Google AI mode is changing the local search landscape: around 48% of US consumers already use conversational AI to find local businesses; and AI Overviews appear on ~68% of local searches.

So how do you ensure your local business shows up, and shows up right in Google AI mode?

In this article I’ll provide everything you need to know about this emerging technology: the risks, challenges, and opportunities for local businesses, and how local search is likely to evolve.

How Local Search Works Now

Prior to 2025, if a user didn’t like the local pack or Maps results Google showed them, all they could do was amend their search query in the hope of yielding more relevant results. But, now, your potential customers are seeing the “AI Mode” option right at the top of the organic SERPs, which opens up a new way to search for local businesses.

When Whitespark studied AI Overviews in Q1 2025, we found that they were appearing for an average of 68% of local searches – in short, Google is doing everything it can to get the public to engage with AI Mode. And it appears to be working; a Q3 2025 study by GatherUp of 1,000+ US consumers found that 48% of respondents had interacted with a conversational AI tool while looking for local business information.

If close to half of your potential customers are experimenting with AI Mode, it’s something you absolutely need to know more about, right?

What your potential customers are seeing in Google AI Mode

Once searchers enter AI Mode, they have a space to write a prompt, for example: “organic pizza near golden gate park sf”. A local search prompt like this will typically be met with information that Google has scraped from a variety of sources, accompanied by a column of source citations that Google has scraped. These results may include AI-generated summaries about businesses, and information about star ratings, review volumes, pricing, hours of operation, pulled from Google Business Profiles or other sources. The results also frequently contain further prompt suggestions.

The key thing that makes AI Mode different from traditional organic search is the potential for further refinement. If a user doesn’t see a relevant answer to their initial prompt, they can continue a conversation with AI Mode hanging onto the context of what was previously being discussed. Organic search can’t do this.

In the context of local search, this is really one of the main value propositions conversational AI offers to consumers: the ability to have a nuanced, detailed, ongoing exchange without having to keep searching afresh every time.

Plus, some elements of Google AI mode results are actionable, like the option to use the “Reserve with Google” function to book a table at a restaurant.

If all this is sounding pretty good so far, you’re getting a good sense of the opportunities for local businesses who appear for relevant prompts in Google AI Mode. However, there are challenges too.

The Problems and Challenges Local Businesses Face with Google AI Mode

Just like traditional local search, Google AI Mode customizes outputs based on the searcher’s location if they have that information. However, unlike traditional local search, the results individual users see (even if they are in the same location) vary wildly. This is hugely problematic for business owners and marketers because at present, there is no practical way to understand what each of your potential customers is being shown by AI Mode.

The second major problem is that AI gets things wrong.

A study by GatherUp found that 67% of consumers aren’t rigorously fact-checking sources cited by AI, and as a result, AI’s so-called “hallucinations” can present multiple risks to your local business:

• They can inconvenience consumers (for example, if you run a restaurant that does not allow pets, but that AI mode has claimed is pet-friendly it’s likely you’ll have to turn those pet owners away)
• They can cause your business to lose leads and/or sales (for example, if AI shows an inaccurate rating or irrelevant reviews, customers may look elsewhere)
• They represent unknown legal liability (for example, if AI tells a customer that your pizzeria is celiac-safe when it isn’t and then a patron suffers health harms from eating at your restaurant, who is responsible for damages? Unfortunately, AI is an insufficiently regulated technology that can lead to significant human harm without any clear legislation on responsibility)

Local business owners are already familiar with the real-world impact of a lack of full control over a product like Google Business Profiles, and Google AI Mode takes this lack of control to a new level. Local businesses not only lack oversight and input into how they are being represented, but also any practical way to see what local consumers may be seeing due to the variation of results. Whether tools may emerge to track performance in AI in a practical way remains to be seen.

However, despite these problems, it seems likely that consumer use of Google AI Mode is here to stay. So what should you be doing right now to ensure your local business shows up (and shows up correctly)?

