Your next customer might ask ChatGPT who to call. Do you show up?
One survey says AI went from 6% to 45% as a way people find local businesses in a year. A ten-minute check to see what AI says about you, and what to fix if the answer is nothing.
BrightLocal surveys about a thousand U.S. consumers every year on how they find and pick local businesses. Their 2026 survey had a number in it that I keep thinking about. Forty-five percent said they'd used ChatGPT or another AI tool to get local business recommendations. The year before, it was 6%.
That put AI third on the list of places people go for recommendations, behind Google and Facebook.
I'll be straight with you about the number. It's one survey of 1,002 people, and I'd like to see it hold up in other studies before anyone bets the business on it. But you don't need it to be exactly right. If it's half true, a real chunk of your future customers are asking a chatbot, "Who should I call?" and taking the answer seriously. The same survey found 42% trust AI recommendations as much as they trust reviews.
So the question is simple. When someone asks, does your name come up?
The ten-minute check
Open ChatGPT. Then try Gemini or Perplexity too, because they won't give the same answer.
Type the question your customer would type. Don't type your business name. Type their problem, the way they'd say it:
Who's a good accountant in Wallingford for a small construction company?
I need a roofer near Meriden who works with insurance claims. Who should I call?
Then write down four things. Did you show up? Who did? What did it say about them? And where did it get that information? You can ask it directly: "Why did you pick these? What sources are you using?"
That last answer is the useful one. It tells you where you need to be.
What to fix
Start with your listings. Wrong hours, an old phone number, a service you stopped offering three years ago. BrightLocal's own advice is to keep your website current, watch your business listings for errors, and check the sources AI tools point to. If one of those sources has you wrong, ask them to correct it.
Then work on reviews, and specifically recent ones. The survey numbers here are blunt. Nearly half of people (47%) won't use a business with fewer than 20 reviews. Three out of four (74%) only care about reviews from the last three months. A pile of glowing reviews from 2022 isn't doing much for you anymore.
The fix isn't clever. Ask every happy customer, every time. Tie it to something that already happens, like the invoice getting paid or the final walkthrough. Send the link while they're still happy.
Answer every review, and do it in your own words. In the survey, 80% of people said they're more likely to use a business that responds to all its reviews. Half said a canned, templated reply makes them less likely to pick you. Yes, AI can help you draft replies. Just don't let every response come out sounding the same, because people notice, and the whole point is showing there's a real person on the other end.
Last, put plain answers on your website. What you do, where you do it, who you do it for, and roughly what it costs if you can stand to publish that. If a stranger can't tell in ten seconds whether you take commercial jobs in New Haven County, I wouldn't count on a chatbot figuring it out either. The survey also found 54% of people go check a business's website after reading good reviews. Give them something worth finding.
What not to do
Don't buy reviews. Fake reviews have been illegal under the FTC's rule since 2024, and you don't want to find out what the fine looks like.
And be careful with anyone selling a guarantee that you'll be the #1 answer in ChatGPT. Nobody controls those answers. Somebody who promises otherwise is selling you something they can't deliver.
Then check again
Put a reminder on your calendar for a month from now and run the same questions. You're not looking for overnight results. You're looking for your name to start showing up and for what the AI says about you to match what you'd say about yourself.
If it doesn't, go back to your listings, your reviews, and your website. None of it is fancy. That's the good news.
Source: BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2026 (1,002 U.S. adults, published February 2026)