How Long Does It Take ChatGPT to Recognize a Business Address Change?

What is a wrong-address hallucination in AI search, and how can a business fix it?

It is an answer that gives an address your business does not use. It comes in four kinds, and each has a different cause:

Check the cited sources to tell them apart. A stale address almost always traces back to a directory or an old page. An invented one usually appears without any citation.

Where does ChatGPT get addresses from?

From the pages its search retrieves: your website, map and business profiles, directories, review sites, data aggregators' partner sites, news articles and registers. The US has several large data aggregators, such as Data Axle, Foursquare and Neustar Localeze, that supply many other directories and apps. Correcting an aggregator can fix dozens of downstream listings.

LocalBusiness schema versus directory cleanup for fixing an AI address error

Directory cleanup matters more.

• Schema describes only your own site. LocalBusiness markup with the new address helps systems that read it, but several AI assistants use only the visible text of a page when they fetch it.
• Directories are many independent sources. When assistants see the old address in ten places and the new one in two, the old one often wins.
• Aggregators multiply the effect. One corrected aggregator record can update many directories.

So do both, in this order. First, update your Business Profile, Apple Business and Bing Places, and for ChatGPT specifically, Yelp (which licenses business details to OpenAI) and OpenStreetMap (whose data feeds the Mapbox maps in ChatGPT). Next, correct the data aggregators and the directories that matter in your category. Then put the new address in text on your website, and update your markup, including coordinates. Consistent details across listings matter for recommendations too, as covered in whether inconsistent NAP data can stop ChatGPT recommending a local business.

Why is Perplexity citing an old address instead of my new medical office?

Because medical offices have more listings than most businesses, and several update slowly. Perplexity is often citing one of these:

• Health directories and booking platforms, with profiles for the practice and for each clinician.
• Insurer provider directories. Under the No Surprises Act, US health plans must update directory information within two business days of receiving it from a provider. But they only update what they receive, so each plan needs to be told.
• The NPI registry, where the practice location in NPPES may still show the old address.
• Hospital and health system pages listing affiliated clinicians.
• Your own site, where old clinician bios or location pages may still mention the previous address.

To fix it:

1. Update the NPPES practice location for the practice and for each clinician who moved.
2. Notify every insurer in writing, and check their online directories a few weeks later.
3. Update health directory and booking profiles, for the practice and for each clinician.
4. Ask affiliated hospitals to update their physician pages.
5. Update your Business Profile. If an old profile still exists at the previous address, ask Google support to mark it as moved rather than closed.
6. Put the move on your site: the new address, directions, parking and the date you moved.

Then ask Perplexity again, and open its sources. Fix whichever listing still carries the old address.

What should you do before moving?

A little preparation shortens the lag considerably:

• List every place your address appears: profiles, directories, registers, insurer and platform listings, printed materials and your own pages.
• Prepare the updates so they can go live on moving day, and schedule those that need advance notice, such as registers and insurers.
• Announce the move a few weeks ahead on your site with the date, so the first wave of questions after the move finds both addresses explained.
• Keep the old phone number if possible, or forward it, so customers who follow stale listings can still reach you.

How long does each source take?

Domain changes follow a similar pattern, covered in how long it takes ChatGPT to recognise a business after a domain change.

How do you track progress?

Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI features "What is [business]'s address?" and "[Business] [town]" every two weeks after the move. Record the address given and the sources cited. Keep a list of every listing you updated, with the date, and cross it off when the new address appears. The address that lingers longest usually comes from a listing you have not found yet, so the cited sources are the most useful data you collect.

What might an illustrative case look like?

Consider an illustrative physiotherapy clinic that moved across town. Six weeks later, ChatGPT gave the new address, but Perplexity still gave the old one, citing a health directory and an insurer's provider search. The clinic had updated its Business Profile and website but not its directory profiles, its clinicians' NPPES practice locations or its insurers. It updated all three and sent written notices to four insurers. It also added a "we've moved" note with the date to its home page. Three weeks later, Perplexity cited the updated directory, and the old address had gone from all four assistants.

What do people ask about address changes and AI answers?

Should I create a new Business Profile for the new address?

No. Update the address on your existing profile, and ask Google to mark any old duplicate as moved.

Can I speed up ChatGPT's update?

Only indirectly, by updating the sources it cites, starting with the ones that appear in its answers.

Should the old address stay on my website?

Only in a clear "we moved from" note for a few months, so people and assistants connect the two.