Someone in your city just typed “best roofer in San Antonio” into ChatGPT. Or asked Perplexity “who should I hire for a kitchen remodel in Boerne?” Or told Gemini “find me a plumber near me that’s available this weekend.”

This is happening right now, and it’s growing fast. Gartner projects that traditional search volume will drop 25% by 2026 as consumers shift to AI-powered search tools. That projection is playing out. ChatGPT has over 400 million weekly active users. Perplexity processes over 15 million queries per day. Google’s own Gemini is baked into Android phones and Google Search via AI Overviews.

The question local business owners need to answer: when someone asks an AI to recommend a business in your category and your city, does your business show up in the response?

For most local businesses right now, the answer is no. Here’s how to change that.

When someone searches Google, they get a list of links. They click through, evaluate, and choose. Your job is to rank high on that list.

AI search works differently. The AI reads dozens of sources, synthesizes the information, and gives the user a direct answer. Instead of ten blue links, the user gets a paragraph naming three or four businesses with a brief explanation of why each one was recommended.

This changes what matters. In traditional SEO, ranking position is everything. In AI search, being mentioned at all is the first battle. Getting mentioned favorably with specific details is the second.

The AI models pull their recommendations from web content, review sites, directories, forums, and news articles. They don’t have a secret database of businesses. They read the same internet you and I read, and they synthesize what they find into a recommendation. That means the businesses with the most detailed, consistent, and widely-distributed information online get mentioned most often.

What AI search tools actually cite

Research from Profound (the AI search analytics platform) analyzed thousands of AI-generated local business recommendations and found patterns in what gets cited:

Review platforms. Google Reviews, Yelp, and industry-specific review sites are the most commonly cited sources. AI tools pull star ratings, review counts, and specific review content when making recommendations. A business with 150 Google reviews at 4.8 stars gets mentioned. A business with 12 reviews at 4.5 doesn’t.

Business directories. Yelp, BBB, Angi, HomeAdvisor, and niche directories serve as data sources that AI tools cross-reference. Consistent NAP (name, address, phone) across these directories helps AI tools confirm that your business is legitimate and active.

Your website. AI tools read your website content to understand what services you offer, what areas you serve, and what makes you different. A website with detailed service pages, location-specific content, and clear expertise signals gives AI tools more material to work with.

Local news and media mentions. If your business has been featured in a local newspaper, news site, or community blog, AI tools use those mentions as trust signals. A mention in the San Antonio Express-News or a local Chamber of Commerce spotlight carries weight.

Reddit and forum discussions. This is the one most business owners miss. When someone asks “who’s a good plumber in San Antonio?” on Reddit’s r/sanantonio, and a real person recommends your business by name, AI tools pick that up. Perplexity in particular indexes Reddit heavily. Real recommendations from real people in real conversations are gold for AI search visibility.

The five things to do right now

1. Get your reviews above the threshold

AI tools need evidence to recommend you. The strongest evidence is review volume and quality. Based on analysis of AI-generated recommendations, the threshold appears to be roughly 50+ Google reviews at 4.5+ stars before AI tools consistently include a business in local recommendations.

If you’re below that threshold, review generation is the single most impactful thing you can do for both traditional search and AI search. Ask every satisfied customer. Make it easy with a direct link to your Google review page. Follow up once if they don’t leave one.

2. Make your website content specific and detailed

Generic content gets ignored by AI tools. “We are a full-service plumbing company serving the greater San Antonio area” gives an AI nothing to work with.

Specific content gets cited. “We specialize in tankless water heater installation and sewer line repair for homes in San Antonio, Schertz, and New Braunfels. Most jobs are completed same-day with a two-year warranty on parts and labor.”

The more specific and factual your website content is, the more useful it is to an AI tool trying to recommend a business. Write like you’re answering a customer’s question, not like you’re writing marketing copy.

3. Claim and complete every directory listing

AI tools cross-reference multiple sources. When your business appears consistently across Google, Yelp, BBB, Angi, Facebook, Apple Maps, and industry-specific directories, AI tools have higher confidence in recommending you.

Inconsistent information (different phone numbers, different addresses, different business names) reduces that confidence. Clean up your directory listings so every one matches exactly.

4. Get mentioned in real conversations

This is the hardest one to engineer, but it’s increasingly important. When real people recommend your business in Reddit threads, Nextdoor discussions, Facebook groups, and community forums, AI tools pick up those mentions.

You can’t fake this. But you can encourage it. After a great job, you might tell a customer “if anyone on Nextdoor ever asks for a roofer recommendation, we’d appreciate a mention.” Some will. Over time, those organic mentions build a presence that AI tools notice.

5. Write your business facts in plain text

AI tools read the visible words on your page, not the code behind it. So spell out the things a customer would ask about: your service area, the services you offer, your hours, your typical price ranges. “We handle tankless water heater installs in San Antonio, Schertz, and New Braunfels, usually same-day” is a clean fact an AI can lift directly.

One thing to set straight, because a lot of agencies get it wrong: schema markup does not get you cited by AI. The large study on this found it has essentially no effect on AI citations. Schema is still worth adding — it earns you rich results in Google — but it’s a traditional SEO move, not an AI search one. For AI, plain, specific writing does more.

What about Google’s AI Overviews?

Google’s AI Overviews are the AI-generated summaries that appear at the top of some Google search results. For local searches, these overviews often pull from Google Business Profiles, Google Reviews, and website content.

The optimization for AI Overviews is largely the same as traditional local SEO: complete GBP, strong reviews, detailed website content, and consistent directory listings. If you’re doing those things well, you’re already positioned for AI Overviews.

The bigger shift is the non-Google AI tools. ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude don’t have access to Google’s Business Profile data directly. They rely on what’s publicly available on the web. That’s why your website content, directory listings, and organic mentions matter more for these tools than your GBP alone.

The timeline

AI search optimization isn’t a switch you flip. It’s a position you build over months. The businesses that start building their online presence now, getting reviews, creating specific content, cleaning up directories, will be the ones AI tools recommend six months from now when the volume of AI search queries is significantly higher than today.

The businesses that wait until AI search is “mainstream” will be trying to catch up to competitors who already have 200 reviews, detailed websites, and organic mentions across the web.

This isn’t separate from your existing marketing. Everything that makes you visible in traditional Google search also makes you visible in AI search. The difference is that AI search raises the bar on specificity and breadth. You need to be mentioned in more places, with more detail, saying the same consistent information.

Want to see how visible your business is online right now, across the sources that AI tools are reading? I built a free audit tool that checks your Google presence, review profile, and local search visibility. It’s a good starting point for understanding where the gaps are. Takes about 30 seconds.