How AI is impacting local search & what tools you should use

Local customers are encountering and using a variety of AI interfaces. Because of this, local brands need to adapt their toolkits to capture search behavior that is evolving — AI has changed organic search at the local level. 

This guide will help local brands access available data to cut through the AI noise and learn how to track actual consumer behavior.  

AI vs. traditional search, by the numbers

AI messaging might easily convince you that their products have replaced all technology that came before them. Numbers tell a different story.

According to original data from an August 2025 Sparktoro study, just 20% of Americans are using AI tools 10+ times per month, while 40% are accessing them only 1+ times per month. 

Despite industry hype that traditional search has been “killed” by AI and that SEO is ”dead,” Sparktoro reports that 95% of Americans continue to engage with traditional search engines like Google each month.

In fact, Semrush found that when new users adopt ChatGPT, their usage of Google search increases:

In the study, Sparktoro founder Rand Fishkin states:

“My takeaway is that traditional search isn’t going anywhere, even for the heavy adopters of AI. The more data we gather, the more I’m convinced the ‘AI vs. Search’ narrative is largely made up by media and influencers seeking attention, rather than an accurate reflection of reality.” 

Later, he adds:

“Growth/adoption appears to be shrinking over time, as the combined set of AI tools we analyzed (ChatGPT, Claude, CoPilot, Gemini, Perplexity, and Deepseek) hasn’t had a 1.1X+ growth month since September of 2024. That’s not to say AI tools aren’t continuing to get more users, but rather, that the growth trajectory is slowing.”

AI vs. traditional local search, by the numbers

In the local search setting, there are three different scenarios in which consumers commonly encounter AI:

• Searching directly in a conversational AI tool like Google AI Mode or Chat GPT. For example, within Google AI Mode, the prompt “who sells the cheapest tacos in San Francisco” brings up a variety of information scraped from multiple sources.

• Doing a traditional local intent search and seeing AI overviews in the results. The query “what do tacos cost in San Francisco” is likely to bring up an AI overview at the top of Google’s organic search engine results pages (SERPs), again featuring content scraped from a variety of sources.

• Using Google Maps. The Google Maps app is the default mapping product on Android devices. Since Q4 2024, Google has been rolling out a variety of AI-based local search features in the app. These include review summaries and “ask about this place” prompts. Most recently, a “know before you go feature” was spotted by Dave DiGregorio and posted to LinkedIn by Joy Hawkins. It’s highly likely that Google will continue to roll out new ones over time.

What local business owners and digital marketing agencies need to know is the degree to which potential customers are encountering AI. 

A Q2 2025 original study from Whitespark captured the following data about the prevalence of AI Overviews in local search:

• AI Overviews were appearing for 68% of local searches.
• AI Overview prominence appears to be based on industry rather than geography. For example, searches for attorney-related information showed the same degree of AI Overview prominence, regardless of whether the searcher is located in San Francisco, Seattle, or New York City.
• Local packs were appearing for 39% of queries. A notably smaller figure than the one for AI Overview prominence (68%).
• There appears to be an inverse relationship between local packs and AI Overviews when it comes to search intent.
• AI Overviews appear most often for informational and hybrid-intent queries. On average, AI Overviews appeared for just 15% of simple local intent queries like “tacos san francisco,” but for 92% of informational-intent queries like “how long does an eye exam take near me?” and for 97% of hybrid-intent queries like “average cost of dental implants in phoenix.”
• Local packs are the most relevant results for simple queries. On average, Google local packs appeared for more than 90% of simple local search queries like “primary care clinic phoenix.” 

It is worth noting that since the time of the Whitespark study (to which I was a contributor), I have seen what appears to be an uptick in local packs and AI overviews overlapping more frequently for many queries. This deserves further study in the future to continue to capture trends.

How AI is changing local search on traditional search engines like Google

Google’s 2024 rollout of AI Overviews has had a huge impact on the search experience. It’s important to know that, for a variety of queries, local consumers are now frequently encountering this SERP feature. 

For example, a more complex query like “is there a mexican restaurant near golden gate park?” is likely to show the searcher an AI Overview like this one:

The pros of this relatively new dynamic is that AI Overviews can cite content about local businesses from their own websites and from third-party platforms. The above example search scrapes content from Reddit, Yelp, and an individual local restaurant’s website. 

