AI Search for Small Businesses: Can ChatGPT Find You?

The short answer: more and more people are asking ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews, Gemini and Perplexity the questions they used to type into a search box, including “who’s a good plumber near me?” Google is still the biggest way people find businesses, but AI tools now sit right in the middle of that search. If those tools can’t find clear, trustworthy information about your business, they’ll recommend someone else, and you’ll never know the customer was looking.

Think about the last time you needed a recommendation. Maybe you asked a friend. Maybe you Googled it. More and more, people are doing a third thing: opening an AI assistant and asking it like they’d ask that friend. “What’s the best family dentist in Birmingham, Michigan?” “Which landscaper near Royal Oak does patios?” The AI answers in a few sentences, often with a short list of names. Here’s what the numbers say about that shift, and what it means for a small business that wants to be on the list.

How many people are using AI instead of a search engine?

It’s no longer a tech-crowd habit. A few numbers from the last year:

44% of U.S. adults now use ChatGPT, up from 18% in 2023, according to a Pew Research Center survey from February 2026. For adults ages 30 to 49 it’s 55%, and 24% of all adults use Google’s Gemini (Pew Research Center).
ChatGPT reached 900 million weekly users worldwide in February 2026, up from 800 million in October 2025 (TechCrunch).
45% of consumers have used AI tools to get local business recommendations, up from just 6% the year before, according to BrightLocal’s 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey. AI is now the third most used tool for finding local businesses, behind Google and Facebook and ahead of Yelp (BrightLocal).
In that same survey, 31% had used ChatGPT for business recommendations in the past year, and 23% had used Google’s AI Mode.
In a 2025 Adobe Express survey of 1,000 people, 77% said they use ChatGPT for searches and about a quarter said it’s their first choice (Computerworld).

Is Google going away?

No, and it’s worth being honest about that. Back in February 2024, research firm Gartner predicted that traditional search engine volume would drop 25% by 2026 as people moved to AI chatbots (Gartner). So far it hasn’t played out that neatly. In April 2026, Google said search queries were at an all-time high (Search Engine Journal), and Similarweb found that about 95% of ChatGPT users still use Google too (Similarweb).

What’s really happening is that people now use both, and Google itself has become an AI answer engine. Many searches now open with an AI Overview, a summary written by Google’s AI at the top of the page, before any regular links. That changes what gets clicked.

Why AI answers mean fewer clicks

Pew Research Center tracked the real Google searches of 900 U.S. adults in March 2025. Here’s what it found (Pew Research Center):

When an AI summary appeared, people clicked a regular search result 8% of the time. Without one, they clicked 15% of the time, almost twice as often.
People clicked a link inside the AI summary on just 1% of visits.
People were more likely to end their browsing entirely after seeing an AI summary: 26% of the time, compared with 16% without one.

In plain terms: the AI’s answer is often the end of the search. If your business is named in that answer, great. If it isn’t, ranking on page one still helps, but fewer people scroll down to see it.

What this means for small businesses

For a local business, the question has shifted from “do we rank on Google?” to “when someone asks an AI about what we do, does it mention us, and does it get the details right?” A few things make that tricky:

AI tools give short lists, not ten pages of results. There may be room for three or four names. Being number eight doesn’t count for much anymore.
AI pulls from many places, not just your website. Your Google Business Profile, reviews, directories like Yelp and the BBB, local news and other sites all feed what an AI “knows” about you.
Wrong information spreads. If your old hours, an old address or a service you stopped offering is still floating around online, an AI may repeat it with total confidence.
People trust the answers. BrightLocal found that 63% of people who use AI for recommendations trust what it tells them, though most still double-check against reviews (BrightLocal).

The good news: the things that help you show up in AI answers are mostly the same things that have always made a business easy to find online. They just matter more now.

How to help AI tools find and recommend your business

You can start on most of these yourself this week.

