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14 AI search statistics for local businesses (2026)

AI answers draw on a business's own website more than any other source: in BrightLocal's September 2026 study of 1.9 million local AI citations, business websites made up 42%, Google Business Profiles 28.6% and Yelp 9.5%. The businesses they name change from one search to the next.

By Joseph Jang, Co-founder, PlacePilot

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5 min read
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Key takeaways

  • Your own website is the largest single source AI answers cite for local businesses, ahead of your Google Business Profile.
  • Google's AI answers lean on the Business Profile; ChatGPT hardly uses it and leans on Yelp instead.
  • The same question asked again names a mostly different set of businesses, so one check of an AI answer proves little.
  • Pages that put the answer near the top and were updated in the past year are the ones these engines quote.

Where do AI answers get local businesses from?

1. Business websites made up 42% of local AI citations

BrightLocal counted 1.9 million citations in ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and Google AI Overviews answers to local searches. 93% of the domains cited were businesses' own sites. Your site is the source you control most.1

BrightLocal's local AI visibility study, at the finding that business sites were most of the domains AI answers cited
BrightLocal's study, at the finding about business websites. Source: BrightLocal

2. Google Business Profiles made up 28.6% of local AI citations

The same study found the profile matters for AI Mode and AI Overviews but is hardly used by ChatGPT. Hours, categories and photos on it feed Google's own answers.1

3. Yelp made up 9.5% of local AI citations

Yelp was the third source across all three engines, and BrightLocal says each of them relies on it. Facebook, Tripadvisor and OpenTable followed, each under 3%.1

4. In ChatGPT alone, Yelp appeared in 80% of local answers

This is the August 2026 first part of BrightLocal's study: ChatGPT's answers for 1,355 business locations in the US, UK and Australia. It describes ChatGPT only, not Google's AI answers.2

ChatGPT's home page, logged out, with the greeting "Where should we begin?" and the Ask ChatGPT box
ChatGPT, the engine in BrightLocal's study that leaned hardest on Yelp. Source: OpenAI

Do AI answers name the same businesses every time?

5. Repeat searches shared only 20% to 33% of the businesses they named

BrightLocal ran the same searches again and compared the businesses named: 23% overlap for ChatGPT, 21% for AI Mode and 33% for AI Overviews.1

6. Google Maps named a tracked business in 66% of searches; AI answers in 32% to 38%

The classic map results were still the steadier place to be seen in BrightLocal's study: AI Overviews 38%, ChatGPT 33% and AI Mode 32%.1

7. ChatGPT recommended 1.2% of the brand locations SOCi asked about

SOCi's 2026 Local Visibility Index looked at locations of multi-location brands, which appeared in Google's local 3-pack far more often. Almost none were named by ChatGPT.3

8. The locations ChatGPT did recommend averaged 4.3-star ratings

Ratings and replies to reviews are in the owner's hands, and the places picked in SOCi's study were well reviewed.3

What gets a page cited?

9. 44% of ChatGPT's citations came from the first third of a page

Kevin Indig's study, reported by Search Engine Land. A page that opens with what the business is, where it is and when it opens gives an answer something to quote.4

10. 75% of the pages AI engines cited had been updated in the past year

Seer Interactive studied pages cited by ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity between March and June 2026. An old page refreshed with current prices and hours counts as updated.5

11. 87% of SearchGPT citations matched Bing's top results (2025)

Seer Interactive's February 2025 comparison of ChatGPT's search citations with Bing, on a small sample. A business Bing cannot find was hard for ChatGPT to cite.6

How much do the engines read?

12. Ask Maps reads information on over 300 million places

Ask Maps is Gemini inside Google Maps, launched in March 2026 in the US and India. It answers from the same places owners manage in their Business Profile.7

Google's blog post "How we're reimagining Maps with Gemini", with Immersive Navigation and the Ask Maps screen
Google's announcement of Ask Maps, the Gemini answers inside Google Maps. Source: Google

13. Ask Maps draws on reviews from more than 500 million contributors

Google's own review base feeds its AI suggestions, so steady reviews on Google matter for Gemini too.7

14. Perplexity's index holds hundreds of billions of webpages (2025)

Perplexity answers from its own index, as PYMNTS reported in September 2025 when Perplexity opened that index to developers through its Search API.8

Perplexity's home page, logged out, with "What do you want to know?" and the Ask anything box
Perplexity answers from its own index of the web. Source: Perplexity

How was this list made?

We list only figures from a named publisher whose study or announcement we read on its own page, on the date shown under Sources. A heading names the engines a study covered; we did not extend a ChatGPT finding to the other engines. A figure older than twelve months carries its year. BrightLocal's page gives Google Business Profile's share as 28.5% in its text and 28.63% in its table; we use the table. Nothing here is estimated. For what to do about these numbers, see our AI search guides and how to rank higher on Google Maps.

Questions

Where do AI search engines get information about local businesses?

Mostly from businesses' own websites, then Google Business Profiles and Yelp, in BrightLocal's September 2026 count of 1.9 million citations across ChatGPT, AI Mode and AI Overviews. The mix differs by engine: Google's answers use the Business Profile, ChatGPT barely does.

Does ChatGPT use my Google Business Profile?

Hardly, according to BrightLocal's 2026 study. ChatGPT cited Yelp, Tripadvisor and OpenTable for local businesses; the Business Profile matters for Google's own AI answers.

Will an AI answer recommend the same business every time?

Often not. In BrightLocal's repeat searches only 20% to 33% of the businesses named were the same the second time, so judge your visibility over many checks, not one.

Is there an official count of how often AI answers mention my business?

No engine publishes one. You can ask the questions your customers ask and note who is named, or track it over time with a monitoring tool; the free PlacePilot report checks the facts these engines read, not whether they name you today.

From PlacePilot's data · AI answers that named PlacePilot

0 of 102 AI answers to small-business owners' questions named PlacePilot when we asked on 5 October 2026.

PlacePilot's own baseline, 5 October 2026: 34 buyer questions ("best AI website builder for a small business", "how to rank higher on Google Maps" and the like), none naming PlacePilot, each asked once of OpenAI's model with web search, Perplexity Sonar and Gemini with Google Search grounding: 102 answers. A business counts as named when the answer's text names it. Each answer is one sample from an engine that answers differently each time, so read one question's result as a signal, the totals as the measurement. Google AI Mode has no API and was not sampled.

From PlacePilot's data · Who those answers named instead

69 of the 102 answers named at least one website or local-search company we track, most often Wix (in 30 answers), Squarespace (28), Square (15) and BrightLocal (15).

The same 102 answers. We track the companies on our comparison pages and the other website and local-search tools owners look up; a company counts once per answer however often it is named.

Sources

  1. BrightLocal, Local AI visibility study: 1.9 million AI citations · read
  2. BrightLocal, The directories AI search cites for local businesses · read
  3. SOCi, 2026 Local Visibility Index · read
  4. Search Engine Land, Kevin Indig's study of ChatGPT citations · read
  5. Seer Interactive, Content recency's impact on AI visibility in 2026 · read
  6. Seer Interactive, 87% of SearchGPT citations match Bing's top results · read
  7. Google, Ask Maps and immersive navigation · read
  8. PYMNTS, Perplexity's Search API and its index · read

Written by Joseph Jang, Co-founder, PlacePilot

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