Will AI assistants replace Google for finding local businesses?

The honest answer is that AI is reshaping local discovery rather than replacing Google outright, and the two are converging more than competing. Google itself now answers many local queries with AI Overviews and AI Mode built on its own index and Business Profiles, while assistants like ChatGPT, Copilot and Perplexity increasingly field the question who is the best X near me by reading the open web and the same review and directory signals. So people are starting to ask an assistant instead of scrolling a map — but the inputs that decide the answer are largely the ones that already decided local search: a complete, consistent Business Profile, accurate listings, genuine reviews, and a crawlable site that states your category and location clearly. That convergence is good news, because it means you do not have to bet on which interface wins. The move is to get the fundamentals right once so you show up whether a customer uses Google, Apple Maps, or an AI assistant — and to make sure nothing blocks the crawlers the assistants rely on.

FAQ