09/03/2026
Let's be brutally honest about AI use in local search. Should you ignore it? NO!
However, let's not oversell it. The numbers don't lie.
Here are some examples of AI vs [everything else] in regards to local search traffic sources.
The Google analytics data for two local businesses over the last 28 days. You can see both are getting less than 1% of their traffic from AI LLMs.
But, but... maybe those are zero search clicks, & the customer just goes there without a click!!
Okay, one of those businesses is a service-area business. No location to visit, you call them to do business (they come to you), let's look at the search console data for the same time period. 3750 impressions on typical web search, 48 from AI.
Which do you think is actually producing the results? The point here is that people largely aren't going to ChatGPT to find tacos, or a Dry Cleaner, or a Tow Truck.
People didn't change their decade-long search behavior overnight. In time, it will change. That number was near-zero this time last year. It's only going to go up from here. Slowly.
Point being, it's still a good time to consider optimizing for those LLM-driven searches. Just don't expect it to transform your business anytime soon.
