By John Gormally, Founder of The Main Street CMO · Last updated October 21, 2026
Your next customer just asked a chatbot who to hire
Picture a homeowner in Tucson with a leaking water heater. A few years ago she’d have typed “plumber near me” into Google and scrolled. Today there’s a good chance she opens ChatGPT and asks, “Who’s the best plumber in Oro Valley for an emergency repair?”
She gets back three names. Not ten blue links. Not page two. Three names.
If you own a local business, here’s the question that should keep you up tonight: are you one of those three? For most Main Street businesses right now, the honest answer is no. Not because they’re bad at what they do, but because AI tools can’t find enough clear, consistent proof that they exist and do good work.
The good news: this is fixable, and you don’t need a Fortune 500 budget to fix it. You need the same thing that’s always won on Main Street — showing up, being clear about what you do, and letting happy customers speak for you.
The shift happened in one year
In 2025, using AI to find a local business was a novelty. In 2026, it’s mainstream. BrightLocal’s 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey of 1,002 U.S. consumers found:
- 45% used an AI tool to get a local business recommendation in the past year, up from just 6% a year earlier.
- 31% used ChatGPT specifically, and 23% used Google’s AI Mode.
- 97% of people who use AI for recommendations still check the answer against real reviews.
That last number matters. AI isn’t replacing your reputation — it’s reading it, summarizing it, and deciding whether you’re worth mentioning.
Meanwhile, most small business owners haven’t caught up. In a Squarespace survey of more than 1,000 small business owners, nearly 6 in 10 said they don’t know where to start with AI search, and over two-thirds had never checked how their business shows up in AI answers. Of those who did check, 40% found incorrect information about their own business.
Read that again: four in ten owners who looked found AI telling customers the wrong thing about them.
Why AI skips good local businesses
AI assistants don’t “rank” you the way Google’s old ten-link page did. They assemble an answer from what they can verify across the web. When the evidence is thin or contradictory, they play it safe and name someone else. Google’s own guidance on optimizing for generative AI search points the same way: clear, trustworthy, people-first content wins.
In my audits of small business and MSP websites, the same gaps show up again and again:
- Inconsistent basics. Your hours say one thing on Google, another on Yelp, and a third on your website. AI can’t tell which is true, so it trusts none of it.
- Vague service pages. “We do it all!” tells a machine nothing. A page that says “emergency water heater repair in Oro Valley and Marana, same-day service” tells it exactly when to recommend you.
- Few or stale reviews. Reviews are the evidence AI leans on. Twelve reviews from 2021 lose to sixty from this year.
- No direct answers. AI tools quote pages that answer questions plainly. If your site never answers “How much does a water heater replacement cost?”, a competitor’s site will.
- Missing structured data. Schema markup is the label on the box. Without it, AI has to guess what your business is, where it is, and what it offers.
Five fixes you can start this month
None of these require a big agency retainer. They require discipline — the kind any veteran or small business owner already knows.
- Lock down your Google Business Profile. AI tools read it like a fact sheet. Pick the right primary category, list every service, set accurate hours (holidays too), and add fresh photos monthly. If you’d rather hand this off, see our Google Business Profile optimization and local SEO service.
- Make your name, address, and phone identical everywhere. Check Google, Bing Places, Apple Business Connect, Yelp, Facebook, and your industry directories. One spelling, one phone number, one address format.
- Build a review habit, not a review campaign. Ask every happy customer, every week. Reply to every review, good or bad. Steady, recent reviews beat a burst of old ones.
- Answer your customers’ real questions on your site. Take the ten questions you hear on the phone most often and answer each one in plain language — cost ranges, timelines, service areas, what to expect. This is the core of Answer Engine Optimization (AEO).
- Add LocalBusiness schema. Follow Google’s LocalBusiness structured data guide, built on the schema.org LocalBusiness standard. If you’re on WordPress, a plugin like Rank Math can handle most of it.
The ten-minute self-check
Grab a coffee and run this today. It costs nothing and tells you where you stand.
- Ask ChatGPT: “Who is the best [your service] in [your city]?”