How to Improve Your Local Business’ Visibility on Google AI Mode

Follow the steps below:

• Ensure all of your business information (including your business name, address, hours of operation, phone numbers, and other contact info) is accurate on your website, Google Business Profile, listings on third-party platforms, social profiles, and structured citations. Data accuracy helps to limit AI hallucinations.
• Track FAQs, using customers’ real-world language. Ask your staff to document the questions which are routinely asked at each location.
• Take this FAQ list into AI Mode and run prompts for each of your questions. You want to understand: 1) Whether or not your brand is appearing; 2) What sources are being cited to answer these questions; 3) Whether you are currently mentioned on the sources being cited.
• Prompt AI Mode with your top local pack competitors, and the brand names you saw coming up for your FAQs. Note the sources being cited in association with these brands. This will give you a list of publications where you’d like your business to be mentioned or listed.
• If you have a paid Gemini API key, use a free tool like Qforia to better understand how a single prompt generates multiple related queries. This can help you determine the types of content you need to create in order to increase your visibility.
• Make your website the authoritative source of answers to your customers’ FAQs.
• Double down on reputation management. Reviews are one of the key sources of information Google AI Mode uses. Acquire reviews at a competitive velocity and respond to negative reviews promptly.
• Develop unstructured citations. Earn mentions of your business on blogs, online news sites, social media, community hubs, industry publications, sponsorship pages, job sites, local business association sites, and the websites of your local business peers.
• Seek inclusion in assets like Yelp 10-Best lists.
• Publish photos of all aspects of your business on your website, local business listings, review platform listings, and social media profiles. Google AI Mode often displays image galleries in responses.
• Enroll in relevant Google programs. If “Reserve with Google” is frequently cited in response to your prompts, you should be part of this program. Do the necessary research to identify actionable Google AI Mode features you can be part of.
• Expect change. Cited sources can change. Keep experimenting with how AI is responding to your customers’ FAQs to spot new ways to earn prominence.

If this checklist seems overwhelming, Whitespark can help with multiple aspects of it, from reviews, to citations, to competitive research. You can also sign up to download a more detailed PDF version of this checklist.

How Local Search is Likely to Evolve

In my view, there are three core things to pay attention to when it comes to how local search is likely to evolve:

1. Google Web Guide

Many people think that the beta Google Search Labs product, Google Web Guide, could be the future of organic search results. In the announcement Google said:

“Web Guide groups web links in helpful ways — like pages related to specific aspects of your query. Under the hood, Web Guide uses a custom version of Gemini to better understand both a search query and content on the web, creating more powerful search capabilities that better surface web pages you may not have previously discovered. Similar to AI Mode, Web Guide uses a query fan-out technique, concurrently issuing multiple related searches to identify the most relevant results.”

If you’d like to read more about the Google Web Guides experiment, read Dr. Peter J. Meyers’ A Guide to Web Guide: Our Hybrid Search Future.

2. A Pressurized Paid Environment

Google’s Local Services Ads has gradually grown to encompass more and more industries. Most recently, Google is moving to maximize its revenue, as documented by Sterling Sky, with the following actions designed to preference paid results:

• Mobile AI local packs are replacing traditional local packs (these AI local packs frequently show fewer than 3 businesses)
• Many AI packs feature no click-to-call button
• Multiple AI packs feature fewer unique businesses than traditional packs
• Meanwhile, call buttons remain on paid Google Ads

If AI local packs become the norm, your brand may end up having to pay for visibility and consumer engagements you previously enjoyed for free.

3. Agentic Features

Some believe that the future of local commerce will be filled with agentic technology like Google’s experimental “ask Google to call local businesses for you” feature. In other words, instead of consumers calling you, a robot will do it for them. And perhaps you won’t even be picking up the phone at your place of business anymore – your robot will take care of that.

Google hopes local shopping will become largely agentic. If the autonomous execution of daily tasks sounds too space-age to you, you could be right, but it’s something to be aware of and NearMedia has a good write-up on this developing technology.

Final Thoughts

The rise of AI definitely doesn’t mean that “local SEO is dead”, that “SEO is dead”, or indeed that “marketing is dead”. The truth is that AI is only as “smart” as the sources it scrapes. Therefore creating a broad digital footprint of authoritative content about your local business is more important now than ever.

As your next step, I’d recommend reading Whitespark’s Ultimate Guide to Local Business Reputation Management. After all, good customer service will always stand the test of time.