Reviews and AI

Local business AI search: how to show up in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI

Local pack, AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity: where AI tools get their information about local businesses, and what owners can actually do about it.

By Oz IlyasFounder of Revys

Published October 19, 2026

Contents

When someone searches "plumber near me" or asks ChatGPT for "a good auto repair shop in Denver," they no longer get just ten blue links. They get a map with three businesses, an AI-written summary, or a list of recommendations with no links at all. So the real question for a business owner is: where do those answers come from, and how do you get into them?

This guide answers that for local businesses, in plain English. It won't promise what nobody can deliver: no tool can guarantee a spot in the local pack or a mention in ChatGPT.

What does "AI search" mean for a local business?

Local SEO is what gets you into Google and Bing results and onto Google Maps. GEO (generative engine optimization), also called AEO or AI SEO, is what gets you into answers written by AI: Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot and Gemini.

For a local business the two overlap almost completely. Google says so in its official guide to generative AI features: optimizing for them is SEO, with no special files, no special markup and no rewriting "for AI." The real difference is with assistants that aren't Google. They run their own crawlers and their own indexes, and they lean heavily on other sites that talk about you.

Where can a local business show up?

Six places, and they don't all draw from the same sources.

Where	Where the information comes from	Your main lever
Local pack and Google Maps	Your Google Business Profile, your reviews, your website	Your Business Profile
Regular Google results	Your website and pages that mention you	Clear pages per service and location
AI Overviews and AI Mode	Google's usual results, plus Business Profiles	Profile + well-ranked website
Gemini and Ask Maps	Places and reviews from Google Maps	Profile and reviews
ChatGPT	Pages crawled by its search bot (OAI-SearchBot) and what the model learned in training	A readable website, mentions on other sites
Perplexity	Its own index (PerplexityBot)	A readable website, mentions on other sites

Copilot runs on the Bing index, so claim your listing on Bing Places too, along with Apple Business Connect for Apple Maps and Siri.

The takeaway: your Google Business Profile carries a lot of weight with Google, much less with ChatGPT and Perplexity, which mostly read web pages. You need both.

Are customers really using AI to find local businesses?

More and more, and they already read the review summaries AI writes for them.

45%

of consumers use ChatGPT or another generative AI tool for local business recommendations, up from 6% a year earlier. 82% read AI-generated review summaries.

(BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2026 (1,002 US adults, February 11, 2026))

In the same survey, AI tools became the third most popular source for local recommendations, behind Facebook and Google. In the US, AI Overviews have been part of Google results since 2024, and AI Mode is a tab away.

How does Google pick the businesses it shows?

For the local pack and Maps, Google uses three factors: relevance (does your profile match the search?), distance and prominence (how well known you are: links, mentions, reviews). It adds that "there's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google."

For its AI answers, Google uses its usual ranking systems. Its guide says Business Profiles can help businesses appear in AI responses. In practice, a well-kept profile and a website that ranks are the entry ticket. The profile, section by section, is covered in our Google Business Profile optimization checklist.

Gemini goes further inside Maps. Since March 2026 in the US and India, Ask Maps answers questions like "a quiet restaurant with a patio for a birthday dinner" using more than 300 million places and reviews from the Maps community. What your customers write in their reviews becomes the raw material for those answers.

How do ChatGPT and Perplexity find local businesses?

They don't read your Business Profile the way Google does. They rely on web pages: your website, and above all what other sites say about you.

ChatGPT doesn't search the web for every question. In an Ahrefs study of 66.6 million answers (August-September 2026), only 14.4% triggered a web search. The rest came from what the model already knew, which is why being mentioned on widely read sites matters. When it does search, "best" and "reviews" are among the most common words in its sub-queries.
Perplexity searches its own index, built by PerplexityBot, and lists its sources under every answer.
Both use crawlers that need access to your site. OpenAI is clear on this: sites that block OAI-SearchBot won't be shown in ChatGPT search answers.

The Whitespark 2026 local ranking factors survey now has a section on AI visibility. Experts put third-party "best [service] in [city]" lists, a dedicated page for each service and presence on industry sites near the top. Business Profile signals weigh less there than in the local pack.

What should you actually do?

Four jobs help with Google, Maps and AI tools at the same time. Do them in this order (ranking in Google Maps itself is covered in our guide on how to rank higher on Google Maps).

1. A complete, accurate Google Business Profile
Specific primary category, regular and holiday hours, services, attributes, real photos, a description. It's the direct source for Google, Maps and Gemini. Claim Bing Places and Apple Business Connect while you're at it.
2. A website crawlers can read
Your services, service area, hours, address and phone number as text on the page, not in an image, a PDF or a JavaScript widget. Make sure robots.txt and your firewall (Cloudflare in particular) let Googlebot, Bingbot, OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot through.
3. Recent reviews, lots of them, with replies
On Google first, and shown as text on your website. Reply to each one: your replies are part of what customers and AI tools read.
4. Consistent local mentions
Same name, address and phone everywhere: Yelp, the BBB, Nextdoor, your chamber of commerce, industry directories. Get mentioned by local news, trade associations, suppliers and partners.

