Apps are a special case, because the discovery path has quietly changed: people increasingly ask an assistant for an app before they ever open a store. So the assistant is not reading your store listing, it is reading what others say about you.
Getting an app recommended specifically: reviews and roundups feed the models more than your own store page does
Apps are a special case, because the discovery path has quietly changed: people increasingly ask an assistant for an app before they ever open a store. So the assistant is not reading your store listing, it is reading what others say about you:
- Third-party coverage does the heavy lifting. The evidence that a raw App Store or Play listing feeds the web AI answers directly is thin; what clearly feeds them is your app's name appearing in review sites, YouTube reviews, comparison articles and Reddit threads. Get named there.
- Your own site still counts most per mention. Owned pages get cited at a higher rate per URL than listings, so a clear, quotable site that plainly states what your app does and who it is for is still worth building, it just is not sufficient on its own.
- Name the job, not just the app. Make sure the phrase a person would actually ask, “an app to slow down speech to practise pronunciation”, literally appears around your product, so the match is obvious.
- The Play Store itself is going Gemini-powered, separately. Google is adding AI discovery inside the Play Store that reads ratings, reviews and your developer replies through an intent lens. It is a different surface from web AI answers, and newer apps get left out until they have enough reviews, so steady genuine reviews and active, specific replies help you there.
For an app, the store listing is no longer the front door. The front door is every review, roundup, YouTube video and Reddit thread the assistant reads before it ever mentions the store. Win those, and the store visit is the last step, not the first.