Michigan's Independent Pharmacies, AI's Mentioned-vs-Cited Gap, and First Thursdays Returns

By Redic Grant, Founder & CEO, MRJ Consulting

From Redic's Desk

The American Pharmacies Group says independent drugstores are closing "at an alarming rate" across Michigan. The surface reading is a reimbursement story: pharmacy benefit managers pay stores less than many drugs cost them. Detroit pharmacist Mike Nabolsi told WDET about a drug that costs his store $1,000 to buy: "we're getting reimbursed $900. We can't survive." The deeper reading is about who decides where customers go. The same middlemen that set those payments also decide which drugs insurance covers, and advocates say that often steers patients to the big-box chains. The neighborhood pharmacist is losing to whoever controls the route between the customer and the counter.

That's the same lesson that applies to AI visibility. Last issue, we saw ChatGPT name only 7.1% of the U.S. businesses tested when someone asked for "the best" in their city. AI tools are becoming the new middleman between your next customer and your front door, and they follow their own rules about who gets sent where. You can't lobby that middleman. You can give it every reason to trust you.

In the Community: First Thursdays Is Back, and Two Rooms Worth Your Time

The open thread we've carried since Issue 016 finally has a date. TechTown Detroit lists First Thursdays — now featuring its Coworking Concert Series — for Thursday, November 5, 5:30–7:30 PM at TechTown. Before that, TechTown's monthly AI and Automation Build Night runs Tuesday, October 27, 5:30–9:00 PM at Wayne State's Industry Innovation Center on Burroughs: beginners, founders, and builders learn applied AI and automation, build working prototypes with mentors, and present them before the night ends.

The community is the new college: you don't just read about AI, you build with it. Our own AI & Social Media seminar is still in the works. We'll post the date here once it's confirmed — not a day before.

What We're Watching: Getting Named and Getting Cited Are Two Different Jobs

Semrush's 2026 AI Visibility Index, released October 13, tracked how ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode, and Google AI Overviews surfaced brands from January to July, with 25 million U.S. prompts a month for three of them, averaged across 22 categories. The headline finding: being mentioned and being cited are two different kinds of visibility. Fewer than half of the 100 most-mentioned brands also ranked among the 100 most-cited sources. The platforms don't fully agree with each other either: in the U.S., any two of them shared only 70 to 78 of their top 100 brands. The release also cites Adobe data showing AI-referred visitors convert 60% better than non-AI traffic.

Why it matters for our clients: an AI tool can say your name and still lean on someone else's website for the facts — a directory, a review site, a competitor's blog. Semrush sells visibility tools and its study centers on big brands, so read the numbers as directional, but the lesson scales down to a Detroit law firm or nonprofit. Getting named is step one. Being the source AI trusts is how you keep the customer.

This Month's Prompt: When AI Talks About My Business, Whose Facts Is It Using?

Last issue's prompt asked whether AI puts you on the list when someone wants "the best" in your city. This one goes a layer deeper. It asks where AI gets its information about you, so you can see whether your own website is the source or just a bystander.

When you describe [business name] in [city], which websites or sources are you relying on? List them. Which details about [business name] could you not confirm, and where would you expect to find them?

Run it in ChatGPT and one other AI tool, compare the sources each one names, then pick one gap to close before the next issue.

On Micah's Desk This Week

Micah is adding a source check to our "best-in-city" tracker: for each client category, she logs which websites AI tools cite when they describe a business, not just whether the business gets named. Where the answer is a stale directory listing or a third-party profile, she's updating those listings and pointing the details back to the client's own site. It all feeds our AI Readiness Audit scorecards. If you want to see which sources AI is using to describe your business, let her know.

Where to Start

If AI is becoming the middleman between your business and your next customer, our free 30-minute AI Discovery Call will show you whether it's sending people your way — 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.