How many people use AI to find local businesses?

If you run a local business, this is the number that matters: in about a year, the share of consumers using AI to find local businesses went from about 6 percent to about 45 percent, according to BrightLocal. That is one of the fastest shifts in how people find a business in years. But the story has two halves. Lots of people now ask AI, and yet AI names very few businesses. This page lays out the sourced numbers on both, with every source and every caveat kept in plain sight. For the full sourced statistics reference on AI search, see our AI search statistics page, which this page is a part of.

A quick note on honesty first. Some of the figures below come from companies that sell software, and a few come from small or early studies. We flag each one so you can weigh it yourself. We would rather give you a range you can trust than a clean number you cannot.

What percentage of consumers use AI to find local businesses?

About 45 percent of consumers now use AI to find local businesses, up from about 6 percent a year earlier, according to BrightLocal's consumer survey. That is a roughly seven-fold jump in twelve months. Few discovery channels have ever grown that fast, and it is why AI now sits among the top ways people look for a local business, behind Google and Facebook.

Two things make this number worth taking seriously. It measures real consumers saying what they do, not businesses guessing. And the direction lines up with everything else in the market: more people are typing questions into ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI answers instead of scrolling a list of links. The honest read is that AI is a fast-rising channel you should set up for now, not a channel that has already replaced Google.

Which AI tools do people use to find local businesses?

People mostly use ChatGPT, along with Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, Perplexity, Google Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot. Each one reads the web a little differently, so being present in one does not mean you are present in all of them.

ChatGPT is the tool most people name, and its search leans heavily on Microsoft Bing's index. Seer Interactive, an agency, found about 87 percent of early SearchGPT citations matched Bing's top results, but that was a small sample in early 2025 and the link may loosen as OpenAI builds more of its own index. Google AI Overviews and AI Mode draw on Google Search and your Google Business Profile. Perplexity cites live web pages and directories inline. Gemini grounds its answers in Google Search, and Copilot is built on Bing. The plain takeaway is that a strong presence on both Google and Bing, plus the directories and review sites these tools read, is what puts you in front of the most people.

How often does AI actually show a local business?

AI shows a local business far less often than it shows up for general questions, and how often it appears at all depends on what the person searched. Whitespark found AI Overviews appear for about 68 percent of local searches overall, but the range is wide: about 15 percent for simple local intent, rising to about 92 percent for informational questions and about 97 percent for hybrid ones. So a plain "plumber near me" may show no AI answer, while "how do I pick a good plumber" almost always triggers one.

When AI does answer, it names a small set of businesses. SOCi's 2026 Local Visibility Index, which looked at about 350,000 locations, found only 1.2 percent were recommended on ChatGPT and 7.4 percent on Perplexity, against 35.9 percent that appeared in Google's local 3-pack. SOCi sells local-marketing software, so weigh that, but even taken loosely it points the same way: getting named by AI is roughly 3 to 30 times more selective than showing up in the Google map pack. That cuts both ways. It is harder to get in, and the businesses that do get in face far less competition inside the answer. The table below puts the main numbers side by side.

One honest caveat covers the whole table. No AI engine publishes exact figures on what it names or how often, so treat these as the best sourced estimates available, not fixed rules. The pattern they point to is steady across studies: a lot of people now ask AI, AI names few businesses, and being named is its own game.

How do I check if AI recommends my local business?

You check whether AI recommends your local business by asking the tools directly, confirming your Google Business Profile, and running an audit to see what is missing. It takes about ten minutes to get a rough read, and here is the order to do it in.

1. Ask the AI tools directly. Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI for "best [your service] near me" or "[your service] in [your city]," and see whether they name your business. Try it a few times, since answers vary.
2. Check your Google Business Profile. Confirm your Google Business Profile is claimed, in the right primary category, and has recent reviews. AI leans on it heavily for local recommendations, so a weak or wrong profile quietly keeps you out.
3. Run a free AI-visibility audit. Run a free AI-visibility audit to see which off-site signals are missing and which engines can and cannot find your business.

If you want that last step done for you, our free AI-Visibility Audit checks your business the way the AI engines do and tells you, in plain terms, which signals are missing. For the mechanics behind who gets named, see how AI chooses which business to recommend, and for the broader playbook see AI visibility for small business.

Common questions about how many people use AI to find local businesses