AI is now the third way customers find a local business

AI just became a top-three way people find you

About 45% of people looking for a local business now start by asking an AI assistant like ChatGPT. A year ago, that number was 6%. The jump comes from BrightLocal's 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey, which now ranks an AI assistant behind only Google and Facebook as a way people find a local business. It passed Yelp in a single year.

People have always found you through Google, and that hasn't changed. What's new is a second way in that barely existed a year ago. When one of those shoppers asks ChatGPT or the AI answer at the top of Google for a good plumber or dentist near them, they get back a short list of two or three names.

The two or three names on that list get the call. Everyone else never finds out they were in the running, because there's no missed-call log for an answer that never mentioned them. That's what makes this worth five minutes of your morning.

Here's the part most owners miss. The demand showed up fast, but the number of businesses these assistants actually name stays small. Most owners have never checked whether AI recommends them, and most aren't in the answer. This post is about that gap, and the two moves that put you on the right side of it.

Why AI names so few businesses

Start with why the list is short. An assistant names you when it finds one clear, plain answer about what you do, where you do it, and who you do it for. With a fuzzy or missing answer, it plays it safe and hands the customer a business it feels surer about. Being left off usually has nothing to do with your price or how good your work is.

Here's where most businesses lose the spot, and in the audits I run it is the single most common one. That plain answer is sitting on their website and their Google Business Profile, but it's scattered, buried, or worded three different ways. The homepage says one thing, the services page says another, and the Google profile says a third. A shopper can squint and piece it together, but an assistant just reads the mismatch and moves on to a business that says the same clear thing everywhere.

Picture a medspa whose homepage calls it a "wellness studio," whose booking page calls it a "med spa," and whose Google profile calls it a "skin clinic." It's one business wearing three names, and to ChatGPT that looks like three different places, so it stays unsure and points the customer to someone clearer.

The reason is usually that ordinary. The business does good work at a fair price. Its own description of itself just doesn't line up from one page to the next, so the assistant can't repeat it with confidence.

Run the 5-minute check

You don't have to guess which side of the gap you're on. Checking takes about five minutes on your phone, before your first customer today.

1. Open ChatGPT, or open the Google app and read the AI answer at the top.
2. Type the exact question a customer would ask, in their own words (the plain way they say it out loud, like "who does same day crowns near me"). Skip your own business name.
3. Read the answer and note who gets named, and whether you're one of them.

Use the words a real customer uses, like "best emergency plumber near me" or "who does braces for adults near me." Then read the answer slowly. Look at which businesses get named, and check whether you're one of them and whether the assistant got your service and your area right.

If a competitor turns up where you expected your own name, you just found the exact problem to fix. Other times the answer names no local business at all, and that gap is an opening you can take before your competitors notice it. Either way, you now know something you were guessing at an hour ago.

Write down what you find. A blank answer that never names you points straight to a page or profile you need to fix. When you do show up but with the wrong service or an old address, that is a quick correction, and it pays off fast.

Do this for two or three of the questions your customers actually ask you. It takes five minutes, and it tells you more about where you stand in AI than any report.

Fix the one sentence

The first fix is smaller than you'd think. Write one plain sentence that says exactly what you do, where, and who you do it for. Then put that same sentence, in the same words, on your website and on your Google Business Profile.

Keep it plain and true. A dentist might write: We're a family and cosmetic dental practice on the east side of town, offering same-day crowns, kids' checkups, and emergency visits. An HVAC company might write: We handle heating and cooling repair and install for homeowners across town, with same-day service in summer. Give the plain facts an assistant can read once and repeat, and leave out marketing lines like "world-class care."

One sentence does this much because a matching site and Google profile give the assistant one clear thing to repeat. It stops guessing. It has one solid answer to give a customer, and you become one of the two or three names it's willing to say out loud.

A few other things help once that sentence is set. A separate page for each main service works better than one page that lists everything. So does getting named on the trusted "best of" lists for your trade, the kind a local reporter or a review site puts together. BrightLocal's research on what helps points to both. Do those after the one sentence is in place.

One more number worth knowing. That 45% skews toward your best customers. In the same survey, the heaviest users were people aged 30 to 44, at 64%. A separate Gartner survey from January 2026 found 51% of US consumers say AI has changed how they research before they buy. The people most likely to book you are the ones most likely to ask an assistant first.

So here's your week. Run the check today. This week, write the one sentence and put it in both places. Then check again in a few weeks and watch whether your name starts coming up. It's free, and almost none of your competitors have done it yet.