- Ask the same question in Google AI Mode, Perplexity, and Gemini.
- Note whether you’re named, which competitors are named, and what reasons the AI gives.
- Ask each tool: “What do you know about [your business name]?” Check every detail for errors.
- Compare your hours, phone, and address on Google, Yelp, Facebook, and your website.
- Count your Google reviews from the last 90 days.
If you weren’t named, or the AI got your details wrong, you’ve just found where your next customers are leaking out.
Key takeaways
- 45% of consumers now use AI tools to find local businesses, up from 6% a year earlier.
- AI recommends businesses with consistent listings, recent reviews, clear answers, and structured data.
- Most fixes are low-cost: profile cleanup, a weekly review habit, FAQ content, and schema.
Frequently asked questions
What is AI search optimization?
AI search optimization is the work of making your business easy for tools like ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Gemini, and Perplexity to find, understand, and recommend. It overlaps with SEO but focuses on clear answers, consistent business data, reviews, and structured data.
Is AI search replacing Google?
Not entirely. Traditional search and reviews still lead for local recommendations, but AI is growing fast — from 6% to 45% of consumers in a single year. Smart businesses optimize for both.
What is the difference between SEO and AEO?
SEO helps your pages rank in search results. AEO — Answer Engine Optimization — helps your content get quoted or cited as the answer itself. Most of the groundwork is shared.
How long does it take to show up in AI answers?
Basic fixes like correcting business listings can be picked up within weeks. Building enough reviews and content to be recommended consistently usually takes three to six months of steady work.
Can a small business really compete with big brands in AI search?
Yes. For local questions, AI favors businesses with strong local signals — accurate listings, recent reviews, and clear service-area pages. That’s ground a Main Street business can win.
How do I find out what ChatGPT says about my business?
Ask it directly. Type “What do you know about [your business name] in [your city]?” into ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Gemini, and Perplexity, then check every detail — hours, phone, services, and reviews — against what’s actually true. Any errors point to the listings you need to fix first.
Do I need a new website to show up in AI search?
Usually not. Most small businesses can improve their AI visibility by fixing what they already have: consistent listings, clearer service pages, an FAQ section that answers real customer questions, and basic schema markup. A rebuild only makes sense if your current site can’t be edited or loads too slowly to use.
What is a free AI Visibility Check?
It’s a review The Main Street CMO runs for local businesses. We ask ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Gemini, and Perplexity about your business and your services, then show you whether you’re recommended, what the AI gets wrong, and which fixes will make the biggest difference. Request your check.
Main Street still wins — if it shows up
The businesses that adjust now will own the answer for years. The ones that wait will wonder why the phone got quieter.
If you’re not sure who should own this work inside your business, read What Is a Fractional CMO? And if you’re wondering why this site has a new name, here’s why I rebranded to The Main Street CMO.
Want to know where you stand? Request a free AI Visibility Check. I’ll run your business through ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Gemini, and Perplexity and show you exactly what they say about you — and what to fix first. Request your check →
About the author
John Gormally is the founder of The Main Street CMO, a veteran-owned digital marketing consultancy for small businesses. He spent 28 years in enterprise technology sales and marketing with Cisco, Citrix, IBM, BlackBerry, and Symantec, earning Citrix President’s Club honors, before moving into marketing full-time in 2019. A U.S. Marine Corps veteran, John holds an MBA in Global Marketing, a post-graduate certificate in digital marketing science from the University of Arizona, post-graduate certificates from MIT, and Google Ads and Analytics certifications. He has written more than 400 blog posts, spoken at ISSA and ISACA, and runs hands-on SEO, AEO, and AI search audits for small businesses and IT providers across Arizona. Connect with John on LinkedIn.
About The Main Street CMO
The Main Street CMO is a veteran-owned digital marketing consultancy based in Oro Valley, Arizona, that gives small businesses the senior marketing leadership big companies take for granted. Services include fractional CMO leadership, local SEO and Google Business Profile optimization, answer engine optimization (AEO), content marketing, email marketing, and Google Analytics consulting. The Main Street CMO is a brand of CycleWriterLLC. Get in touch or follow us on LinkedIn.
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