Guest Article

Before They Call: What AI Assistants Read When Someone Asks for a Therapist

Charles Ivia

More people now ask a chatbot for help finding a therapist. We wanted to know what the assistant does next. Does it search the web? What does it read? Whose words does it repeat?

On September 29 and October 2, 2026, we asked ChatGPT, Gemini, and Meta AI six questions. Each question ran three times on each assistant, for 54 answers. Two questions asked for an anxiety therapist in one US city. Two described a problem: trouble sleeping from overthinking, and not knowing where to start. Two asked about a dietitian, as a comparison. We recorded every search each assistant ran, the pages its searches returned, and the people it named.

Here is what we found, and what it suggests for a therapist's directory profile and website.

How the question is asked decides whether anyone is named

When the question asked for a therapist, all 18 answers searched the web and named clinicians. When the person described a problem, or asked where to start, none of the 18 answers named a practice. The assistants offered general self-help, or pointed to a primary care doctor and the 988 Lifeline.

In this test, only questions that asked for a professional sent the assistants looking for practices.

Psychology Today appeared in every therapist recommendation

Psychology Today was among the sources for all 18 answers that recommended therapists, and it was named in the text of 17. Two assistants went further and repeated what listings said. Meta AI quoted listing descriptions in 4 of its 9 recommendation answers. ChatGPT wrote some version of "her profile says" in 4 of 9.

The opening lines of your directory profile may be the sentence an assistant repeats about you. Those lines are worth writing with care.

Assistants may check your website, too

ChatGPT went looking for practices' own websites. In 4 of its 6 therapist answers, it added "official" to a search, as in "Charlotte NC therapist anxiety official website." It cited a practice's own site in 3 of those 6 answers. Gemini searched for clinicians by name, and most of the people it searched for appeared in its answers.

When an assistant cross-checks your information, it helps if your directory listings and website say the same things.

The searches use the client's words

All 44 searches behind the therapist questions included the city, and 42 included "anxiety." More than a third added "best" or "top." The searches carried the words people used, and added little else.

The dietitian questions show how far a single phrase travels. One asked for someone who "works online." Of the 29 searches that followed, 27 used "online," "telehealth," or "virtual." If you see clients by telehealth, those are the words an assistant is likely to search for.

What to check this month

Each step below comes down to consistency and plain language.

• Read the first two sentences of your directory profile as a stranger would. Do they say who you help, what you help with, and where you work? If you offer telehealth, do they name the states where you are licensed?
• Say how you see clients, in the words clients use: in person, online, telehealth.
• State your fees, or which insurance you take, in the same terms everywhere.
• Make your website say the same things in the same words as your profile. Then let the website add what a profile cannot hold: how you work, and what a first session is like.
• Search your own name and practice name, as a referred client would, and read what comes up.

What we don't know

This was a small test: six questions, three runs each, on two days. The therapist questions named one city. We sent single questions, with no conversation history and no personal profile. The apps people use may answer differently, and the assistants change often. Nothing in this test guarantees that changing a profile or website will lead to a recommendation.

The test does show where the assistants looked and whose words they repeated, and a therapist can review both.

Charles Ivia is the founder and technical director of Credible by Design, a website and search studio for therapy and private healthcare practices. He studies how prospective clients find and check a practice before they reach out, from Google results and directory profiles to AI assistants. The full method and data from these tests are at crediblebydesign.com.