Make Detroit Home Grants, ChatGPT's 88% Blind Spot, and What's Next in the Community
Updated: Oct 11
By Redic Grant, Founder & CEO, MRJ Consulting
From Redic's Desk
MoveDetroit announced the first 13 winners of its Make Detroit Home grant this week — $15,000 each, part of a citywide push to grow and stabilize Detroit's population, with 300 more $1,000 grants to come. The surface reading is a population story. The deeper reading is in who got the money: one of the first winners, local entrepreneur Karissma Yve, plans to use hers to scale her business, because, as she told WDET, "We hire from the city right in our community." That's the Homecoming momentum we talked about last issue getting reinvested where it counts — in small businesses that keep jobs and dollars in the neighborhood.
That's the same lesson that applies to AI visibility. If Detroit grows the way MoveDetroit is betting it will, thousands of new neighbors are going to need a lawyer, a dentist, an accountant, a place to eat — and they won't have a cousin down the street to ask. They'll ask an AI. The businesses that win those newcomers won't be the ones with the longest history here. They'll be the ones AI tools can actually find, verify, and recommend.
In the Community: A Heads-Down Week, With More Rooms Ahead
This was a heads-down week of client work and AI Readiness Audits, the part of the job that doesn't make for photos but does make for results. The last few weeks at The Congregation with Citizens of AI, presented by REBRANDX in partnership with the Knight Foundation, keep proving the line I can't shake: "the community is the new college."
Still on deck: TechTown Detroit's rescheduled First Thursdays and our own AI & Social Media seminar. We'll share dates here as soon as they're confirmed — not a day before.
What We're Watching: Ranking on Google Won't Get You Into ChatGPT
A study published this spring by Omni Eclipse ran buying prompts — "best [industry] in [city]" — through ChatGPT for 1,700 businesses across 32 industries in the U.S., Australia, and the UAE. Only 11.9% showed up in the answer. In the U.S. sample, it was 7.1% — 20 of 283 businesses. Even businesses already on Google's first page for the same search mostly missed: just 23% of them appeared in ChatGPT. And of the 126 businesses running Google Ads, only 5 made it in — about 4%.
Group (Omni Eclipse, 2026) | Named by ChatGPT |
Already on Google's page 1 | 23% |
All 1,700 businesses studied | 11.9% |
U.S. businesses (20 of 283) | 7.1% |
Running Google Ads (5 of 126) | about 4% |
Why it matters for our clients: last issue we shared that only 17% of AI Overview citations come from pages already ranking in Google's top 10. This study points the same direction — Google rank and ad spend don't buy you a spot in an AI answer. Treat the exact percentages as directional (the researchers sell AI-visibility services, the test covered ChatGPT only, and some industry samples are small), but the pattern is hard to ignore. You can't buy your way into the answer. You have to earn it.
This Month's Prompt: When Someone Asks AI for the Best in My City, Do I Make the List?
Last issue's prompt mapped where your business actually shows up online. This one tests whether all that presence is paying off — it asks AI the same buying question your next customer will, and shows you who it recommends instead of you.
I'm looking for the best [type of business] in [city]. Who would you recommend, and why? Is [business name] on your list? If not, what would [business name] need to show you — reviews, credentials, helpful content, consistent listings — to earn a spot next time?
Run it in ChatGPT and at least one other AI tool, screenshot the answers, then pick one gap to close before the next issue.
On Micah's Desk This Week
Micah is turning this month's prompt into a repeatable "best-in-city" check — running the same buying questions across ChatGPT and Gemini for client categories and logging who gets named each month. She's also tightening Google Business Profiles and review-response routines where listings are thin, and folding those findings into our AI Readiness Audit scorecards. If you want to know who AI recommends in your category and city right now, let her know.
Where to Start
If Detroit's next wave of neighbors is going to ask AI before they ask anyone else, our free 30-minute AI Discovery Call will tell you whether you're in the answer — no pitch, just a clear read on where you are and what to do first. Prefer to start on your own? Book an AI Readiness Audit at mrjcdetroit.com/book-online, or grab Chosen by the Machine in our shop. Ready to talk? Reach out at info@mrjcdetroit.com.
MRJ Consulting is a Detroit-based digital marketing and AI consulting firm helping law firms, nonprofits, financial institutions, and small businesses across Southeast Michigan build AI-powered marketing systems that actually work. Detroit-Built. Globally Focused.
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