This means brands that have built a strong digital footprint of unstructured citations (mentions of the business on third-party websites) can enjoy prominence and discovery in AI Overviews. 

However, the cons of this dynamic may outweigh the pros for a variety of reasons:

• AI generation of misinformation (hallucinations) about brands can mislead consumers and cost local businesses conversions and transactions.
• GatherUp finds that 67% of consumers are not rigorously fact-checking AI sources before choosing a local business — this is problematic because of AI hallucinations, which can give false information about local brands.
• It is more difficult to track what consumers are experiencing in AI Overviews vs. traditional local packs, making it harder to understand the improvements to Google Business Profile optimization and unstructured citation development — every consumer may be seeing different information in AI Overviews.
• The AI Overview experience is wordier and less streamlined for users than traditional local packs, potentially creating a worse user experience instead of a better one.

A concerning look at Google AI Overviews: Hallucinations

Google’s decision to fill their SERPs with AI Overviews may not be improving the local search experience. Of particular concern is the phenomenon known as a “hallucination” — when an AI generates misinformation. 

A good example of this shows how AI can be prompted to generate almost any statement, as in the following screenshot that makes it look as though a particular sporting goods store may have a pest infestation problem:

To be clear, we know of zero reports of cockroaches at this reputable outdoor outfitter, and Google’s AI Overviews are not citing any sources that report an infestation at any branch of the business, but consumers may think this is an actual problem because the AI Overview makes it look real. 

Given the significant investment brands make in building a good reputation and managing that reputation online, it is extremely frustrating to realize that AI Overviews are misrepresenting local businesses on a regular basis. 

This scenario may seem to fly in the face of Google’s own edicts about creating people-first content, especially when contrasted with the more intuitive experience provided by Google’s local packs.

How AI affects local packs

Over the past two decades, Google has been returning some version of local business results as local packs in response to queries that have a local intent. 

For example, a consumer searching for “tacos near golden gate park san francisco” will typically be shown a set of businesses and a map like this:

The pros of local packs

Local packs fit a lot of need-to-know content into a well-organized and relatively small amount of screen space. 

At a glance, consumers can understand their choices of nearby businesses, what those businesses are called, where they are located, what their reputation is, and much more. 

Most of this information stems from the creation and management of free Google Business Profiles, giving lots of businesses a chance to promote themselves. 

The cons of local packs 

Local packs exist in a competitive environment. Businesses that achieve prominence can greatly outpace less active competitors when it comes to earning discovery, conversions, and transactions. 

They are also open to third-party edits and spam, putting local business data accuracy and reputation at risk. And, when things go wrong with Google Business Profiles and local packs, a lack of dedicated support staff on Google’s side can make resolution extremely time-consuming and frustrating.

Despite any downsides, however, local packs have been successfully adopted by consumers. In particular, GatherUp finds that 50% of consumers feel that Google’s local platform contains the most trustworthy review content, and 98% of consumers consult reviews before choosing a local business for a transaction. Google has a real winner in its local pack format.

Local pack-like results in Google AI Mode

Doubtless, the historical success of local packs accounts for why Google is adding similar results into Google AI Mode. 

Here’s what we see for our same prompt for “tacos near golden gate park san francisco”:

So will AI Overviews replace local packs?

Anything is possible, but we can’t know for certain. Some interesting examples have been spotted in the wild over the past year. 

For example, Elizabeth Rule shared the following screenshot on Reddit of local ranking fluctuations. Each pin represents the local ranking position of a business in a particular area of the map and red pins mean the business is ranking in a lower position than the tool can capture:

Her theory on the cause of this fluctuation:

“I’m seeing more and more AIOs in search where local businesses appear, but Google isn’t showing a local pack at all. This means there’s no local pack within the organic results, which is causing major ranking fluctuations for some businesses.”

Google will certainly continue experimenting with different AI Overview/local pack iterations, and it’s something to pay attention to when looking at how your local business is appearing in the search engine results. 

At present, AI Overviews and AI Mode do not have the organization or familiar comfort of local packs. If Google decides to abandon its local pack format at some point, this could either increase or decrease impressions, clicks, and conversions for Google Business Profiles, depending on how the user feels about the results.

AI Overviews eat into local pack traffic

There’s always been a school of thought in the local SEO industry that as long as customers are showing up at local businesses and sales are healthy, it doesn’t really matter which specific interface is being used. 

