Does ChatGPT recommend your childcare centre? Here's how to check

A family in your suburb asks ChatGPT: "Can you suggest childcare for a two-year-old in Mornington, Victoria?"

Your centre might appear in the answer. It might be missing. Or it might be mentioned with the wrong hours, age groups or information about vacancies.

Have you checked what these tools say about your centre?

Start with a 15-minute spot check. You are looking for two things: whether families can discover you, and whether the information they find is accurate. Then you can decide what needs attention.

Why this matters for occupancy

Google began rolling out AI Mode in Australia in October 2025. Alongside tools such as ChatGPT, it gives families another way to research their options.

These tools do not know your educators or understand your centre the way an enrolled family does. Their answers can draw on public information, including websites, listings and reviews. They can also get things wrong.

For an owner, the useful question is: does that answer help a suitable family understand what you offer and take the next step?

1. Check discovery and accuracy separately

Asking about your centre by name is useful, but it does not tell you whether a family who has never heard of you would find you.

Run both checks.

For discovery, try questions that match the places you need to fill:

• "Which childcare centres in [suburb, state] care for babies?"
• "What childcare options near [suburb, state] could suit a family needing Mondays and Fridays?"
• "Which centres in [suburb, state] explain how they help children settle into care?"

For accuracy, ask about your hours, ages, location and what families say about you.

An answer saying a centre has places is not confirmation of availability. Check it against your own records. Families still need current information from the centre.

2. Keep the check consistent

Start with a couple of questions in ChatGPT and Google AI Mode. You can add Perplexity or other tools when you repeat the exercise.

Include the suburb and state every time. Use web search deliberately, and avoid an existing conversation where you have already described your centre at length.

ChatGPT can use saved memories and location when searching. A logged-out session can help reduce account-specific context, but it does not remove location effects or make the result universal.

Open the sources behind the answer. A citation is a starting point for checking a claim, not proof that the claim is correct. OpenAI's search guidance explains these limitations.

Record the question, tool and date. Treat each answer as a snapshot. One missing mention is not a verdict on your centre, and appearing first in one answer is not a reliable ranking.

If Google does not show an AI Overview, record that too. Google says these summaries do not appear for every search.

3. Record what you found and who will fix it

Screenshots are useful, but give each issue an action as well.

You can use the AI search check worksheet for a focused check, then repeat it in another tool or keep a spreadsheet for ongoing reviews.

In a spreadsheet, use these column headings:

Date | Question | Tool | Centre mentioned? | Information correct? | Source URL | Action | Person responsible

Keep discovery and accuracy results separate so you can see whether the problem is being found, being described correctly, or both.

For example, imagine an answer says your centre closes at 6 pm when you actually close at 6:30 pm. You open the cited directory page and find the earlier time there.

Your action is specific: request a correction to that listing, check your other public opening hours, and assign someone to confirm the change.

That is an illustrative example, not a client result. It shows how this exercise should produce a job someone can complete.

4. Decide what to fix first

Start with errors that could prevent a suitable family from enquiring.

You can update your own website and managed profiles. For directories and other websites, you may need to request a correction.

The cited pages show sources used in that particular answer. They are not a complete list of everything influencing the result.

5. Give families something useful to find

Your website should give a clear, current account of your centre:

• Which ages you care for and where you are.
• Your opening hours and how families check available days.
• How fees and the Child Care Subsidy work.
• What children experience in each room.
• How you support settling in.
• How to ask a question or arrange a tour.

"We provide a nurturing environment" does not tell a family much.

If your team offers orientation visits, takes time to understand a child's routines and explains how it will communicate during settling in, describe that process. Only include things you actually do.

Keep key facts consistent across your website, Google Business Profile and relevant directories. Ask families for honest feedback without scripting their reviews, offering incentives or only approaching those you expect to be positive.

A quick check for your website provider

Ask: "Can Google index our important pages, and can OpenAI's search crawler access our website?"

Your provider should check indexing, crawler restrictions and whether important information is available as readable text.

Google says the usual SEO fundamentals apply to AI Overviews and AI Mode. Special AI files or special schema are not required. OpenAI's guidance identifies access for OAI-SearchBot as part of eligibility for ChatGPT search.

These checks remove possible obstacles. They do not guarantee your centre will be included or recommended.

6. Connect the result to tours and enrolments

Being mentioned is only useful if it helps the right families take the next step.

If you need to fill toddler places on Mondays and Fridays, check the questions those families would ask. Then follow the link yourself.

Can they understand your toddler programme, find out about availability and easily arrange a tour? If they enquire, does someone respond and follow through?

Ask new enquiries how they heard about you and whether anything online helped them decide to contact you. Record the answer in your CRM, including an AI tool when the family mentions one.

Then track those enquiries through tours booked, tours attended, enrolments and actual starts. Treat this as useful feedback rather than perfect attribution: a family may have used several sources.

An AI mention on its own does not tell you whether it is helping occupancy.

When should you check again?

I would start with a monthly review using the same questions and tools. Check important factual errors again after the source has been corrected.

There is no fixed timetable for a change to appear in an AI answer. Record what you changed and when, then look for recurring issues over time.

You do not need to chase every variation. Focus on accurate information, useful explanations and a clear path to enquire.

What I'd do this week

Choose one type of place you want to fill. Run one discovery question and one accuracy question in two tools.

Save the answers, open the cited sources and identify the most important issue you can act on. Give it an owner and a completion date.

That is enough for a first pass. A broader review across tools, questions and centre locations will take longer.

This spot check is not a promise of an enrolment or occupancy result. It is a way to find accuracy, discovery and enquiry-path issues worth fixing.

If you would like a second pair of eyes, this is one of the things I look at in the Full Rooms Review. We can look at what families find and what happens when they contact your centre.