For a year the line has been that local businesses would be spared by AI answers. They aren't: AI Overviews appear on roughly 68% of local searches, against 39% for the classic local pack. The good news is that on those queries the AI doesn't replace your website — it picks two or three businesses to recommend. That's the whole game. Here are the five jobs that decide whether you're one of them, and a checklist for your specific trade.
Local is more exposed than the advice suggests
The numbers leave little room for argument. On local service queries, the presence of an AI Overview has gone from around 20% in early 2024 to more than 80% today. The generated answer often sits above the Google Maps card. Someone looking for a plumber, a restaurant or a hairdresser now reads a written recommendation before seeing any list at all.
But the nature of the risk isn't what it is for a content site. A blog living off "how to descale a coffee machine" loses its page outright: the six-line summary replaces it. A local business doesn't lose its destination — nobody books a table or an appointment inside a summary paragraph.
Your real risk is elsewhere: not making the shortlist. Where a results page showed ten links and a local pack showed three, the generated answer narrows further. Two or three names. Visibility doesn't disappear, it concentrates — fewer winners, and the slots are not yet taken.
What the AI actually looks at
Unlike an informational query, where the model draws on web pages, a local query mobilises a specific set of sources:
| Source | Weight | What it supplies |
|---|---|---|
| Google Business Profile | Dominant | Identity, category, address, hours, photos, attributes |
| Reviews and owner replies | Very strong | Sentiment, real customer vocabulary, recency signal |
| Cross-source consistency | Strong | Confidence placed in the information |
| Your website | Complementary but decisive | Everything the profile cannot express |
| Directories and platforms | Corroboration | Cross-checking of the basics |
Hold onto the last line. The profile dominates, but it doesn't suffice — it's limited to standardised fields. It will never say whether you take groups of ten, whether the room can be hired privately, whether your workshop opens on Saturdays, or what separates you from the business across the street. Those answers can only come from your site, and they are exactly the ones that tip a recommendation.
The five jobs
1. A complete, living business profile
The foundation, and the best effort-to-result ratio on this list. Claimed profile, exact primary category (category choice outweighs most other optimisations), address and hours current including exceptions — bank holidays, closures, one-off changes. Recent photos. Attributes filled in: terrace, step-free access, payment methods, dietary options. These are precisely the criteria AI Mode splits its sub-queries on.
An abandoned profile isn't merely neutral — it signals an inactive business. The full detail is in my article on the Google profile.
2. Reviews: steadiness beats volume
Reviews are among the most decisive local signals in 2026, and two things matter more than the average rating or the total count:
- Steadiness. A continuous flow over recent months beats an old accumulation. Two hundred reviews whose most recent is a year old are worth less than forty fresh, regular ones.
- Owner responses. They add text the models read, prove the business is active, and give you a chance to restate useful information.
The commonly missed point: models read the text of reviews, not just the rating. If your customers spontaneously write "great terrace" or "perfect for a business lunch", that vocabulary becomes material the AI can reuse to recommend you on those queries. Which is also why generic replies are wasted — they add no signal.
3. NAP consistency, locked down
Name, address and phone strictly identical everywhere: website, Google profile, Maps, directories, review platforms, social accounts. Models cross-check their sources; any contradiction pushes them toward a business that doesn't contradict itself.
The classic traps are dull and common: an old address lingering on a directory, a mobile number in one place and a landline in another, "Dupont Ltd" on the site and "Chez Dupont" on the profile, a previous website never taken down. NAP consistency takes no special skill — just an hour of methodical inventory.
4. LocalBusiness structured data
On your site, schema.org markup states unambiguously what the text only implies. The useful minimum: LocalBusiness — or its precise subtype, Restaurant, HairSalon, Bakery, Store — with exact name, full postal address, geo-coordinates, phone, hours including exceptions, price range and URL. Then FAQPage for your common questions, and Menu for a restaurant.
Geo-coordinates are the most commonly skipped field, even though they remove all ambiguity about location — decisive when three businesses share a similar name in the same town.
5. Pages that answer the real questions
This is the job almost nobody does, and the one that separates you — because your competitors' Google profiles say roughly what yours says.
List the questions customers actually ask on the phone. Not keywords: questions. "Do you take groups of ten?", "Is it accessible with a pushchair?", "How long do alterations take?", "Do I need to book for lunch?". Each deserves a written, factual, short answer on your site — under a heading that repeats the question.
It is the most citable content a local business can produce: precise, verifiable, impossible for a model to invent, and directly aligned with the sub-questions being generated.
Checklist by trade
The information that makes the difference isn't the same across trades. The points below are the ones AI answers draw on most often — and the ones most often missing from websites.
Restaurant
- Current menu as readable text, never an image or a PDF — a PDF menu is invisible to extraction
- Diets catered for: vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, halal, allergens
- Terrace, room, private hire, maximum capacity, groups
- Lunch and dinner service, last orders, closing days
- Booking: required or not, and by what means
Shop
- Brands and ranges actually stocked
- Price range — the most searched and most often absent information
- Click and collect, delivery, area covered
- Returns, warranties, after-sales service
- Sunday and holiday-period hours
Trades and home services
- Service area named town by town, not "London and surrounding areas"
- Realistic lead times, and emergency availability
- Quotes: free or not, and response time
- Certifications, insurance, guarantees
- Work you don't take on — as useful as the list of what you do
Hair, beauty and wellbeing
- Services with duration and price
- Booking: online, phone, or walk-in
- Technical specialisms: curly hair, plant-based colour, extensions
- Product brands used
- Accessibility and nearby parking
Where to start
In order, across two weeks: complete the business profile first (one hour, immediate effect), run the NAP consistency inventory (one hour), then write the FAQ page from your phone calls (half a day). Structured data comes next, with your developer. Reviews are worked continuously — that's a habit, not a project.
Before any of it, record your current numbers. Without a baseline you won't be able to measure what you gained, and once AI answers roll out in your market that baseline is gone for good. I've covered how to set it up and how to read Google's AI visibility report.
Frequently asked questions
Do AI Overviews appear on local searches?
Yes, heavily: roughly 68% of local searches, against 39% for the classic local pack. On local service queries the share went from around 20% in early 2024 to more than 80% today.
What does Google draw on to cite a business?
Mainly the Google Business Profile, then reviews and their recency, then consistency across sources, and finally the website for everything the profile cannot express.
Do reviews affect citation?
Considerably. Steadiness of flow and owner responses weigh more than the total count. Models read the text, not just the rating — your customers' vocabulary becomes usable material.
How many businesses does an AI answer cite?
Two or three usually, a few more on broad questions. The shortlist is tighter than the local pack, which makes the slot worth more.
Do I still need a website with a Google profile?
Yes. The profile is limited to standardised fields and can't answer the questions that make people choose. And a profile with no website is one that nothing corroborates.
How long before it shows?
Profile and consistency fixes propagate within weeks. Reviews take months of steadiness. Nobody can guarantee a citation in an AI Overview — be wary of anyone promising one: these are necessary conditions, not sufficient ones.
Want to know which businesses Google recommends today instead of yours? Ask for a diagnostic: I run your customers' real queries, show you who gets cited and why, and what's missing on your side to be there. That's my AI search optimization work for local businesses.