You’ve marketed apartments for decades. Or maybe you’re new to multifamily. Either way, you’re facing the same challenge right now: AI is changing how renters search.
It feels overwhelming—especially when your portfolio’s visibility, leasing performance, and revenue depend on you.
In the past, you at least knew how renters found you on Google. But now, more are using ChatGPT, Grok, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and other AI tools to ask: “Find me a pet-friendly apartment near downtown with in-unit laundry.” Suddenly, it feels like you need a whole new playbook.
What you really need, though, is clarity on three things…
That’s what we’ll cover here.
Forget all the confusing acronyms—SEO, GEO, LLMEO. As you'll learn, helpful, renter-centric content on your website and other marketing sources will always win, no matter how search evolves.
AI tools scrape, crawl, and summarize information about apartment communities from multiple online sources—and while it's really hard to predict exactly which sources they will use, you can control how content about your community shows up.
Let’s see how this plays out with a real-world renter-style query:
"What apartment communities near the Plaza in Kansas City allow large dogs,
have in-unit laundry, and available studio floorplans?"
We'll start with ChatGPT—one of the most widely-adopted AI tools today. Here's its response:
It pulled data from more than 30 different sources, including:
Now, let's try Google Gemini. Here's its response:
Gemini used less sources, but unlike ChatGPT, cited a property management website (Bourgmont Luxury Apartments) for one of its answers.
In both cases, notice the pattern: neither tool made anything up. The AI tools simply pulled real information from the same familiar online sources renters frequently use in their apartment search.
Next, let's breakdown the sources AI consistently relies on, what it's looking for in each, and how that impacts you:
So why does AI pick one source over another when building an answer? Let’s look at the factors that influence its choices.
There are five factors that determine which sources are used:
As large language models, ChatGPT and Gemini specialize in using the information they gather and instantly summarizing it into answers that best address a renter's individual search. How many sources AI chooses to draw from, however, depends on the type of search.
In broader searches (i.e. 'best apartments in Kansas City), AI usually prioritizes fewer sources, like an ILS, which has enough of the essential details.
The more specific a search is, like the one in our example above, AI will go to websites, ILSs, GBP, and multiple other sources to get the information a renter is asking about (if those sources include the right content).
One of the ironies of optimizing your apartment marketing strategy for AI search is that ChatGPT, Gemini, and others, look at many of the same signals as a traditional search engine like Google would to determine what sources it priorities.
(For example, studies show ChatGPT uses none other than Google's search engine when generating answers.)
That's why following SEO best practices today are more important than ever—because those same tactics that you're most likely already familiar with are still how search engines and AI tools find information.
One example of how AI follows SEO signals? Domain authority, or the predictability for how a website will rank in Google. Domain authority is heavily weighted toward the big-name ILSs, apartment websites, and GBP.
The same goes with trustworthiness. Sources that provide truly helpful and accurate information will appear in AI results more often.
Renters want to know the pricing and availability of your units right now. But if you don't show it on your website (i.e. "Call for Details!"...bad) or it's not accurate across your marketing sources, AI may disqualify one of your most important sources, and that could mean diminished visibility.
It's not just about price and availability—sources like your social media channels that haven't been touched in years signifies to AI that it's not a valuable source, so it may feature other apartments with optimized social profiles instead.
AI can't cite what it can't crawl.
That's why sources like your community website, when it's built with a strong technical SEO foundation for crawlability, indexability, and user-friendliness, helps AI tools clearly understand what the content is about so that it can generate the best answer.
Again, go back to our example prompt from earlier. The communities that AI features specifically call out relevant keywords throughout their marketing messaging about location ('Apartments near Kansas City Plaza'), pet policy ('pet-friendly'), and specific floorplans ('studio').
That's why understanding what keywords interested renters use in searches, and applying them strategically throughout your marketing messaging and on-page SEO elements of your apartment's website, can improve AI visibility.
In the world of AI search, every one of your apartment marketing sources matter. No matter how many ILSs you use or what your social media strategy is, ensuring that you're staying on top of the content of each source will always be important.
That said, no other source of yours gives you more control into how your community appears in AI searches than your apartment's website.
To stand out, your community website needs to:That's the blueprint of a high-converting apartment website that renters, search engines, and AI tools favor.
RentVision's Community Websites are the blueprint for what content and features your site will need to help renters make the best decision, and elevate your online presence wherever they search. Schedule a demo today to see our community websites for yourself.