--- title: "Is Bulgaria Behind on AI Search? What the US Shows Us" description: "Bulgarians took to ChatGPT as fast as Americans, but Bulgarian businesses are where the US was in early 2025. Here's what comes next, and roughly when." url: https://wonderworksdesign.net/authors/colin-rooney/predictions/is-bulgaria-behind-on-ai-search language: en updated: 2026-11-04 publisher: Wonder Works (Wonder Works Design Ltd), Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria --- [Home](https://wonderworksdesign.net/)[Colin Rooney](https://wonderworksdesign.net/authors/colin-rooney)[Colin's Predictions](https://wonderworksdesign.net/authors/colin-rooney/predictions) 10Called on **4 Nov 2026**Still open # Your customers are already asking AI. You're not, yet. [Colin Rooney](https://wonderworksdesign.net/authors/colin-rooney)Co-founder, Wonder Works · my opinion, not Wonder Works advice ![Colin Rooney tapping his wristwatch with a knowing half smile](https://wonderworksdesign.net/media/colin-tapping-watch.webp) Where everyone is, November 2026 1. **Bulgarian customers** (Asking AI) 1. Dec 2022 ChatGPT takes off, the same week as America 2. Oct 2025 Google's AI Mode arrives in Bulgarian, 7 October 2. **American businesses** (Showing up in AI) 1. Apr 2025 Panic: searches for AI SEO explode 2. May 2026 Tricks: llms.txt peaks 3. Sep 2026 Measuring: is any of it working? 3. **Bulgarian businesses** (Showing up in AI) 1. Nov 2026 Barely registering 2. 2027 My call: sometime in 2027 Today: 4 November 2026. Sources are under each chart below. The short answer Bulgarians already ask AI, as fast as Americans did. Bulgarian businesses haven't started asking how to show up in it. America went panic, tricks, then measuring in about eighteen months, and my call is that Bulgarian businesses start in 2027, in the same order. ## Do people in Bulgaria already ask AI instead of Google? This one surprised me when I started digging. ChatGPT took off in Bulgaria in the same week it took off in America, the first week of December 2022, and Bulgaria has only ever been a couple of months behind since. It's not just ChatGPT either. Compared with ChatGPT, Bulgarians look up Gemini far more than Americans do, and Google switched on [AI Mode](https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-mode-expands-40232.html), the version of search you have a conversation with, in Bulgarian on 7 October last year. So the tools are here and people are using them, and you can even see the moment they stopped needing it explained: searches in Bulgarian for "what is ChatGPT" have dropped by about two thirds in a year. Nobody asks what it is anymore. [They just ask it things.](https://wonderworksdesign.net/authors/colin-rooney/predictions/seo-named-after-something-nobody-does) Same week, same climb Interest in ChatGPT on Google, week by week. Each country is scaled to its own busiest week (100), so the shapes compare, not the sizes. Bulgaria took off the same week as America and has tracked it ever since. | | America | Bulgaria | | --- | --- | --- | | Took off | Week of 4 Dec 2022 | Week of 4 Dec 2022 | | Busiest week so far | 14 Sep 2025 | 18 Jan 2026 | | Last week of October 2026 | 80 | 77 | Source: Google Trends for "chatgpt", United States and Bulgaria, December 2022 to October 2026, pulled 4 November 2026. ## Are Bulgarian businesses behind on AI search? Now look at the other side of the counter. When Bulgarian business owners go to Google to ask how to show up in ChatGPT, or anything like it, the numbers barely register, and I don't mean small, I mean basically nothing. The best clue to how far behind we are is a name change. Google renamed Google My Business to Google Business Profile at the end of 2021, Bulgarians only started searching for the new name regularly at the end of 2025, four years later, and the old name still gets around two thousand searches a month here. I'm not having a go at anyone. Most business owners are busy running the actual business, and that's exactly why nobody has told them yet. Four years to catch up with a name Searches in Bulgaria for the two names, month by month, on one scale (100 is the busiest month for either). The old name won every single month until November 2025. | Month | New name | Old name | | --- | --- | --- | | Nov 2021 | 0 | 45 | | Nov 2023 | 23 | 81 | | Nov 2024 | 