A customer opens ChatGPT or Google and types: who is the best contractor in Atlanta? Whether your business is named in that answer is a fair question, and the honest reply is part known and part unknown. This post separates the two. For the wider causes behind a business going missing, see our page on why you are not in AI answers. The work described below is the local side of SEO.
Do customers really ask AI for local recommendations?
A growing share do. BrightLocal's Local Consumer Review Survey 2026, published on February 11, 2026, found that 45% of the 1,002 US adults it surveyed named ChatGPT or another generative AI tool among the sources they use for local business recommendations, up from 6% in its 2025 survey. That is a combined figure: on their own, ChatGPT was named by 31%, Google's AI Mode by 23% and Gemini by 17%, and together they rank third behind Google (71%) and Facebook (49%).
Read that with care. It is one online panel survey, the page does not publish the exact question or the time period it covers, and its 2025 comparison shows no separate figure for ChatGPT, Gemini or AI Mode. It also measures use of AI for recommendations, not how often an AI answer leads to a hired business. The same survey found that 31% of consumers will only use a business rated 4.5 stars or more, up from 17% the year before. Whatever source a customer starts with, the bar for your public rating has gone up.
What does Google say about local businesses in AI answers?
Google says a Business Profile can help in its own AI features, AI Overviews and AI Mode. Its guide to AI features in Search states that Merchant Center and Google Business Profiles can help products and services be visible in AI responses as well as in other Search results.
The same guide says structured data is not required for its generative AI features and that no special schema.org markup is needed. It also says a page that meets every requirement and best practice is still not guaranteed to be crawled, indexed or served. Treat every tactic below as raising your odds, never as a way to buy a place in an answer.
Start with a complete, verified Google Business Profile
Complete and accurate profile data is the most direct lever Google documents. Its local ranking guidance says local results are mainly based on three factors, which it explains as relevance, distance and prominence, and that businesses with complete and accurate info are more likely to show up in local search results. It also tells owners to verify the business, which tells Google you are authorized to represent it.
- Verify the profile and confirm the full address or service area is correct.
- Choose the category that matches what customers search for, and list your real services.
- Keep business hours accurate, including holidays and seasonal changes.
- Make sure the website link goes to the page that best answers the search, not only the homepage.
Check the new Collected info section
Google Business Profile now has a Collected info section. Google's help page says Google may contact the verified phone number on your profile by automated call, text or WhatsApp to confirm details, and that what you say in reply may be used to update your profile. Owners can see the source and date of each item and delete it. Deleting removes it from Google's records but does not change other details already on the profile.
The page says the feature is available only in select regions, languages and business categories, so you may not see it yet. It also does not say whether collected info affects AI answers. The practical step is small: make sure the verified number reaches someone who knows your hours and services, and review the section if it appears.
Reviews still shape who gets chosen
Reviews affect both ranking and the decision to call. Google's local ranking guidance says more reviews and positive ratings can help your local ranking, and the BrightLocal figure above shows how much a rating now matters to customers. We cover how to ask and how to reply in our post on how Google reviews affect SEO.
Google's review snippet guideline, added on July 24, 2026, says not to include fake or undisclosed incentivized reviews on your page or in your structured data markup, which covers any reviews you show on your own website. For Google reviews, ask every customer the same way and reply to every review. The reputation management page describes how that fits together.
Keep your business details identical and your site useful
Matching details and clear answers remove ways to be misread. Google does not publish a score for consistency across directories, but the cost of fixing a wrong phone number or an old address is low, and the cost of a customer or an AI tool finding two versions of your business is not. Use one name, address, phone number and set of hours everywhere you are listed.
On your own site, write the page a customer would want. Google's guide describes commodity content, such as a generic list of tips, as often based on common knowledge that adds little unique insight, and it points to first-hand perspective as the alternative. For a contractor, that means pages about the jobs you actually take, the areas you serve and what a project involves, written in plain words, rather than a page that restates what every competitor says.
Check what third parties say about you
AI local answers can lean on pages you do not control. Search Engine Roundtable reported on August 12, 2026 that Google's AI Overviews for local results sometimes cite self-promotional listicles, with Joy Hawkins pointing to one law firm example. Its editor said he reproduced it after several attempts, but it is one reported example, not a measured rate.
The takeaway is to look. Search your service and city, read the lists and directories that rank, and check that your business is described correctly on them. For the wider picture of how local search changed in 2026, read our post on why local SEO is not dead, just different.
What is not documented
Much of what is sold as a local AI formula is unconfirmed. Google documents how its own AI features relate to Search. OpenAI's help page on ChatGPT search says a question like good restaurants near me may be rewritten into a search such as top restaurants San Francisco and sent to third-party search providers, but it does not explain how businesses are chosen. Any exact recipe, review count or listing count should be treated as a guess.
- No source we verified gives a number of reviews or a rating that gets a business named in an AI answer.
- Google's help page does not say whether Collected info changes what AI features show.
- The listicle problem is a reported example, so how often it happens is unknown.
What to do this week
- Ask Google and one AI assistant the question a customer would ask, such as the best plumber in your city. Save the answers with the date, and repeat monthly.
- Open your Business Profile. Confirm it is verified, then correct the category, services, hours and phone number.
- Look for the Collected info section and review anything Google gathered.
- Read your last ten reviews. Reply to any that have no reply.
- Open the first three list articles that rank for your service and city, and note whether your business appears and whether the details are right.
- Pick the one question customers ask you most and make sure a page on your site answers it plainly.