AI Search & GEO

109 AI Search Statistics For Local And Small Businesses (2026)

109 sourced stats on how people use ChatGPT and Google AI to find local businesses, where AI gets its info, and what it means for small businesses.

Cory YoungCory YoungFounder & CEO, BCC Interactive Oct 10, 2026 15 min read
A phone asks AI for the best plumber nearby and it recommends three businesses out of dozens on the map, with 45% of US consumers using AI for local picks.
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Last updated: October 10, 2026

Nearly half of US consumers have asked an AI tool to recommend a local business in the past year.

Most small business owners haven’t checked what it says about them.

If you run a local business, a small B2B company or an online store, these are the numbers that matter: how many people use AI to find businesses, where ChatGPT and Google’s AI get their information, how often you show up, and what happens to your clicks. Every stat is checked against the original study, with the source and date right next to it.

Most of this research comes from companies that sell local SEO or AI visibility software. We name every one, and we tell you when a study measured big multi-location brands instead of independent businesses, because those numbers don’t always carry over.

Key Takeaways

  • AI is now a real discovery channel. 45% of US consumers used AI tools for local business recommendations in the past year, up from 6% the year before (BrightLocal).

  • Google still closes the deal. Only 8% of local searchers start with AI, and 43% of those go back to Google to check (BrightLocal).

  • AI shortlists are short. ChatGPT recommended 1.2% of multi-location brand locations, compared with a 35.9% appearance rate in Google's local 3-Pack (SOCi).

  • Your Google Business Profile feeds the AI. It made up 28.5% of all AI citations for local businesses across Google AI Overviews, AI Mode and ChatGPT (BrightLocal).

  • Independents can win. Independent restaurants appeared in Google's AI recommendations 29.1% of the time, more than twice the rate of chains (Local Falcon).

  • Most owners aren't watching. Only 13% of US small business owners are actively optimizing for AI search (Bluehost).

How Many People Use AI To Find Local Businesses

ChatGPT, Gemini and Google’s AI Mode (a chat-style tab inside Google Search) are now part of how people pick a plumber, a dentist or a place to eat.

  1. 45% of US consumers used ChatGPT or other generative AI tools for local business recommendations in the past 12 months, up from 6% the year before (BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2026, February 2026, 1,002 US adults).
  2. AI tools are now the third most-used source of local business recommendations, behind Google and Facebook (BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2026, February 2026).
  3. 31% of US consumers used ChatGPT for business recommendations in the past 12 months (BrightLocal, March 2026, 1,002 US adults).
  4. 23% of US consumers used Google’s AI Mode for business recommendations in the past 12 months (BrightLocal, March 2026).
  5. 64% of US adults aged 30 to 44 asked an AI tool for a business recommendation in the past year (BrightLocal, March 2026).
  6. 24% of US adults over 60 turned to AI for local business guidance in the past year (BrightLocal, March 2026).
  7. 47% of US adults used an AI tool to find a local business in the past month (Yext, Consumer Search Behaviors Report 2026, March 2026 survey, 1,120 US adults).
  8. 44% of 3,848 adults across the US, UK, France, Germany and Italy used an AI tool for local search in the past month, ranging from 38% in the UK to 49% in Italy (Yext, May 2026, spring 2026 survey).
  9. Past-month AI use for local search ranges from 52% for restaurants to 37% for automotive among US adults (Yext, March 2026 survey).
  10. 31% of US consumers use AI tools for local business recommendations at least once a month (BrightLocal, Consumer Search Behavior Survey, July 2026, 1,227 US consumers).
  11. 23% of US consumers used an AI tool during their most recent search for a local business (BrightLocal, Consumer Search Behavior Survey, July 2026).
  12. Only 8% of local searchers choose AI as their first channel to find a local business (BrightLocal, Consumer Search Behavior Survey, July 2026).
  13. 43% of searchers who start with AI then go back to Google for more information (BrightLocal, Consumer Search Behavior Survey, July 2026).
  14. 52% of US consumers started their most recent local business search on Google Search (BrightLocal, Consumer Search Behavior Survey, July 2026).
  15. Just 2% of US consumers used AI as their only channel in their most recent local business search (BrightLocal, Consumer Search Behavior Survey, July 2026).
  16. Only 19% of US consumers said they wouldn’t consider using AI to find a local business (BrightLocal, Consumer Search Behavior Survey, July 2026).
  17. 49% of US adults use AI chatbots, up from about a third in 2024 (Pew Research Center, Americans and AI 2026, June 2026, survey fielded February 17 to 23, 2026).
  18. 37% of AI users surveyed now begin their searches with AI tools instead of Google (Eight Oh Two, 2026 AI + Search Behavior Study, 500 AI users).
  19. 95% of Americans still use traditional search engines every month (SparkToro, August 2025, Datos desktop panel data).
  20. 21% of Americans were heavy AI tool users, using them 10 or more times a month, as of June 2025 (SparkToro, August 2025, Datos desktop panel data).

