AI Is Changing Local Search — Is Your Client Ready?

Here's the reality. When someone wants to find a local business today, they often just don't know of the business's name off hand, so they don't go directly to a business's website. So, some of the time they're actually turning to a traditional Google search, but these days people are also turning to AI, whether that's Google's AI mode or ChatGPT or other AI tools, and just asking, "What's the best Italian restaurant near me? " Or, "Is there a plumber open right now in Houston, Texas? " And here's what's critical to understand. With AI search growing the way that it is, having a complete, optimized Google Business Profile is increasingly important for showing up in AI-generated local answers. Now, of course, this is still evolving, but the businesses that are optimized now are going to be in the best position as this continues to develop. So, if you have a client who has a Google Business Profile listing that is nonexistent, it is incomplete, it's outdated, it's unoptimized, they are going to get left out of those AI answers entirely. So, if you are a local marketing provider and you are focusing solely on the business's website or traditional SEO, and you're not touching their Google Business Profile, you're optimizing just one part of the equation while completely ignoring the one that both Google and AI are actively relying on to answer local search queries every day. So, this is no longer a nice to have.