How is Local Search Changing in the AI Age?

TLDR: AI answers now sit at the top of Google and inside tools like ChatGPT, and people click far fewer links because of them. For a local service business, this means your reviews, your Google Business Profile, and clear pages on your site matter more than ever, because AI answers are built from those exact sources. The businesses that get named inside the AI answer win the call.

Local search used to be simple

For years, local search meant one thing. Someone typed “roofer near me” into Google. A map with three businesses popped up. Your job was to land in that map pack and rank in the links below it. That still happens. But now a new layer sits on top of it.

Google shows an AI Overview, a written answer pulled from many websites, before the map and the blue links. People also skip Google and ask ChatGPT, Gemini, or Google’s AI Mode straight out. They type “who is the best roofer in Cedar Park” and read the reply. The search box turned into an answer box.

People click fewer links now

This is the biggest change, and the numbers are clear. Pew Research tracked 900 U.S. adults and almost 69,000 Google searches in March 2025. When an AI summary showed up, people clicked a normal search link only 8% of the time. When there was no AI summary, they clicked 15% of the time. That is nearly double. Only 1% of people clicked a link inside the AI summary itself.

People also just stopped searching. After seeing an AI summary, 26% ended their session right there. Without one, only 16% stopped. They got their answer and moved on. Search Engine Land covered the same study and reached the same read: AI answers cut clicks to websites.

For your business, this means fewer people scroll down to find you. If the AI answer does not name you, many searchers never see you at all.

AI is now a real way people find you

This is not only a Google story. People now ask AI tools for local picks by name. BrightLocal’s 2026 research found that 45% of consumers use AI tools to find or check out local businesses, up from just 6% a year before. That jump makes AI the third most popular tool for this, behind Google and Facebook, and ahead of Yelp.

People trust it, too. Among those who use AI this way, 63% trust the recommendations. ChatGPT led the pack at 31% use, with Google’s AI Mode at 23%. So when someone needs a plumber or a garage door fixed, a growing share now asks a chatbot instead of a search bar.

What actually gets you into AI answers

Here is the good news. AI tools do not make up businesses. They pull from the same places you already know and can control. That means a few things carry more weight than ever:

  • Strong, recent Google reviews that mention your service and your city.
  • A complete and correct Google Business Profile, with the right hours, phone, and service list.
  • Clear service pages and city pages on your website, written in plain words a person and a bot can both read.
  • Mentions on other trusted sites, like local news, chambers, and directories.

Do these well and you give the AI clean, trusted facts to repeat. Skip them and the AI fills the gap with a competitor who did the work.

Contrarian take (read this before you panic)

Everyone in marketing is shouting that AI is killing local search. Slow down. One 2026 analysis of AI Overviews and local search reported that AI answers still show up on only a small share of local searches, even as that share climbs each quarter. For a roofer, plumber, or garage door company, most calls still come from the map pack, your reviews, and your local pages. The old playbook is not dead.

So do not throw money at some shiny “AI optimization” package before you fix the basics. The same work that wins the map pack, real reviews and a clean profile and solid local pages, is the same work that gets you named in AI answers. You are not picking between two games. You are doing one job that pays off in both places.

The bottom line

Local search is turning from a list of links into a spoken answer. People ask a question and take the reply. Your goal shifts from “rank in the links” to “be the business the answer names.” You get there the same way you always won local: earn real reviews, keep your profile sharp, and write clear pages about what you do and where you do it. Do that, and both Google and the chatbots will send you the call.

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