How Much People Trust AI Recommendations, And Whether They Check

People use AI to build a shortlist. Most of them still check your reviews before they call.

  1. 42% of US consumers trust AI recommendations as much as traditional reviews (BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2026, February 2026).
  2. 63% of people who use AI for local recommendations trust those recommendations, and 10% distrust them (BrightLocal, March 2026, 455 AI users).
  3. 53% of consumers who don’t use AI say they don’t trust its business recommendations (BrightLocal, March 2026).
  4. 97% of AI users sometimes double-check AI recommendations against real reviews (BrightLocal, March 2026, 455 AI users).
  5. 42% of AI users always check reviews on the review platforms themselves (BrightLocal, March 2026).
  6. 74% of US AI users rate their trust in AI local business recommendations at 4 or 5 out of 5 (Yext, Consumer Search Behaviors Report 2026, March 2026 survey, 1,120 US adults).
  7. Only 7% of US AI users act on an AI recommendation without any additional research (Yext, March 2026 survey).
  8. 62% of US AI users immediately search Google after getting an AI recommendation (Yext, April 2026).
  9. 58% of US AI users visit the business’s website directly after getting an AI recommendation (Yext, April 2026).
  10. Only 18% of consumers who used AI in a local search felt ready to contact the business it recommended (BrightLocal, Consumer Search Behavior Survey, July 2026).
  11. 82% of US consumers read AI-generated review summaries (BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2026, February 2026).
  12. 23% of US consumers would rely on an AI-generated review summary alone to make a decision (BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2026, February 2026).
  13. Only 33% of US consumers always click through to the links and sources AI tools give them (GatherUp, Beyond the Stars 2025, August 2025 survey, 1,000+ US consumers).
  14. 39% of US consumers don’t trust the local business recommendations AI chatbots give them (GatherUp, Beyond the Stars 2025, August 2025 survey).
  15. 70% of US consumers trust a business less if they realize its review responses are AI-generated (GatherUp, Beyond the Stars 2025, August 2025 survey).
  16. 47% of AI users surveyed say AI influences which brands they trust first (Eight Oh Two, 2026 AI + Search Behavior Study, 500 AI users).

How Often Google's AI Shows Up On Local Searches

An AI Overview is the AI-written summary at the top of some Google results. The local pack (also called the 3-Pack) is the map with three businesses listed under it. Local-intent searches look for a business to hire, like “plumber near me.” Informational searches look for an answer, like “why is my water heater leaking.” Hybrid searches do both.

  1. Google showed an AI Overview on an average of 68% of local business-type queries in a hand-collected test of 540 searches across three US cities and six industries (Whitespark, May 2025).
  2. AI Overviews appeared on only 15% of local-intent queries (Whitespark, May 2025).
  3. The local pack appeared on 93% of those same local-intent queries (Whitespark, May 2025).
  4. AI Overviews appeared on 92% of informational local queries and 97% of hybrid-intent local queries (Whitespark, May 2025).
  5. Google AI Overviews appeared on 40.2% of 60,000 local business queries (Local Falcon, May 2025, 4,423 businesses in 20 countries).
  6. Informational local queries triggered AI Overviews 58.3% of the time, compared with 17.2% for commercial local queries (Local Falcon, May 2025).
  7. Local queries without a place name triggered AI Overviews 46.1% of the time, compared with 35.0% for queries that named a place (Local Falcon, May 2025).
  8. Just 8% of one- or two-word Google searches produced an AI summary, compared with 53% of searches of 10 words or more (Pew Research Center, July 2025, browsing data from 900 US adults, March 2025).
  9. Google’s AI-powered local packs showed up on about 7% of tracked keywords, on mobile and in the US only (Sterling Sky, data from late 2025).
  10. Google’s AI local packs featured 5,943 unique businesses, compared with 18,330 in regular 3-packs, about 32% as many (Sterling Sky, 322 markets, late 2025).
  11. Google’s AI local packs show 1 or 2 businesses instead of 3, and they don’t have call buttons (Sterling Sky, late 2025).

