Can I ask OpenAI or Google to correct wrong information about my company?

You can't file a request that makes ChatGPT, Gemini or Google AI Overviews say something different about your company. The evidence base behind this library documents no such correction channel at OpenAI or Google, as of October 2026. Telling the chatbot it is wrong doesn't work either, as we cover in whether correcting ChatGPT in a chat fixes the answer for everyone.

The reason is how these answers get built. Every answer comes from one of two places:

• Trained knowledge (parametric). What the model learned before its knowledge cutoff. OpenAI lists a cutoff of Feb 16, 2026 for its GPT-5.6 models and Aug 31, 2025 for the Instant path used in ChatGPT. Nobody can edit this between releases.
• Live retrieval. The engine searches, reads pages and writes from them. This answer changes when the pages change.

So the honest move is not to petition the vendor. It's to fix what the engine reads, and to check whether it can read you at all.

Before you fix anything, diagnose the error. A wrong answer with no cited links often comes from trained knowledge. A wrong answer with citations usually came from the pages it cited.

Three common patterns:

1. Outdated. The fact was true once. Your old price or old product name sits in training data or on a stale page. See the difference between a hallucination and an outdated answer.
2. Sourced from a wrong page. A directory, review site or old press article states the wrong fact, and the engine repeated it.
3. Invented. No page says it. The model filled a gap.

Retrieval is discretionary on every platform. ChatGPT decides per query whether to search, and OpenAI's help centre says ChatGPT search rewrites your question into one or more targeted queries. So the same question can be answered from search one day and from memory the next. Ask each question several times before you decide which pattern you're seeing. If the error predates a cutoff, correcting outdated facts past a knowledge cutoff covers that case.

Your site is the source you fully control. Make the correct fact easy to fetch and easy to quote.

• State the fact plainly. Put the price, founding year or product name in one clear sentence on a page that can be fetched. Stating a specific fact gives the engine a sentence it can quote. It's the only positive experimental signal for on-page content in our evidence base.
• Put it in the HTML. Vercel found that ChatGPT and Claude crawlers fetch JavaScript files but don't execute them. If your pricing only appears after JavaScript runs, those crawlers never see it. Googlebot renders, so this matters most outside Google.
• Remove contradictions. If your pricing page, about page and footer state different numbers, an engine has no way to pick the right one. Make every page agree.
• Check crawler access. OpenAI's bots page says OAI-SearchBot controls ChatGPT search, and blocking GPTBot only stops training use. A firewall or CDN can also turn away a crawler that robots.txt allows. From 2026-09-15, Cloudflare blocks Training and Agent crawlers by default on ad-displaying pages for new domains and free-tier accounts, while Search stays allowed. The AI Crawler Checker requests a page as each AI crawler and shows which ones get turned away.

For Google, Google's AI features documentation says a page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet to appear as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode. There are no extra requirements. More on that in fixing wrong facts in AI Overviews.

Skip the shortcuts. Google says structured data isn't required for its generative AI features, and Ahrefs' matched test found AI Overview citations fell 4.6% after pages added schema. Markup won't correct a wrong answer.

Often the engine isn't citing you at all. It cites a comparison article, a directory listing or a review profile. When that happens, those pages are the route into the answer. The evidence shows a strong association here, not a guaranteed effect.

What to do:

1. Open the citations on the wrong answer and list every source.
2. For each one, find the owner and ask for a correction, with a link to the page on your site that states the right fact.
3. Update every profile you control: directories, marketplaces, social bios, partner pages.
4. Where a page is abandoned and wrong, publish the correct fact somewhere the engine already reads.

One warning. Some vendors sell hidden text or instructions aimed at AI crawlers. Research on search agents shows manipulated content can sway answers once it's retrieved, which is exactly why it's a risk to your reputation. It is illegitimate, and it can backfire. Don't use it.

A fix only counts once you see the answer change. Re-test the same buyer questions on each engine separately. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini and AI Overviews draw on different indexes and different models, so a blended score hides which one is still wrong.

Set expectations. Retrieval answers can change once your corrected page is fetched again. Trained answers wait for a new model. How long AI takes to update brand info covers the timelines, and triaging AI hallucinations helps you rank which errors to chase first.

For a quick snapshot, the free checker on this site shows whether engines name you for up to three buyer questions. It's a point-in-time check, so run it again after each fix. No one can promise the answer will change. You can make sure nothing on your side is blocking the right one.

If I correct ChatGPT in a conversation, does it learn the right answer? No. A correction in your chat affects that conversation, and possibly your own saved memory if memory is on. It doesn't change what the model says to other users. Trained knowledge stays fixed until a new model ships, and search answers depend on the pages the engine retrieves. Fix those pages instead of arguing with the chatbot.

Can I report a wrong AI Overview to Google and have it removed? The evidence we work from documents no Google process that rewrites an AI Overview about a brand. AI Overviews link to pages that are indexed and eligible for a snippet, so the practical fix is the page being cited. Correct your own page, or ask the owner of the third-party page to correct theirs, then check the overview again.

Will adding schema markup fix a wrong AI answer? There's no evidence it will. Google says structured data isn't required for its generative AI features, and Ahrefs' matched test found AI Overview citations fell 4.6% after pages added schema. Existing markup does no harm. A clear sentence stating the correct fact, in HTML a crawler can fetch, is a better use of your time.

ChatGPT keeps quoting an old price. What should I check first? Check three things. Is the current price in your page HTML before JavaScript runs? Does robots.txt allow OAI-SearchBot, and does your firewall let it through? Does any third-party page still list the old price? If none of those explain it, the answer may come from training data. Our page on [ChatGPT getting your pricing wrong](/questions/chatgpt-gets-my-pricing-wrong) walks through it.