AI Is Now the #3 Way People Find a Business

A caller mentioned it offhand a few weeks back — she'd asked ChatGPT who does grooming near her before she'd typed a single word into Google. She wasn't making a point about AI. It genuinely didn't occur to her that this was a notable way to find a business anymore. It was just what she did, the way you'd ask a friend.

That's not a fluke and it's not early-adopter behavior anymore. It's the fastest-moving number in local search right now, and it moved fast: 6% of consumers to 45% in a single year, per BrightLocal's newest survey data. Read that twice. A discovery channel that barely registered a year ago just leapfrogged Yelp and Tripadvisor and settled in at #3, behind only Google and Facebook.

What's actually happening here

Ask someone "best plumber near me" today and there's now a real chance the answer comes from ChatGPT or Google's AI Mode instead of a page of blue links. BrightLocal's numbers put ChatGPT at 31% of AI-driven recommendations and Google AI Mode at 23% — the two biggest players in a channel that grew that fast in twelve months. That growth didn't come from nowhere: it came out of Google's own hide, at least partly. The same survey found Google's share of where people go to actually read reviews dropped from 83% to 71% over the same stretch. People aren't abandoning Google. They're adding a step in front of it, or sometimes skipping it entirely.

Here's the part that keeps this from being a simple "get cited by AI and you're done" story, though: trust hasn't caught up to adoption. Only 42% of consumers say they trust an AI platform's recommendation as much as a written review. That means a majority — most people asking AI where to go — still don't put an AI's word on the same shelf as an actual review from an actual person. They're using the tool. They haven't fully bought in.

Why this matters for your specific situation

If you're a local service business, this isn't an abstract trend to file under "interesting." It's a live shift in where the first impression happens — and a live gap in what that first impression is worth on its own. It's also exactly the terrain the whole practice of getting found in AI answers, as opposed to just ranked in a list of links was built to cover — this survey is just the freshest number on how fast that terrain is moving.

The old model was linear: someone searches, sees your business in the results, clicks through, decides. The new model has a step wedged in the middle: someone asks an AI tool, gets a name (maybe yours, maybe a competitor's), and then — because the trust number above says they're not fully sold yet — goes and checks. They pull up your website. They look at your Google Business Profile. They read a review or two, ideally a recent one. The AI got you into the conversation. It didn't close anything.

I ran a dog grooming salon for years before any of this, and the thing that hasn't changed is what actually happens at the point of decision: someone looking for a reason to trust you or a reason to bail. AI just moved where that moment starts. It used to start on a search results page. Increasingly, it starts in a chat window, and your website inherits the job of confirming what the AI already told them — or contradicting it and losing the referral you never knew you had.

The mechanics: what "checking" actually looks for

When someone lands on your site or profile after an AI recommendation, they're not browsing. They're verifying. Three things decide whether that verification goes your way:

• Does it match what the AI said? If the AI described you as "open until 7" or "specializing in senior pet care" and your site doesn't confirm — or worse, contradicts — that detail, the mismatch reads as a red flag, not a rounding error. AI tools get basic business facts wrong often enough that this mismatch happens more than you'd expect — which means your own site being accurate is what catches the AI's mistake before a customer does.
• Does it look current? A homepage that clearly hasn't been touched in two years undercuts a fresh AI recommendation instead of reinforcing it. Recency is doing more work in trust decisions than it used to — the same BrightLocal research found people increasingly discount anything that looks stale, reviews included.
• Is there an obvious next step? Someone who just got a recommendation and confirmed it's legitimate is primed to act right then. A homepage that buries the phone number or makes them hunt for a contact form loses that momentum — the five-second test still applies, it just has a different visitor arriving at the end of it now, one who's already half-convinced before they landed.

None of this requires a new tool or a subscription to anything. It requires your existing site and profile to hold up under a level of scrutiny that didn't used to happen at this stage of the funnel.

What won't help

• Chasing AI citations and stopping there. Getting mentioned by an AI tool isn't the same as getting chosen, and per this survey, even getting chosen isn't the same as getting fully trusted — there's a verification step after both.
• Assuming your Google Business Profile alone covers it. It's part of what gets checked, not the whole check. Someone verifying a recommendation is at least as likely to land on your actual website.
• Letting stale content sit because "the site still loads fine." A technically-functioning site that reads as abandoned fails the exact test this data describes — it confirms nothing and reassures no one.
• Treating this as a reason to abandon traditional search work. Google's share slipping from 83% to 71% is still a strong majority. This is an addition to the discovery mix, not a replacement for it.

FAQ

How many people actually use AI to find local businesses now?

45% of consumers, per BrightLocal's Local Consumer Review Survey 2026 — up from 6% the year before. It's now the third most-used discovery channel for local businesses, behind Google and Facebook and ahead of Yelp and Tripadvisor.

Which AI tools are people using for local recommendations?

Of consumers getting local recommendations from AI, BrightLocal's data puts ChatGPT at 31% and Google AI Mode at 23%, the two largest sources within that 45% figure.

Do people actually trust what AI tools tell them about a business?

Partially. 42% of consumers say they trust an AI platform's recommendation as much as a written review — meaning most don't yet, which is exactly why a verification step still happens after the recommendation.

If AI already recommended my business, does my website still matter?

More than before, not less. The recommendation gets someone to consider you; your website is where they confirm it's a real, current, legitimate business worth calling. A site that contradicts or fails to back up what the AI said can lose that referral at the last step.

Is Google losing ground to AI tools for local search?

Some ground, not most. The same survey found Google's share of where people go to read reviews dropped from 83% to 71% year over year — still the dominant channel, just no longer the only one worth optimizing for.

What should I actually check on my own site because of this?

Whether your hours, services, and contact info are accurate and match what's on your Google Business Profile, whether the site looks actively maintained rather than abandoned, and whether there's an obvious way to call or book once someone's decided to act.

Does this apply to every kind of local business, or just certain industries?

The survey wasn't industry-specific — it measured consumer behavior generally, across the kind of everyday local searches (services, restaurants, retail) that make up most local intent. The mechanism applies broadly: any business that can be recommended by name can also be checked by name.

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Getting recommended by an AI tool is only half the job now — the other half is making sure your site and profile actually back that recommendation up when someone comes to check. That verification layer is part of what Care keeps current, month over month, instead of leaving it to whatever state the site happened to be in when the AI mentioned you.