In other words, does an auto repair shop really need to care if a customer found them via organic SERPs, a local pack, the Google Maps app on their phone, a social media recommendation, or a billboard in their town, so long as the business is thriving?

But it is of practical interest to know which channels are your best performers because that will help you budget resources toward the platforms that are driving the most business. 

Because of this, it’s important to know that AI Overviews are eating into your local pack traffic. Andrew Shotland has done some good reporting on this, using this graph to show a dip in local pack impressions as a result of the rollout of AI Overviews:

How AI affects traditional organic results

The new AI Overviews are bulky and take up lots of screen space. This means that if they appear instead of local packs or in conjunction with local packs, they push organic results far down the page, as in this example:

This demotion of organic results leads to fewer impressions and clicks from Google’s SERPs to local business websites. 

This represents a loss of control for local brands — they can’t provide as good of a user experience. There is a good chance that fewer searchers are making it from Google to their sites. 

In the past, SEOs and local businesses have predominantly been concerned with tracking visibility in traditional search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Now, it’s necessary to add LLM tools to the mix, tracking visibility in environments like:

• ChatGPT
• Google AI Mode
• Grok
• Perplexity
• Gemini

The general industry take on LLMs is that they don’t deliver a high-quality local search experience. For example, take our same prompt for organic tacos near Golden Gate Park in ChatGPT:

Below is a map showing an example of why ChatGPT isn’t providing a good local search experience. Our query resulted in a single restaurant, and when we prompted the AI to show a map (like the kind Google’s local packs deliver), here’s what we get:

The tool is claiming that it is showing us a map, but instead, it is showing us photographs and an address. There is no map. It’s not a helpful experience. 

ChatGPT sometimes does show a map, also while insisting that it can’t show a map. 

It’s a very uneven, low-quality user experience, especially when compared to the usefulness of Google local packs or Bing Places packs.

Although AIs might misrepresent brands, monitoring and reviewing them may be able to limit errors and prevent LLMs from generating nonsense when they lack actual information (as in the earlier example about cockroaches).

Here’s a plan and tools for tracking how AI is affecting your local brand.

Continue to monitor traffic and user behavior signals

Monitor your organic traffic to see if there are any drops in impressions, clicks, average position, sessions, or conversions. This can help you find sources on which traffic is being lost to changes like the prevalence of AI Overviews. 

Start tracking AI visibility

Get a sense of how your business is appearing for AI users.

• Use Mangools AI Search Grader to track your visibility across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Grok, and more.
• Use Semrush AI Visibility to track your share of voice across multiple AI platforms and to uncover the prompts that are driving visibility.
• Use LocalFalcon to track visibility across Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, and other platforms.

Keep monitoring rankings

Even if you already know that conversions and sales are the most important success metrics, traditional local and organic rank can help you diagnose drops in traffic and conversions. The following rank trackers capture both local and organic rank:

Dig into digital PR

Some marketers believe that public relations is the future of digital marketing. Many AI platforms are heavily dependent on scraping PR-style content from sites like Reddit, Quora, Medium, and Linkedin. 

Semrush offers the following window in time into the top-cited domains on LLMs like ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and Perplexity. 

For more information on this, read The Most-Cited Domains in AI: A 3-Month Study.

A separate study finds that:

“AI is more likely to strongly recommend a brand when it’s mentioned on many cited source pages.”

To track brand mentions for a local business, use the following tools:

Double down on reputation management

AI platforms are scraping, summarizing, and citing review content. This example of an AI Overview shows how Google is dependent, in part, on Tripadvisor reviews for the answer it is generating:

Review data of this kind can be scraped from a wide variety of platforms, including Google Business Profiles, Yelp, BBB, TrustPilot, Facebook, etc. 

Because of this, local brands should be using tools to professionally acquire, monitor, manage, analyze, and respond to their reviews across multiple third-party platforms. These tools include:

Take a deep dive into brand mentions to win in AI contexts

We’ve covered the new journeys local searchers are taking via AI environments. Now, a strong narrative that is emerging for local businesses in the AI era is that unstructured citations (brand mentions) are playing a major role in LLM visibility. 

If you’ve never felt confident about the difference between structured and unstructured citations and want to know how to excel at developing both forms of essential content, check out our guide on Structured vs. unstructured citations for local SEO.