29 | 41 | | Nov 2025 | 78 | 62 | | Mar 2026 | 97 | 65 | | Oct 2026 | 52 | 44 | Source: Google Trends, Bulgaria, June 2021 to October 2026, pulled 4 November 2026. Zero means too few searches to count. ## What happened in America first? America shows us what's coming, because it has already been through it. Until late April 2025 hardly anyone there searched for "AI SEO". Then it exploded, peaked around September, and it has been falling ever since, from about 9,900 searches a month in February this year to 5,400 in September. The quick fixes went the same way. llms.txt, the little file everyone was told to add for AI, peaked in May and June this year and is fading, mostly because almost nothing was reading it. What's growing now is people asking how they can tell whether any of it is working: searches for "AI visibility" have more than tripled in a year, and "how to rank in ChatGPT" went from about 90 a month to 320. So the order went panic, then tricks, then measuring, and it took them roughly eighteen months. The American order, and where Bulgaria is 1. From late April 2025 Panic Searches for AI SEO go from almost nothing to a peak in September 2025. 2. May and June 2026 Tricks llms.txt, the quick fix everyone was told to add, peaks and then fades. 3. Now Measuring Searches for AI visibility go from 390 to 1,300 a month in a year. How to rank in ChatGPT goes from 90 to 320. - AI visibility: 390 to **1,300** a month - How to rank in ChatGPT: 90 to **320** a month 4. Today Bulgarian businesses Still before the first step: the same searches in Bulgaria barely register. Sources: Google Trends, United States, for "ai seo" and "llms.txt" (each scaled to its own busiest week), November 2024 to October 2026; Google Ads monthly searches, United States, October 2025 and September 2026. Pulled 4 November 2026. ## When will Bulgarian businesses start caring about AI search? I'm not putting a date on the calendar, but if America is the guide, Bulgarian customers have now had the tools for about a year, and the business side always follows. My call is that sometime in 2027 Bulgarian business owners start asking these questions in real numbers, and it will come in the same order, first someone selling them a trick, then the penny dropping that they need to know whether it actually works. We check the Bulgarian searches every week now, so when they start moving I'll come back and mark it here, right or wrong. My call **2027:** Bulgarian business owners start asking how to show up in AI, in real numbers. Same order First someone selling them a trick, then the need to know whether it works. How I'll know We check the Bulgarian searches every week. When they move, I mark it here. ## Who is selling AI search tricks in the meantime? The selling has already started, before most businesses have even asked the question. In America there's [a whole script for it now](https://blitzmetrics.com/ai-seo-scam-chatgpt-rankings/): a cold email telling you your business is missing from ChatGPT, a guaranteed fix, a screenshot as proof, sent from a company nobody has heard of with a "top experts" list that has itself at number one. Here's the thing about that screenshot. We asked ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity [forty Sofia business questions](https://wonderworksdesign.net/lab/who-ai-recommends-in-sofia), three times each, all on the same day. ChatGPT put the same business first less than half the time and Gemini about a third of the time. Same question, same day. So a screenshot of you at number one proves you were number one once, for one person, on one go, and that's what they're selling you. Even the tools built to track this don't agree with each other: [give three of them the same questions and you get three different answers](https://digiday.com/marketing/marketers-question-expensive-ai-visibility-tools-as-inconsistent-results-fuel-skepticism/), and some charge up to a thousand dollars a month for it. And [since 15 May this year](https://winbuzzer.com/2026/05/17/google-search-spam-policy-ai-overviews-ai-mode-manipulation-xcxwbn/) Google treats trying to rig its AI answers as spam, so the clever trick can get you pushed down or thrown out. Anyone guaranteeing you a place in an AI answer is either lying or doesn't understand what they're selling, and I honestly don't know which