AI Assistants Transform Local Business Discovery, SEO

Image credit: Search Engine Journal

Artificial intelligence assistants are changing how customers discover local businesses globally by providing curated shortlists instead of traditional search results, requiring businesses to adapt their online presence and local search engine optimization strategies.

AI assistants, including Google‘s AI features in Search, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude, are increasingly replacing conventional local search by generating specific business recommendations, according to industry analysis.

Google’s AI features in Search leverage Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and Query fan-out techniques to formulate these detailed answers, a company spokesperson said.

For a business to be considered in AI-generated responses, its online listings, customer reviews, and overall reputation serve as important signals for AI assistants, Uberall, a local marketing platform, reported.

Businesses are currently assessing AI performance by tracking fixed queries and analyzing referral traffic from AI sources due to existing limitations in reporting tools.

Google’s Generative AI performance report provides data on link impressions but lacks specific query information or details on recommendation status, according to industry experts.

An analysis by Whitespark, a local SEO firm, found that AI Overviews appeared for 15 percent of direct local-intent queries, 92 percent of informational queries, and 97 percent of hybrid queries.

The Whitespark analysis, which included specific U.S. city data, highlighted the widespread integration of AI recommendations across various query types.

Source: Search Engine Journal