Where AI Gets Its Information About Local Businesses

When ChatGPT or Google’s AI answers a question, it links to the pages it used. Those links are called citations, and they show you which sources AI leans on for your industry.

  1. Google Business Profile made up 28.5% of all AI citations for local businesses across Google AI Overviews, AI Mode and ChatGPT (BrightLocal, August 2026, 1,355 locations in the US, UK and Australia, about 1.97 million citations).
  2. Yelp appeared as a source in 80% of ChatGPT’s answers about local businesses (BrightLocal, August 2026).
  3. Around 93% of the domains AI cited for local businesses were individual business websites (BrightLocal, August 2026).
  4. AI tools pulled local business information from 415 different directories (BrightLocal, August 2026).
  5. 86% of the sources AI cited for location-based searches were websites, listings and reviews that businesses manage or can influence (Yext, October 2025, 6.8 million citations across ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity).
  6. Business websites made up 44% of those AI citations and listings made up 42% (Yext, October 2025).
  7. Forums like Reddit made up just 2% of AI citations for location-based searches (Yext, October 2025).
  8. On local-intent searches, 79.8% of Google AI Mode’s citations pointed to Google Maps or Google Business Profile data (Steady Demand, August 2026, about 8,000 queries across 50 US metros).
  9. On the same local-intent searches, 70.7% of Google AI Overviews’ citations pointed to the business’s own website (Steady Demand, August 2026).
  10. ChatGPT’s share of local-service citations going to Reddit dropped from 41.7% to zero between July and August 2026 (Steady Demand, August 2026, 1,500 matched queries).
  11. More than 20% of AI citations for service-business searches in professional services, health and wellness, and education came from “best of” list articles (Squarespace and Peec AI, July 2026, 1.3 million citations across ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and Perplexity).

AI Recommendations Vs. The Google Local Pack

Ranking in the local pack doesn’t mean AI will recommend you, and the reverse is also true.

  1. ChatGPT recommended just 1.2% of brand locations, compared with an average 35.9% appearance rate in Google’s local 3-Pack (SOCi, 2026 Local Visibility Index, January 2026, 350,000+ locations of 2,751 multi-location brands).
  2. Gemini recommended 11.0% of brand locations and Perplexity 7.4% (SOCi, 2026 Local Visibility Index, February 2026, multi-location brands).
  3. Only 45% of 171 enterprise retail brands ranked in the top 20 for both traditional local search and AI recommendations (SOCi, February 2026).
  4. 28.5% of businesses in Google’s local pack were missing from Google AI Mode for the same search (Local SEO Data, June 2026, 1,120 searches across 7 industries and 13 US cities).
  5. Comparing only the top three results from each, AI Mode and the local pack overlapped just 48% of the time (Local SEO Data, June 2026).
  6. Google AI Mode surfaced 999 businesses that never appeared in the local pack for the same searches (Local SEO Data, June 2026).
  7. 74.9% of US restaurants never appeared in Google’s AI recommendations, compared with 19.6% that never appeared on Google Maps (Local Falcon, Restaurant AI Visibility Index, June 2026, 10,000 US restaurants).
  8. The top 10% of restaurants captured 74.5% of all AI visibility, compared with 54% on Google Maps (Local Falcon, June 2026).
  9. When Gemini and ChatGPT both named a business for the same local search, they picked the same one first just 4.9% of the time (Steady Demand, August 2026, 1,500 matched queries across 10 local-service categories).
  10. Gemini named the same top local business on repeat searches 5.1% of the time, while Google’s local pack kept the same top listing 83.3% of the time (Steady Demand, September 2026 retest).

Reviews, Ratings And AI Recommendations

More reviews help, but they don’t guarantee you a spot.

