AI and local search: how Ask Maps, Gemini and ChatGPT choose which local businesses to recommend

Three changes, close together, moved local search from lists of pins towards conversations.

1. 1Ask Maps (March 2026). Google added a Gemini-powered Ask Maps feature to Google Maps, rolling out in the United States and India on Android and iOS, with desktop to follow. People can type questions like "where can I charge my phone without queueing at a coffee shop" and get an answer, then book, save, share or navigate. Google says Gemini in Maps draws on more than 300 million places and reviews from a community of more than 500 million contributors.
2. 2Gemini reads your Business Profile (June 2026). Google began rolling out a Gemini app integration with Business Profiles globally. Owners can ask Gemini how their business performed, get draft replies to reviews, update hours and posts, and receive alerts about gaps such as unanswered customer questions or holiday hours not yet set.
3. 3The old Q&A section faded. Google discontinued its Business Profile Q&A API on 3 November 2025 and said it was updating how Q&A works. AI answers built from your profile and reviews are increasingly what customers see instead.

The result: more customers get one AI-written answer about your area, rather than scrolling through ten listings.

In one year, AI moved from a curiosity to a mainstream way to find local businesses. BrightLocal's 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey shows how far it has gone:

The survey is from the US, but Ask Maps launched in India at the same time as the US, and Google says India is its largest market for voice and visual search. Indian customers are getting these tools just as early.

None of the assistants has a private database of "good businesses". They assemble answers from public information. The main sources are:

• Your Google Business Profile: name, categories, hours, services, products, attributes, photos and posts.
• Reviews: not only your rating, but what people wrote. "Great for kids", "wheelchair ramp at the entrance" and "open late on Sundays" are exactly the details that answer conversational questions.
• Your website: in BrightLocal's study of ChatGPT Search, business websites were 58% of the sources shown for local searches.
• Mentions and directories: articles, lists and directory listings that name you made up the remaining 42% in that study.

Different tools lean on different sources. Gemini and Ask Maps sit on top of Google's own place data and reviews. ChatGPT, according to BrightLocal, relies on Bing's index for search and leaned heavily on business websites, with Google Maps itself not appearing among the sources in its 2024 snapshot.

For the first time, Whitespark's 2026 Local Search Ranking Factors survey asked experts to rate factors for AI search visibility separately from the map pack. Two findings stand out.

First, consistency across the web matters more for AI than for maps. Three of the top five AI visibility factors were citation factors, meaning consistent listings of your business across directories and websites. That fits how assistants work: they cross-check before recommending.

Second, different AI tools behave differently. Whitespark gives the example of additional profile categories, which experts scored as irrelevant to ChatGPT but meaningful for Google's AI Mode and Gemini, because those tools read Google's own profile data.

Treat these as informed opinion, not measured fact. But they point the same way as everything else in this guide: complete Google profile fields for Google's AI, consistent facts everywhere for the others.

1. 1Fill in every service and product. Predefined services scored highly for AI visibility, and specific services are what AI answers quote. See the field-by-field profile checklist.
2. 2Tick every true attribute: accessibility, parking, payment methods, women-led, family-friendly, appointment required. Conversational questions often hinge on these details.
3. 3Set accurate hours and special hours. An AI tool is unlikely to recommend a place it believes is closed. Gemini's new alerts even flag missing holiday hours.
4. 4Encourage descriptive reviews. Ask customers to "mention what you came in for", without telling them what to say or offering anything. Detailed reviews give AI more to work with. Our reviews guide covers what Google allows.
5. 5Make your facts match everywhere: website, Google, Bing Places, Apple Business Connect, Justdial, IndiaMART, Practo, Zomato or whichever directories your customers use.
6. 6Answer common questions on your website, since the profile's own Q&A section is no longer a reliable place for them.

If Ask Maps has reached your phone, open Google Maps and ask the kind of question your customers would. Be specific and conversational:

• "Jewellery shop near me that does old gold exchange"
• "Child-friendly dentist open on Sunday near Koramangala"
• "Cafe with wifi and power sockets near Pali bus stand"

Then ask the same thing in ChatGPT and Gemini. Note whether you appear, which competitors do, and what details the answer uses. If a competitor is recommended for "open on Sunday" and you are open on Sunday but have not said so anywhere, you have found your first fix.

For a structured comparison, our free GMB ONE audit checks your profile across eight areas, compares it with three nearby businesses and reviews your photos, using only public information.

With all the AI news, it is easy to forget that the fundamentals have not moved.

• Google still says local results come down to relevance, distance and prominence, and that you cannot pay for a better local ranking.
• Fake reviews are still removed. Google blocked or removed more than 240 million policy-violating reviews in 2024, and its review systems are increasingly AI-driven.
• Real-world reputation still wins. AI summaries of your reviews are only as good as the reviews themselves.

The businesses that do best in AI local search are the same ones that did best before: accurate, complete, active and genuinely well reviewed. AI just makes the gap between them and everyone else more visible.