Mike Yates wanted to sniff out how his dealership ranked in AI visibility. So, he built a tool for it.
Yates, general manager of BMW of Bridgewater in New Jersey, first created the tool, AEO Whisperer, in late 2025 as a best-ideas pitch for his NADA 20 group.
Shift Digital reps who work with BMW stores started using it on dealer visits. Then, inspired by an ask from the company’s western region, Yates began crafting regional and national dashboards in June.
Driving the news: On Monday (Nov. 9), Yates released the first BMW Dealer AI Visibility Index, ranking all 349 U.S. BMW stores on how well ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude know and trust the dealerships, and if they would recommend them.
Yates will update the index monthly.
The four regions average between 79.5 and 80.2, but individual stores range from 51.4 to 91.0. Yates’ store ranked No. 79, with a score of 83.4. (And it was scored with the same method as every other store, he pointed out.)
“Every BMW store sells the same cars with the same brand behind it, and the regions are basically tied,” Yates told CDG News. “The 40-point gap between the best and worst store comes down to what each dealer does.”
How it works: Each store gets an AI visibility score that blends 60% AEO, or answer engine optimization, with 40% GEO, or generative engine optimization.
AEO measures what each AI model knows about a store.
First, AEO Whisperer asks ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude about every store by name: Whether they recognize it, would recommend it for sales and service, how it ranks against local BMW competitors within about 22 miles, and what they know about its reputation.
Each answer is scored on awareness of the store (40 points), recommendation (35) and reputation knowledge (25), then averaged across the three models.
GEO measures how ready the store’s website is for AI, including whether AI crawlers are allowed in, its structured data and its technical readiness.
Ties are broken by a reputation score that combines Google reviews with six other review sites: DealerRater, Cars.com, Yelp, Facebook, Carfax, and CarGurus.
AEO Whisperer also scored traditional SEO and found no correlation with stores’ AEO scores, so SEO isn’t part of the score.
What it measures: The index is a benchmark, not a look at what any one shopper sees.
AEO Whisperer queries each AI model through its API, in a fresh session with no user account, chat history, memory, or web search, and includes each store’s location in the question instead of running it from a local IP, Yates said.
AI answers can vary based on a shopper’s location, search history and how a question is worded.
The index skips open-ended questions such as “best BMW dealer in [market],” since those answers shift with phrasing, inventory and who’s asking.
“The fairest way to describe it, is the AEO score measures how well the major AI models know, trust and would recommend each dealership,” Yates said. “It doesn’t predict exactly what any single shopper will see on their own phone.”
In other words, AEO Whisperer asks each AI model the same questions about every store, with no shopper’s account, history or live web search involved, and names each store’s location in the question rather than asking while literally being from that town, as a local shopper would.
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Yates said a dealership’s website should be the source of truth, because AI tools will look elsewhere for answers if they can’t read it.
What he recommends: Add a frequently asked questions section to the homepage.
“The AI bots love it because they get the answers that they’re looking for immediately,” Yates said.
Put awards on the homepage.
When Yates added his store’s BMW Center of Excellence award, ChatGPT cited it the next morning.
List strong ratings from other review platforms, such as a 4.9 on Cars.com.
But, no fibbing.
If AI finds something false, Yates said, “it would significantly penalize you.”
By the numbers: Flow BMW of Winston-Salem, N.C., topped the index with a 91.0.
All three AI assistants recommend Flow, and its website lets in every major AI crawler. Flow is also the only BMW store in its market.
The national top 10:
Flow BMW of Winston-Salem, N.C.: 91.0
Rick Hendrick BMW, Charleston, S.C.: 89.8
Hendrick BMW, Charlotte, N.C.: 89.8
The BMW Store, Cincinnati: 88.8
i.g. Burton BMW of Milford, Del.: 88.8
Coggin BMW of Treasure Coast, Fort Pierce, Fla.: 88.6
Passport BMW, Suitland, Md.: 88.4
Isringhausen BMW, Springfield, Ill.: 87.6
Patrick BMW, Schaumburg, Ill.: 87.4
Tom Bush BMW Jacksonville, Fla.: 87.2
Southern stores took five of the top 10 spots.
Worth noting: AI recommends some stores despite their websites.
The BMW Store in Cincinnati, for example, has the top 10’s highest AEO score, 96, with a website score of 78.
Every top 10 store rates 4.3 or higher across review platforms.
Average scores by website providers fell within about 2.5 points of each other, so the platform alone doesn’t decide where a store ranks, Yates said.
Other OEMs: Mini dealerships are already in the system, and other brands could follow, Yates said.
He scanned BMW stores region by region, and each scan took about 12 hours. A brand with more stores would take longer, and he’d need a list of its dealerships.
Looking ahead: The next rankings come out in December.
AEO Whisperer, which Yates founded, offers one free scan at aeowhisperer.com and a $99-a-month subscription with unlimited scans.
Paid subscribers get downloadable reports showing how each AI model scores their store, how it stacks up against local competitors and across review sites.
They also get prioritized recommendations, with tools that draft posts for Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Google Business Profile, LinkedIn and blogs to address weak spots.
Wanna spiff up your site now?
“The fixes aren’t exotic,” Yates said. “Let the AI crawlers in, make your site easy for AI to read, and take your reviews seriously on every platform, not just Google.”
Bottom line: Shoppers are asking AI tools where to buy, and most dealers don’t know what those tools say about them.
“If AI can’t read your website or doesn’t trust your reviews, you’re not in the answer, and most dealers have no idea,” Yates said.
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