Are You Invisible in AI Search? Why Some Communities Show Up—and Others Don’t—& What To Do About It

AI driven search is quickly becoming a meaningful part of how renters discover apartments. With more than half of US adults using LLMs weekly, renters are beginning their search inside conversational tools like ChatGPT, asking hyper-specific questions about price, amenities, commute, and lifestyle. If a community does not appear in those responses, it risks losing entire segments of high-intent renters. In a recent test across five communities for well-known multifamily brands in Boston, we evaluated visibility across thousands of renter-style queries inside AI search. Average visibility was just 8%. In 92 out of 100 cases, the communities didn’t appear at all. When communities did appear, they typically surfaced behind competitors with clearer amenities, better structured data, or more complete pricing information. Despite this rapid shift in consumer behavior, most multifamily teams have no way to measure how their communities perform inside AI search. This session will break down why this visibility gap exists and what operators can do about it. Peek CEO Austin Lo and UDR Head of Marketing Todd Newton will walk through real examples from AI visibility assessments to show why some communities consistently appear and others do not. They will explain how clarity and structure in pricing, amenities, and unit information affect whether AI tools can find and recommend a property. Attendees will leave with a clear understanding of how AI search affects the top of the funnel, how to identify visibility gaps across their portfolio, and how to make simple adjustments that can improve discoverability and support stronger revenue performance.