If you've assumed AI search is still a niche curiosity for local customers, new research says otherwise. The share of people using AI tools to research local businesses jumped from 9% to 52% in a single year, the biggest one-year swing researchers have ever recorded. If your business isn't visible in ChatGPT and Google's AI answers yet, you're invisible to a channel now used by more than half of local searchers.
The 9% to 52% Jump
SOCi's third annual consumer research study found that overall monthly AI usage for any purpose climbed from 19% to 60% of consumers, and the share specifically using AI to research local businesses in the past 30 days rose from 9% to 52%. That's not a channel replacing search either: traditional search held essentially steady, moving from 83% to 84% usage. Consumers are stacking more tools, not swapping search for AI.
Why This Matters
Here's the part that should change how you think about your online presence. Only 19% of people who get an AI recommendation for a local business go ahead and contact that business directly. The other 81% verify the recommendation somewhere else first: checking reviews (33%), scanning social media (20%), re-searching on Google (16%), or cross-referencing multiple sources (12%) before they trust it.
An AI mention is an invitation to be checked out, not a closed sale, and if what a customer finds when they verify doesn't match what the AI told them, you lose the booking to whoever's listing does.
AI adoption also isn't even across your customer base. Millennials lead at 63% versus 48 to 49% for Gen Z and Gen X, and usage climbs steadily with household income, from 48% at $50k to $99k up to roughly 65% at $100k and above.
Where People Actually Start Looking
The starting point for a search also depends heavily on what you sell. Restaurant searches now start with search engines only 40% of the time, with the rest split across social, maps, and AI. Property searches are the one category where search still dominates. Financial services customers are most likely to start on social media, and searches for fuel and auto services skew heavily toward mapping apps. Across nearly every category, reviews and word of mouth remain the top decision factor, though visual content matters far more for restaurants, hospitality, and property listings than it does for healthcare.
Passing the Verification Check
Claim and actively manage your presence on the channels people actually verify against: Google Business Profile, Yelp, and your top review sites, not just your website.
Keep your business information, hours, services, pricing, and service area, consistent everywhere. When someone checks an AI answer against your Google listing or Facebook page, any mismatch reads as a red flag.
Build a steady flow of recent, detailed reviews. With a third of people verifying AI recommendations through reviews, a thin or outdated review profile can undo whatever AI visibility you've earned.
If you're in a visually driven category like restaurants, hospitality, or real estate, invest in current, high-quality photos since that's the biggest swing factor for those categories.
Don't deprioritize search for AI's sake. Both are growing together, and search still touches the large majority of local customers.
AI is no longer a side channel for local discovery: it's already used by more than half of local searchers. But it doesn't close the deal on its own. The businesses that win are the ones whose reviews, listings, and website all tell the same trustworthy story when a customer checks their work.
Further reading: AI Search Isn't Giving Customers a List Anymore: It's Picking 3 to 5 Businesses For Them
PeaksLocal is a specialized online identity firm dedicated to helping local businesses navigate and dominate the optimization process, serving Denver, Boulder, and Colorado Springs and businesses nationwide.
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