How do people find local businesses now?
Ten years ago the answer was Google. Somebody typed “plumber Abingdon,” skimmed the first page, and called whoever looked legitimate. One search, one list.
That path still exists. It just isn’t the only one anymore. The same person now might see a friend’s post, check two review sites, glance at your website, and ask ChatGPT to settle it, all before lunch. Here is what the numbers say about where people actually look, and what each stop rewards.
Is Google still where people start?
Yes, and it’s slipping. In BrightLocal’s 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey, the share of people who use Google to read reviews fell from 83% to 71% in a single year. Google is still the biggest single door. It’s no longer the whole house.
What Google rewards hasn’t changed much: a Google Business Profile that’s complete and current, and reviews that keep arriving. A profile with the wrong hours and a photo from 2019 loses to the one next door that’s kept up.
How fast has AI become part of it?
In the same survey, 45% of consumers had used an AI tool to find a local business in the past year, up from 6% the year before. Among adults 30 to 44, the group buying houses and hiring contractors, it was 64%. Pew Research Center’s 2026 survey puts ChatGPT use at 44% of all U.S. adults.
An assistant doesn’t hand back a page of links. It hands back three names, maybe five. It picks the businesses it has clear, consistent, well-reviewed information about and skips the rest. We wrote about how that selection works in what AI says about your business.
Do reviews still decide it?
They do, but people no longer trust any one of them on its own. BrightLocal found that the average consumer now checks six review sites before choosing, and 49% say they trust reviews as much as a recommendation from someone they know. Nearly half is a lot of trust to put in strangers. It also means no single platform carries the decision anymore. Your Google rating, your Facebook recommendations, and whatever Yelp still says about you get read together.
Where does discovery happen by accident?
Facebook and short video. A friend tags you in a group post. A creator’s video about your patio lands on the feed of someone two miles away who has never heard of you. That kind of discovery rewards being talked about, which is different from being present. A page that posts every day and gets tagged by nobody isn’t doing much.
What about your own website?
It’s where every other stop sends people to confirm. Somebody who found you on a map, read your reviews, and saw a friend’s post will still open your site to answer one question: is this the right place for me? The site’s job is to answer that fast, with hours, a phone number, real photos, and a plain description of what you do and who it’s for.
Why isn’t being good at what you do enough?
Because being good and being found are different problems, and most local businesses have only solved the first one. Around here, in Abingdon, Bristol, Johnson City, Kingsport, and the towns between, quality is rarely the issue. The gap is between how good you are and how easily a stranger can find you and bring you to mind at the moment they’re deciding. We call it the recall gap. You lose to the place that was easier to find, not the place that was better.
That gap used to be about ranking on Google. Now it’s about holding up at every stop on a map that’s come apart: search, social, reviews, AI, your site. Wherever a customer happens to look, you’re there, and you look like the obvious choice.
What does a local business actually do about it?
Less than it sounds. Get your name, hours, address, and phone number identical everywhere they appear, because a mismatch makes both people and AI hesitate. Treat reviews as something you ask for on a schedule rather than something that happens to you, because they feed Google, social proof, and AI at the same time. And accept that a website and a Facebook page were a strategy in 2015. Now they’re the starting line.
None of this has to happen at once. It helps to know where you stand across the whole map before you start fixing the loudest part of it.
The quickest way to see the whole map at once is the Local Marketing Scorecard: 24 questions, half an hour, free, and it covers all five stops.
Sources
All figures checked against the source pages on September 15, 2026.
- BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2026 (published February 11, 2026; 1,002 U.S. consumers). Google as a review source: 83% in 2025 to 71%. Average of six review sites consulted. 49% trust reviews as much as a personal recommendation.
- BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2026, AI section. 45% used AI to find a local business in the past year, up from 6%. 64% of adults 30–44.
- Pew Research Center, Americans and AI 2026 (June 17, 2026; 5,119 U.S. adults surveyed February 17–23, 2026). 44% of U.S. adults use ChatGPT, up from 34%.
