AI Might Be Lying About Your Business

What happens when AI gets my business information wrong?

It guesses, it states the guess as fact, and your customer acts on it.

AI does not leave a blank when it cannot find a fact about you. It fills the blank with the most likely answer and says it with the same confidence it uses for everything else. If your hours, your location, your contact info or your services are not somewhere AI can read, the version of you that customers hear is a guess.

That is what this Fargo Walks episode is about, and Air Canada is the reason to take it seriously.

What did Air Canada's chatbot cost them?

A passenger asked Air Canada's website chatbot about bereavement fares. The chatbot told him he could book at full price and apply for the reduced bereavement rate afterward, within 90 days. That policy did not exist. When he applied, the airline refused.

He took it to the British Columbia Civil Resolution Tribunal. On February 14, 2024, the tribunal ruled in Moffatt v. Air Canada that the airline was responsible for what its chatbot said. As the American Bar Association's Business Law Today summarized it, the tribunal awarded "approximately $650 CAD in damages, plus pre-judgement interest and filing fees with the Tribunal."

The dollar amount is small. The principle is not. Air Canada argued the chatbot was a separate entity responsible for its own words. The tribunal said no. The company owns what its AI tells customers.

In the clip I say "a court upheld it." It was a tribunal. Same outcome.

Why does this matter for a business that has no chatbot?

Because the AI your customers use is not yours, and it is answering for you anyway.

BrightLocal surveyed 1,002 US consumers and published the results on March 10, 2026: the share using AI to find local business recommendations "has climbed from 6% in 2025 to 45% today." Nearly half of the people looking for what you do are asking an AI assistant first. When it answers about your hours or your services, it is speaking for you, with whatever it managed to find.

Air Canada at least got to write its chatbot's script. You do not get to write ChatGPT's. You only get to control what it reads.

What should you check first?

1. Your hours

Ask ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews when you are open. Compare the answer to reality. Holiday hours and seasonal changes are where this breaks most often.

2. Your location

If you have moved, merged, or opened a second site, ask where you are. Old addresses survive for years on directory pages AI still reads.

3. Your contact info

Ask for your phone number and email. A wrong number sends the customer to a stranger, and you never hear about the call you did not get.

4. The services you offer

Ask what you do. If AI leaves out your most profitable service or adds one you stopped offering, that is a gap on a page somewhere, and AI filled it.

5. Fix the source, not the answer

You cannot edit the AI. You can edit your website, your Google Business Profile, your directory listings and your review responses. When everything AI can read agrees, it stops guessing.

What this does not mean

It does not mean AI is out to get you. It means AI is built to answer, and an answer built on a gap is still delivered as an answer.

It also does not mean you need a chatbot. Air Canada's problem started with one. Yours starts with whatever is already out there about you.

The decision

Pick the four checks above and run them today, in all four AI systems. Every wrong answer points at a page you control. Fix that page. AI stops getting challenged when everything it reads about you is accurate.

Sources

• American Bar Association, Business Law Today, "BC Tribunal Confirms Companies Remain Liable for Information Provided by AI Chatbot," February 2024. Moffatt v. Air Canada, British Columbia Civil Resolution Tribunal, decided February 14, 2024.
• BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2026, AI and trust findings, published March 10, 2026. 1,002 US adult consumers. Use of AI for local business recommendations rose from 6% in 2025 to 45%.
• Jeff Fargo, Fargo Factor Insight: Why AI Recommends Your Competitor When You Know More
• Jeff Fargo, Fargo Factor Insight: Filters Are Killing Your Credibility

Transcript

Verbatim from the Fargo Walks clip, as recorded.

AI might be lying about your business. Check all of your information: your hours, your location, your contact info, the services you offer. If AI doesn't read it, it's going to guess. Air Canada's chatbot created a refund policy. And guess what? It wasn't correct, and a court upheld it. They had to pay. AI stops getting challenged when everything it reads about you is accurate. I'm Jeff Fargo. I help businesses get found accurately with AI search. Go forth.

Jeff Fargo is the founder of Fargo Factor and host of Fargo Talks. Fargo Factor advises established businesses on AI Search Authority, AI Decision Systems, and selective AI-enabled implementation.