If your business ranks well in Google's local map pack, that's still worth something, but it's no longer the whole game. New research shows AI Overviews now show up in 68% of local searches, compared to just 39% for the traditional three-pack of business listings most owners have spent years trying to crack.
Where the Gap Gets Even Wider
The gap widens depending on what people search for. Questions like “how long does an eye exam take” or “average cost of a plumbing repair” trigger an AI Overview more than 90% of the time. That means a growing share of your potential customers may never scroll down far enough to see the map at all; their first, and sometimes only, impression of your business comes from whatever the AI decided to say about you.
Where These Answers Actually Come From
Here's the part that should get your attention: these AI answers pull most of their information from outside your own website. Roughly three-quarters of citations come from off-page sources like Reddit threads, YouTube videos, and third-party review sites, not the business's own pages. The content that does get cited also tends to be noticeably more recently updated than older, higher-ranking pages. Ranking in the map pack and showing up in AI answers are becoming two separate jobs, and most local businesses are only working on one of them.
What to Do About It
Check the actual AI answers for your top service searches, not just your map pack position; they may tell two very different stories.
Build out real, specific service and location pages: exact service areas, hours, pricing ranges, and FAQs, rather than generic boilerplate copy.
Keep your business name, address, and phone number identical across Google, Bing, Yelp, Apple Maps, and your own website.
Encourage genuine mentions on Reddit and YouTube; both show up disproportionately often as sources in AI-generated answers.
Refresh your key pages on a regular schedule; fresher content gets cited more often, even over pages that already rank well.
If you're not sure which of your own pages are stale enough to be costing you AI visibility, a full local visibility audit is the fastest way to find out.
AI Overviews aren't replacing local search results, they're becoming the front door to them. Businesses that treat their online presence as a page they set up once and forget will increasingly lose ground to competitors who treat it as something to keep current. The map pack still matters, but it's no longer the only place you need to show up.
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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