One page per service, written for customers

This is the most overlooked lever. A homepage that lists "plumbing, heating, bathrooms" doesn't answer any specific question. A page called "Water heater replacement in Denver" that says what you do, for whom, in which neighborhoods, how fast, with a price range, answers exactly what people ask an assistant.

Write each page the way you'd answer the phone: the answer first, then the details. Add the questions customers really ask ("do you work Saturdays?", "is the estimate free?"). Skip the near-identical "plumber in [every suburb]" pages: Google's spam policies treat them as doorway pages.

Reviews AI can read, on Google and on your site

Reviews count twice: on your profile, where Google and Gemini read them directly, and on your website, where ChatGPT and Perplexity can read them as long as they're in the HTML. A reviews widget that loads with JavaScript or inside an iframe is invisible to their crawlers. That technical point, and a two-minute test for your own page, are covered in how to make your reviews visible in ChatGPT and AI search.

For volume and pace, see how to get more Google reviews. For replies, see how to respond to Google reviews.

Information that's up to date

75%

of pages cited by ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity had been updated within the past year (7,683 dated pages, March to June 2026).

(Seer Interactive, content recency study, July 24, 2026)

A 2023 price list or hours from before you moved can be repeated word for word by an AI tool. Review your service pages once a year, and your profile every time something changes.

What doesn't help (much) for a local business

Popular belief	What we know
"You need an llms.txt file"	Google says its search ignores these files; no proven effect elsewhere for a local business
"You need special AI schema markup"	Google: no special markup is needed. A clean `LocalBusiness` block is still useful for your contact details
"Chop your content into tiny chunks for AI"	Google says there's no need; write clear sections that open with the answer
"Showing reviews on your site gets you stars in Google"	False: Google doesn't show stars for reviews a business publishes about itself (see review schema and Google stars)
"Repeat your city in every sentence"	Keyword stuffing doesn't help Google or AI tools, and makes pages painful to read

How do you check whether AI tools mention you?

Ask the questions yourself, every month, and write down the answers.

Pick 4 or 5 questions your customers ask: "[service] in [city]", "best [service] near [neighborhood]", "[service] open Sunday [city]".
Ask them in Google (local pack and AI Overview), ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot, in a private window.
Note who gets mentioned, and especially which sites are cited as sources: those are the sites to target for mentions.
Check that what AI tools say about you is correct (hours, services, address). A mistake almost always traces back to a source you can fix.
Look at the generative AI performance report in Search Console and the AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools.
Repeat next month: sources change quickly and differ from one engine to the next.

Where Revys fits in

Revys handles the reviews and profile part, not your whole local SEO.

It pulls your Google reviews every night through the official API and writes them into your website's HTML (WordPress plugin, server-side include, API), with LocalBusiness JSON-LD and no self-served rating. See the Google reviews widget.
The profile advisor (Pro plan) scores your Google Business Profile out of 100 and tells you what to fix first.
AI review replies (Pro plan, from $7.90 a month per location) help you answer every review, with negative reviews held for your approval.

It doesn't write your service pages, doesn't get you press mentions, and only handles Google reviews today (Facebook and Trustpilot will come later). The JavaScript snippet, handy on Wix, isn't readable by AI crawlers.

FAQ

How do I get my local business to show up in ChatGPT?

Let its search crawler (OAI-SearchBot) reach your site, describe your services, service area and contact details as text on your website, keep a complete Google Business Profile with the same name, address and phone everywhere, and get mentioned by local sites. ChatGPT picks its own sources; nobody can guarantee a mention.

What is GEO in local SEO?

GEO, or generative engine optimization, means getting your business included in answers written by AI tools such as Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity. Google says optimizing for its AI features is simply SEO. For other assistants, you also need to be readable by their crawlers and cited by other sites.

Can I do local SEO myself?

Yes. Everything in this guide is free to do yourself: claiming and filling in your Google Business Profile, writing service pages, asking for reviews and replying, and keeping your details consistent. Agencies and tools save time; they don't unlock anything you couldn't do.

Does it cost to get your business on Google Search?

No. A Google Business Profile is free, and Google says there's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. Ads are a separate, paid product and are labeled as ads.

Do I need an llms.txt file to show up in AI search?

Not for Google: its official guide says Google Search ignores those files and that no special markup is needed. For a local business, the time is better spent on your profile, your service pages and your reviews.

How long does it take to show up in AI answers?

There's no set timeline. Profile edits appear once Google has reviewed them, new pages first need to be crawled and indexed, and mentions on other sites build up over months. Check a handful of test questions every month.