AI search is changing local discovery. Here's what to do.

What's actually changing

For 20 years, "getting found" meant ranking on Google. You optimized your Google Business Profile, you chased reviews, you maybe paid for some keywords. Customers searched, Google showed them a list of 10, they picked one.

AI search can turn that result list into a conversational answer with supporting links. The customer may not inspect a long list or see every business the system considered.

Two consequences nobody is talking about loudly enough:

• Fewer visible comparisons are possible. In Google search, even when customers don't click, you at least see your listing show up in their search results. In ChatGPT, you don't even get the impression. The customer asked, the AI answered, you weren't in it. You'll never know it happened.
• There is no guaranteed number of slots. Some answers name a few businesses, some provide more links, and some decline to recommend any. No business should treat a fixed "top three" as a published ranking rule.

Where AI search gets its answers

There's no single source. Different AI tools blend different inputs, but the patterns are converging:

• Structured data on your website. JSON-LD schema markup makes facts explicit to search systems when it truthfully matches the visible page. Google says there is no special schema or additional markup needed for AI Overviews or AI Mode, so schema is a clarity tool, not a guarantee of inclusion.
• The platforms that index the web. AI search products can use their own crawlers, search indexes, and third-party sources. OpenAI says any public website can appear in ChatGPT search when OAI-SearchBot is allowed; that does not mean one index universally determines every answer. A Google Business Profile alone is not the full web presence.
• Review aggregators. Yelp, TripAdvisor, OpenTable, and similar sites can appear as cited sources. Keep the profiles you actually maintain accurate, but no public documentation promises that a strong page on one aggregator will produce a recommendation.
• Wikipedia and Wikidata. These sources can appear in search results, but there is no published rule giving them a fixed advantage in every major model. Most small businesses are not independently notable enough for a Wikipedia page, and creating one for promotion would violate Wikipedia's purpose.
• Your raw website content. Important facts should be present as readable text and easy to reach through normal links. Crawler rendering behavior varies, so do not assume either that every crawler executes all JavaScript or that a JavaScript site is automatically invisible.

What's settled, what's speculative

The space is new enough that you should be skeptical of anyone selling certainty. There's a flood of "AI SEO consultants" right now claiming they know exactly how Perplexity ranks restaurants. They don't. Nobody outside the LLM companies does, and the rules change every model release.

What's actually settled:

• Pages must be crawlable and indexable to be eligible for Google's AI search features; inclusion is never guaranteed.
• Important content should be available in textual form and reachable through internal links.
• Structured data should match the visible text. Accurate business facts across the profiles you maintain reduce ambiguity for people and machines.
• OpenAI says OAI-SearchBot access helps a public site be discovered and cited in ChatGPT search. GPTBot is a separate control for potential training.

What's speculative:

• Exactly how each LLM ranks competing businesses. We observe patterns; nobody can promise a result.
• Whether llms.txt (a new convention, sort of like robots.txt for AI crawlers) will matter long-term. Anthropic publishes one. Vercel does. Most SMB sites don't. Worth having; nobody knows yet how much it moves the needle.
• Whether paying for "AI optimization" services is worth it. Most are repackaging standard SEO advice.

Six things you can check this week

None of these require an AI consultant. All of them are things you can verify yourself in under an hour.

1. Does your website have LocalBusiness schema markup? Right-click your homepage, "View Page Source," search for @type or LocalBusiness. If nothing comes up, decide whether truthful markup would clarify facts already visible on the page. It is useful, but not a visibility guarantee.
2. Does your homepage render without JavaScript? Disable JavaScript in your browser (Chrome: Settings → Privacy → Site Settings → JavaScript → Don't allow), then load your site. Can you see your business name, hours, phone, and what you do? If most of it is blank, some crawlers and accessibility tools may have trouble reaching the information.
3. Is your business on Bing Places? Search bing.com/maps for your business name. If you're not there, claim it. Bing presence is worth maintaining, but it does not guarantee inclusion in any particular AI answer.
4. Is your business on Apple Maps? An accurate Apple Business Connect listing helps customers using Apple Maps. Treat it as an important directory, not a promised AI-ranking factor.
5. Do you have an FAQ section? Even three real Q&A pairs on your site ("Do you take reservations?", "Is parking free?", "Do you have vegetarian options?") give AI tools clean, extractable answers.
6. Try the search yourself. Open ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews separately. Ask each: "best [your category] in [your city]." See if you're mentioned. Also ask: "tell me about [your business name]." See what each one knows about you. This is the closest thing to a ground-truth check available today.

Why we're writing about this

Most SMB owners don't have time to follow the AI space. They're running a restaurant or a salon or a repair shop. Nobody can honestly forecast what share of local discovery AI search will own two years from now. Owners can still make the basics accurate and crawlable now without buying that forecast.

Part of our job — beyond the agents we sell — is to keep you informed about the shifts that matter for the kind of business you run. The basics in this article would've been an obscure SEO consultant's billable line item two years ago. Now they're table stakes. We'll keep writing the next ones as they emerge.

Official sources

• Google Search Central — AI features and your website: existing SEO fundamentals apply; there is no special AI schema or additional technical requirement.
• OpenAI — Publishers and Developers FAQ: OAI-SearchBot controls search discovery, and ChatGPT search referral URLs include a chatgpt.com UTM source.
• IndexNow — protocol documentation: a successful submission says the URL was received, not that it was indexed or ranked.