  1. Locations recommended by ChatGPT averaged a 4.3-star rating (SOCi, 2026 Local Visibility Index, January 2026, multi-location brands).
  2. Businesses recommended by Perplexity averaged 4.2 stars, and those recommended by Gemini 3.9 stars (SOCi, February 2026).
  3. A restaurant with more than 1,000 Google reviews was still left out of Google’s AI recommendations 70.9% of the time (Local Falcon, June 2026, 10,000 US restaurants).
  4. ChatGPT named 83.8% of hotels with 2,500 or more Google reviews, compared with 52.1% of hotels with fewer than 50 (Local Falcon, Hotel AI Visibility Index, September 2026, 998 US hotels).
  5. ChatGPT named 41.5% of hotels rated under 3.5 stars, while Google Maps named 0.3% of them (Local Falcon, Hotel AI Visibility Index, September 2026).
  6. At the median, businesses that showed up only in Google AI Mode had 49% more reviews than businesses that showed up only in the local pack, 358 compared with 240 (Local SEO Data, June 2026).
  7. Star rating is the top factor in whether a US AI user buys after getting an AI recommendation, cited by 34% (Yext, April 2026).

AI Search Statistics By Industry

  1. Independent restaurants appeared in Google’s AI recommendations 29.1% of the time, more than twice the rate of chains with five or more locations at 13.9% (Local Falcon, June 2026).
  2. For dentists, Google Business Profile made up 57% of AI citations (BrightLocal, August 2026).
  3. For plumbers, Google Business Profile made up 54% of AI citations (BrightLocal, August 2026).
  4. For lawyers, Google Business Profile made up 42% of AI citations (BrightLocal, August 2026).
  5. For restaurants, four sources made up 80% of AI citations: Google Business Profile, Yelp, Tripadvisor and OpenTable (BrightLocal, August 2026).
  6. Listings made up 52.6% of AI citations for healthcare businesses (Yext, October 2025).
  7. Window cleaning (65.0%) and personal injury attorney (62.1%) searches had some of the highest AI Overview rates of any local business category (Local Falcon, May 2025).
  8. 91.5% of ranked real estate agents and teams with websites were never cited once by AI platforms (Local Falcon, Realtor AI Visibility Index, August 2026, the 100 largest US cities).
  9. Gemini named 64.6% of US hotels in local searches, compared with 56.4% on Google Maps (Local Falcon, Hotel AI Visibility Index, September 2026).

Clicks, Zero-Click Searches And AI Traffic

A zero-click search is one where the person gets the answer on Google and never visits a website. Organic means the regular, unpaid search results.

  1. Google users clicked a regular search result on 8% of visits when an AI summary appeared, compared with 15% when it didn’t (Pew Research Center, July 2025, browsing data from 900 US adults, March 2025).
  2. Google users clicked a link inside an AI summary on just 1% of visits (Pew Research Center, July 2025).
  3. Users ended their browsing session on 26% of Google pages with an AI summary, compared with 16% of pages without one (Pew Research Center, July 2025).
  4. 80% of consumers rely on zero-click results for at least 40% of their searches (Bain & Company, February 2025, 1,117 consumers).
  5. Brands earned 120% more organic clicks per impression when a Google AI Overview cited them than when it didn’t (Seer Interactive, April 2026, 53 brands and 5.47 million queries).
  6. Even when cited, those brands still got 38% fewer organic clicks on informational searches than they did when no AI Overview appeared (Seer Interactive, April 2026).
  7. Search impressions per location fell 53.8% between 2023 and 2025, while calls, direction requests and website visits fell only 5% (Birdeye, State of AI Search 2026, September 2026, multi-location brands in North America).
  8. AI traffic grew 66% in 2025 (Semrush, April 2026, 50,000+ websites in 17 industries).
  9. AI tools still sent just 0.14% of total website visits in 2025 (Semrush, April 2026).
  10. The median website converts AI-referred visitors at 1.26 times its organic search conversion rate (Siege Media, June 2026, GA4 data from 78 sites, January to May 2026).
  11. Consumer and local services sites convert AI-referred visitors at 1.29 times their organic rate (Siege Media, June 2026).
  12. Across 54 sites, organic traffic converted at 4.60% and AI referrals at 4.87%, a difference that was not statistically significant (Amsive, September 2025).