1. Ask the AI about yourself

Open ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google, and ask the questions your customers would ask: “best [your service] in [your town],” “is [your business name] any good,” “what are [your business name]’s hours?” Note whether you’re mentioned, who’s mentioned instead, and whether the details are right. This is the simplest way to see where you stand.

2. Get your Google Business Profile in great shape

Fill in every field: categories, services, hours, service area, photos and a clear description. Google’s own AI leans on this information, and other tools pick it up too.

3. Make your name, address and phone match everywhere

Check your website, Google, Apple Maps, Bing, Yelp, Facebook and industry directories. The same business details everywhere make it easier for AI tools to trust that they have the right information.

4. Answer real customer questions on your website

AI tools love clear, direct answers. Give each main service its own page that says what you do, where you do it, who it’s for and roughly what it costs. Add an FAQ section in plain language. If customers ask you something on the phone every week, the answer belongs on your site.

5. Add structured data (schema)

Schema is a bit of behind-the-scenes code that labels your business details, like your name, address, hours, services and reviews, so search engines and AI tools can read them without guessing. Most small-business sites are missing it or have it set up wrong.

6. Keep earning reviews

Reviews are one of the strongest signals AI tools use to decide who to recommend, and they’re what people check before they trust the AI. Ask happy customers, make it easy with a direct link, and reply to reviews, good and bad.

7. Get mentioned in other places

Local news, chamber of commerce listings, community sponsorships, partner businesses and industry associations all count. The more trustworthy places that mention you, the more confident an AI is about recommending you.

8. Make sure your site is fast, accessible and open to crawlers

If your website is slow, broken on phones or hard for software to read, AI tools may skip it. Clean headings, real text instead of text baked into images, and a site that doesn’t accidentally block search crawlers all help. Many of the same fixes also make your site more accessible to people with disabilities.

How Trevi Web Co. can help

At Trevi Web Co., we’re based in Birmingham, Michigan, and we help small businesses get found, on Google and in AI answers. Our SEO and AI search audits start with a Findable snapshot for $350: we check how you show up in Google search, Google Maps and AI assistants like ChatGPT and Gemini for the searches that matter to you, see who’s getting recommended instead, and give you a short list of what to fix first. If you decide to go further with a full audit, the snapshot fee is credited toward it.

Curious what AI says about your business? Book a free 20-minute call or call (248) 509-4250 and we’ll take a look.

Frequently asked questions

What is AI search?

AI search means asking an AI tool, like ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode, Gemini or Perplexity, a question and getting a written answer instead of a list of links. The AI pulls information from websites, business listings and reviews, then summarizes it, often naming specific businesses.

Is AI search replacing Google?

Not replacing, but changing it. Most people who use ChatGPT still use Google, and Google’s search volume is at an all-time high. But Google now shows its own AI summaries on many searches, and people click fewer links when those summaries appear. So it’s less “Google vs. AI” and more that AI answers are now part of nearly every search.

How do I know if ChatGPT recommends my business?

Ask it. Try the questions a customer would use, like “best [service] in [town],” in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google. Answers can vary from one try to the next, so ask a few different ways and check more than once. An AI visibility snapshot does this across many searches and tools at once.

What is GEO or AEO?

GEO (generative engine optimization) and AEO (answer engine optimization) are newer names for making your business easy for AI tools to find, understand and recommend. In practice, it builds on good SEO: accurate business listings, helpful pages that answer real questions, structured data, reviews and mentions on trusted sites.

Do I need a new website to show up in AI answers?

Usually not. Most businesses can improve a lot by fixing their Google Business Profile, cleaning up listings, adding schema and improving a few key pages. A rebuild only makes sense if your current site is very outdated or can’t be fixed.

Can anyone guarantee my business will show up in ChatGPT?

No. AI tools decide for themselves what to say, and their answers change over time. Anyone promising a guaranteed spot is overselling. What you can do is make your information accurate, consistent and easy to trust, which raises your odds everywhere people search.

People Are Asking AI Instead of Googling. Can It Find Your Business?