There’s a difference between showing up on Google and getting recommended by AI. Most practices are only covered for the first one.
With Bridgette DeBrino, Head of Sales and Marketing at Local AI Registry.
Disclosure: Local AI Registry is a partner of The Audrey Aesthetic. I brought Bridgette on because I use this product and recommend it to the practices I work with. The partnership does not change my standard for what earns a recommendation.
Most practice owners believe a strong Google profile, real reviews, and an SEO person handling backlinks means they are covered for how patients search. That was a safe assumption three years ago. It is not one now.
When a patient asks an AI who the best med spa near them is, the answer is written before they ever see your listing or your ad. Traditional SEO decided whether a search engine could find you. A separate system now decides whether AI recommends you. Those are two different questions, and most practices are only answering the first.
This is the first episode of the podcast, and I wanted to start it with someone I trust. Bridgette DeBrino has spent close to fifteen years in aesthetics. She came up as a provider on Dr. Allenby’s team, moved into marketing, then ran operations across two practices, including a body-contouring practice called Body Squad. She went on to build Belvara, which helped providers open independently, and she is now Head of Sales and Marketing at Local AI Registry, working alongside founder Steve Lee, a former Google executive.
The AI Visibility Ladder
Bridgette described the goal as a ladder. First, AI needs to know you exist. Then you need to get found when someone searches for what you do. Then you want to be considered a good option. Then the rung everyone actually wants: you want to be the one named best. Most practices are sitting on the bottom rung without realizing there are three above it.
What the conversation gets into
SEO and GEO are not the same system. SEO earns you a ranking. GEO earns you a recommendation inside an AI answer. You can have one without the other, and most practices do.
AI reads your listings literally. A machine does not know that Liz and Elizabeth are the same person, or that a phone number written with parentheses around the area code in one listing and without them in another belongs to the same practice. People infer sameness. AI does not. When your information does not match across every place it appears, you get harder to recommend, and you usually do not know it is happening.
The $12 Botox problem. Paid ads are good at bringing in the patient who wants the cheapest price. Presence is good at bringing in the patient who books a full consultation and stays. When you run the ad for cheap Botox, you attract the person shopping for cheap Botox. The work here is being found by the patient you actually want, before they ever become a patient.
Search is becoming an experience. Google is not positioning itself as a search engine anymore. It is building a search experience, with an AI overview sitting above the ads and the listings. Two changes matter right now. Google now lets you connect social media to your business profile, which makes the money you already spend on social more valuable. And consistent press, even one release a quarter, gives AI more credible material to pull from.
Bing matters more than people expect. People assume this is all Google. It is not. ChatGPT pulls heavily from Bing, and Bing reaches a larger, often older audience than most owners realize. The lesson is not to chase every platform. It is to know who your patient is and where they actually search, then optimize for that.
AI is only as good as the human behind it. This was the throughline of the whole conversation. AI executes fast, but it executes on what you give it. If your brand, your patient demographic, and your internal systems are not defined, AI just scales the confusion. Decide what you want to be known for first. Then let the tools carry it.
Where I’d start
If I were advising a practice from zero today, I would start with the free work. Claim your business in the registry, read your score, and fix what the checklist tells you to fix. You do not need the highest tier to make progress. You need to know where you stand and close the obvious gaps. Paid optimization earns its place once you have seen the free version move the needle.
You can check your own AI score at localairegistry.com. Claiming your business is free, and there is no card required. Watch or listen to the full episode above. If you want help deciding where AI belongs in your practice and where it does not, book a call at theaudreyaesthetic.com.
Guest: Bridgette DeBrino, Head of Sales and Marketing at Local AI Registry
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