Small Business Owners And AI Search

  1. Only 13% of US small business owners are actively optimizing their websites for AI search (Bluehost, State of Small Business AI Confidence 2026, May 2026 survey, 350 owners, ±5.2 points).
  2. 22% of US small business owners first heard of AI search optimization in that survey (Bluehost, May 2026 survey).
  3. 47% of US small business owners would make AI search a top priority if a competitor showed up first in AI results (Bluehost, May 2026 survey).
  4. 78% of US small business owners want to see how their competitors appear in AI-generated results (Bluehost, May 2026 survey).
  5. Nearly six in ten small businesses say they don’t know where to start with AI search optimization (Squarespace and Peec AI, July 2026, April 2026 survey of 1,041 owners in North America, the UK and Australia).
  6. More than two-thirds of small businesses haven’t looked at how their business shows up in AI answers (Squarespace and Peec AI, July 2026).
  7. 40% of small businesses have already found incorrect information about their business in AI search (Squarespace and Peec AI, July 2026).
  8. 14.8% of small business owners say Google or another AI-powered search result has shown incorrect information about their business (Small Business Expo, September 2026, 3,608 owners).
  9. 33.9% of small business owners have noticed a drop in website traffic they believe is related to AI answers in search results (Small Business Expo, September 2026).
  10. Two-thirds of small businesses expect AI search to be very or extremely important to how customers find them in the future (Squarespace and Peec AI, July 2026).
  11. SEO is the top lead source for 40% of US small businesses that have a website (Clutch, August 2025 survey, 406 owners).
  12. 58% of US small businesses use generative AI, up from 40% in 2024 (U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Empowering Small Business, August 2025).
  13. 68% of US small businesses use AI regularly, up from 48% in July 2024 (Intuit QuickBooks, April 2025 survey, 2,200+ businesses with up to 100 employees).

Google Is Still Where Customers Check You Out

AI didn’t replace Google for local search. It added a step in front of it.

People ask ChatGPT or Google’s AI who to call, get a short list, and then go check that list on Google, on your reviews and on your website. Only 2% used AI as their only channel in their last local search.

That shortlist is built from a handful of places: your Google Business Profile, your reviews, Yelp and the directories in your industry, and your own website. Those are the places to get right, and they’re the same places customers go to check the AI’s answer.

Only 13% of small business owners are actively working on this, and more than two-thirds have never checked what AI says about them. That’s not a someday problem, it’s happening now.

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Frequently Asked Questions

45% of US consumers used ChatGPT or another AI tool for local business recommendations in the past year, according to BrightLocal’s 2026 survey, up from 6% the year before. Yext found 47% of US adults did it in the past month.

Yes, but it’s selective. SOCi found ChatGPT recommended 1.2% of multi-location brand locations, and Local Falcon found independent restaurants showed up in Google’s AI recommendations more than twice as often as chains.

Mostly from your Google Business Profile, review sites like Yelp, directories and your own website. Google Business Profile made up 28.5% of AI citations for local businesses in BrightLocal’s 2026 study, and Yelp appeared in 80% of ChatGPT’s local answers.

Many do, and almost all of them check anyway. 63% of people who use AI for local recommendations trust them, but 97% double-check against real reviews at least some of the time (BrightLocal).

Not often. Whitespark found AI Overviews on 15% of local-intent searches, compared with 92% of informational local searches. The local pack still showed up on 93% of local-intent searches.

How We Built This List

We checked every statistic on this page against the publisher’s own study page in October 2026, and we list the source, date and sample size next to each one. We left out numbers we could only find in news coverage, forecasts, and figures where the original study didn’t say how it was measured.

Most of these studies come from companies that sell local SEO, listings or AI visibility software, including BrightLocal, Yext, SOCi, Local Falcon, Birdeye, Steady Demand and Whitespark. Their numbers are useful, and none of them has been independently repeated. Samples also differ: SOCi and Birdeye studied large multi-location brands, while Local Falcon and BrightLocal sampled a broader mix of businesses. Compare numbers within a study, not across them.

We update this page every quarter. Spot a number that’s changed or a study we missed? Email hey@bccinteractive.com.

Cory Young

Written By

Cory Young

Founder & CEO, BCC Interactive

Cory Young is the founder and CEO of BCC Interactive, a digital marketing agency that helps B2B companies, e-commerce companies, and local businesses grow through SEO, AEO, and paid search. He started agency-side on NBA, NFL, and NASCAR accounts, then managed marketing teams at Comcast and Campbell's.

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