.

You know, somebody would search therapist near me.

They get a list of blue links and they click around to a few sites.

That was the whole thing, you know, and then ads came into play, you know, Google ads.

So then we all just kind of learned, OK, I'll scroll past the sponsored results and then, you know, find those those links I want to click on there.

But now they get an AI summary sitting at the top of the page that answers the question for them.

Or they might skip Google completely now as more people are using ChatGPT and Claude, Gemini.

And they might ask, you know, who's a good anxiety therapist in Atlanta? And AI gives them a name or a few.

And then that's their shortlist right there.

If they're showing it up there, that's their shortlist.

Those will likely be the people who then do click to the website when they get that shortlist up top there.

So this isn't a small trend.

So according to Bright Local's 2026 survey, 45% of consumers now used AI tools like Chat2PT, Gemini, or Perplexity to find a local business in the past year.

And the year before that number, this is crazy, is 6%.

So that's a full behavior change in a year's time there.

And the age band using AI most to find local businesses peaks at about 30 to 44 years of age.

So if you think about your clients, you know, that might be your demographic right there.

That's a core client age group right there.

And they're the people most likely to book are the ones that are most likely to ask AI first.

So why could this really, you know, impact therapists and their private practices, you know, more than other businesses? So people, they don't just search therapist near me and then stop, you know, that's not the end of the process here.

Before they book, they're going to ask a lot of questions, you know, stuff like what happens in the first session? How much does therapy cost? Do you take my insurance? Do I even need therapy for anxiety or depression? these issues I'm having with my child, you know, whatever it is, they're going to ask those questions.

So those are exactly the questions AI loves to answer directly, you know, right at the top of the page or, you know, within those conversations when you do like AI mode in Google, you're staying within there and you're looking at that.

So a potential client is really forming an opinion about therapy, about you before they even land on a website.