What does AI know about your small business?

You want people to find your small business online, and increasingly, you may want AI tools to find it too. If someone asks an AI assistant to recommend a local accountant, marketing agency, consultant or other service, having your business show up in the answer could be a good thing.

But you probably don't want an AI tool or the person using it to know everything about how your business works or even who's away from the office.

So, where is the line between being discoverable and being unnecessarily exposed?

Key takeaways:

Being easy for AI to find can help customers discover your business, but not everything about how your company works needs to be public.
AI can help scammers connect information about employees, suppliers, technologies and business relationships to create more convincing attacks.
Check what AI tools can find about your company, reduce unnecessary exposure and protect the people, accounts and devices attackers may target.

What can AI find out about your small business?

Try asking an AI chatbot about your own business. Depending on the tool and what information is available online, you may get back much more than a short company description.

It may be able to find or piece together information such as:

What your business does and where it operates
Who owns or runs the company
Employee names, job titles and responsibilities
Email addresses, phone numbers and other contact details
Customers, partners or suppliers
Products, services and pricing
Technologies or platforms your business uses
Recent hires, projects, events or announcements

Some of this information may come directly from your website. Other details could be scattered across LinkedIn profiles, social media posts, old job ads, business directories, public documents and other sources. That doesn't mean everything an AI tool tells you is accurate. Information may be outdated, incomplete or simply wrong, so check the sources when they're available.

What matters from a security perspective is what someone can learn about your business without ever speaking to you or your employees, especially when seemingly harmless pieces of information are put together.

You want AI to find your business, just not everything about it

As people increasingly use AI tools to search for products, services and recommendations, you may want AI tools to understand what your company does, where you operate, how to contact you and why they should choose you. You may publish articles to demonstrate your expertise, introduce members of your team or talk about clients and projects you're proud of.

The question is whether the information you're making public serves your business or simply makes it easier for someone to understand how your business works internally.

Try asking several AI tools about your business. Ask what your company does, who owns it, who works there and what their roles are, who your customers, partners or suppliers are, what technologies you use, and what contact information or recent news they can find. Then do the same for yourself and other key employees.

Don't focus only on how many facts the AI finds. Pay attention to what it manages to connect — such as an employee's role with a supplier, payment responsibility or particular business tool.

Good to be discoverable	Think twice about exposing
What your business does	Who approves payments
Products and services	Internal financial processes
General location/service area	Employee personal contact details
Official contact channels	Internal email conventions
Expertise and credentials	Internal technology or security details
Public-facing team members	Internal roles and reporting lines
Useful articles/content	When key people are away
Customer-facing partnerships you intentionally promote	Supplier/payment relationships that don't need to be public

Does this information help someone find, understand or trust my business — or does it mainly help them understand how my business works internally?

How scammers can use information about your business

Scammers have researched their targets long before generative AI arrived. What AI can change is how quickly someone can collect, summarize and connect information from different sources.

That information can then help scammers:

Target the right employee. Knowing who works in finance, HR or administration can help scammers focus on people who may have access to money, sensitive information or valuable accounts.

Create more convincing phishing messages. A phishing email that mentions a real colleague, project, customer or event can be much harder to recognize than a generic scam.

Impersonate executives or colleagues. Information about company roles and relationships can help a scammer pose as a manager or another employee and make an unexpected request sound believable.

Create BEC and invoice scams. Knowing which suppliers or clients your business works with can help criminals create convincing fake invoices or requests to change payment details.

Make social engineering more convincing. Someone who already knows legitimate information about your company may sound much more credible when they contact an employee, supplier or customer.

That's why a message shouldn't be considered trustworthy simply because the sender knows your boss's name, a real supplier, a current project or other legitimate details about your business.

How to reduce unnecessary information about your business online

Once you know what's out there, you don't need to start deleting every mention of your business.

Instead, look at each piece of information and ask which of these three categories it belongs to:

I want this public. It helps customers discover, understand or trust my business.

This needs to be public, but it could also help an attacker. Keep it, but understand how it could be used and make sure employees know scammers may have access to it too.

This doesn't need to be public. Remove it, limit it or update it where possible.

Review your company website and employee bios, but don't stop there. Look at professional and social media profiles, old job advertisements, business directories, PDFs and other documents, old announcements and public posts.

Pay particular attention to information about internal processes, employee contact details, payment responsibilities and business relationships that don't need to be public.

You can't make your business invisible, so protect what attackers may target next

You can't remove every piece of information about your business from the internet, nor should you. Understand what's publicly exposed, remove what doesn't need to be there and protect the people, accounts and devices that attackers may target with the information that remains.

Bitdefender Business Assets Exposure, included in Bitdefender Ultimate Small Business Security, helps you monitor your business's digital footprint and identify information and assets exposed online, so you can spot unwanted exposure and take steps to reduce it.

Bitdefender Ultimate Small Business Security also helps protect your business devices, accounts and employees against phishing, scams, malware, ransomware and other online threats that may target your business. It includes tools to detect suspicious links and scam attempts, while giving you visibility over your business security from one dashboard.

Try Bitdefender Ultimate Small Business Security free for 30 days. No credit card required.

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FAQs

Can scammers use AI to research my business?

Yes. Scammers can use AI to make researching a business faster, including gathering information about employees, roles, suppliers, customers and other business relationships. They can then use those details to make phishing, impersonation and other social engineering attempts more convincing.

Should I remove employee names from my business website?

Not necessarily. Employee information can help customers know who they're dealing with and build trust in your business. Instead of removing everything, consider whether each detail needs to be public and whether it could unnecessarily reveal how your business operates.

How can I find out what information about my business is online?

Search for your business using search engines and several AI tools. Look beyond your company website at business directories, social media profiles, old job listings, PDFs and other public documents. You can also search for key employees to see what information can be connected to your business.

Should I stop AI tools from finding my business?

Not necessarily. Being discoverable can help potential customers find and learn about your business. The goal isn't to make your company invisible, but to make useful business information easy to find while limiting details that don't need to be publicly available.