is worse. I've already seen offers here that tie a business in for twelve months on this. A year, for something nobody can measure the same way twice. Ask what you'll actually see each month, and if the answer is a screenshot, walk away. > Ask what you'll actually see each month, and if the answer is a screenshot, walk away. Same question, same day, three goes The question, in Bulgarian: Препоръчай ресторант в София за романтична вечеря (Recommend a restaurant in Sofia for a romantic dinner) ChatGPT Go 1 1. Restaurant A 2. Restaurant B 3. Restaurant C Go 2 1. Restaurant D 2. Restaurant A 3. Restaurant E Go 3 1. Restaurant F 2. Restaurant D 3. Restaurant G Gemini Go 1 1. Restaurant H 2. Restaurant I 3. Restaurant B Go 2 1. Restaurant J 2. Restaurant B 3. Restaurant K Go 3 1. Restaurant B 2. Restaurant L 3. Restaurant M Perplexity Go 1 1. Restaurant N 2. Restaurant O 3. Restaurant P Go 2 1. Restaurant O 2. Restaurant N 3. Restaurant I Go 3 1. Restaurant N 2. Restaurant O 3. Restaurant P Each letter is a different Sofia restaurant, the top three in each answer, asked three times on 30 October 2026. Across all forty questions, how often the same business came first from one go to the next, how often the whole list came back identical, and how many businesses were named only once in three goes. | Across all 40 questions | Same No. 1 next go | Identical list | Named only once in 3 goes | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | ChatGPT | 43% | 6% | 51% | | Gemini | 34% | 1% | 69% | | Perplexity | 90% | 50% | 19% | Source: our own study, [Who AI recommends in Sofia](https://wonderworksdesign.net/lab/who-ai-recommends-in-sofia), 40 questions, 3 goes each, all on 30 October 2026. [The raw answers](https://wonderworksdesign.net/research/sofia-ai-study-2026-10.csv). ## What should a Bulgarian business do before the wave hits? The boring stuff, which happens to be the stuff that works. Find out what your customers actually ask, not the keyword but the real question, and answer it properly on your own site, in plain words, the way you'd answer it across the counter. Get your Google Business Profile complete and keep it matching your website, because it's one of the main places Google's AI reads about a local business. Get other people talking about you, in reviews, in the local press, a client mentioning you, because when AI quotes something it's mostly quoting other people, not you talking about yourself. And once a month, check how often the AI tools name you across lots of questions, never just one. Do it now while it's quiet, and when Bulgarian businesses wake up to this you'll be the one already there, not the one buying the screenshot. Before the wave, in order 1. Answer the real questions Not the keyword, the question. On your own site, in plain words. 2. Complete your Google Business Profile And keep it matching your website. Google's AI reads it. 3. Get other people talking about you Reviews, local press, clients. AI mostly quotes other people. 4. Check once a month How often the AI tools name you, across lots of questions, never just one. ## Updates, newest first 4 Nov 2026The original call This is the prediction as I made it that day. When something changes, I add a dated update here and leave the original as it is. ### In this piece 1. Do people in Bulgaria already ask AI instead of Google? 2. Are Bulgarian businesses behind on AI search? 3. What happened in America first? 4. When will Bulgarian businesses start caring about AI search? 5. Who is selling AI search tricks in the meantime? 6. What should a Bulgarian business do before the wave hits? ### How I mark these - Happening - Still open - Proved wrong ### Linked predictions - [SEO is named after something nobody does anymore](https://wonderworksdesign.net/authors/colin-rooney/predictions/seo-named-after-something-nobody-does) - [You can't bullshit AI?](https://wonderworksdesign.net/authors/colin-rooney/predictions/you-cant-bullshit-ai) - [Half a trillion dollars says we don't click anymore](https://wonderworksdesign.net/authors/colin-rooney/predictions/half-a-trillion-dollars-we-dont-click) - [Recommended isn't booked](https://wonderworksdesign.net/authors/colin-rooney/predictions/recommended-isnt-booked) ### All of them - [← Back to the logbook](https://wonderworksdesign.net/authors/colin-rooney/predictions)