Your customers ask AI about businesses like yours.
Most local businesses are invisible to it.
Six facts, all from public sources you can verify in 30 seconds. They build the case in order.
45% of consumers ask AI for local business recommendations — up from 6% a year ago.
The shift from typing a query to asking a chatbot is happening faster than search itself shifted from Yellow Pages to Google.
93% of AI search sessions end without a single click to a website.
Citation is the conversion. The AI answers, the buyer decides, the visit never happens. If you aren't cited, you aren't in the conversation.
60% of citations in AI Overviews go to third-party sites. Only 40% cite individual businesses directly.
You compete on two fronts: get cited by Yelp, Reddit, Quora — and get cited yourself. Both require structured, machine-readable content.
AI Overviews appear on ~48% of tracked queries, yet only 17% of cited sources also rank in Google's organic top 10.
Ranking on page one of Google does not mean AI cites you. AEO is a separate visibility surface.
25% of all search traffic shifts to AI by the end of this year.
The early forecast that read like science fiction in 2024 reads like the schedule now.
The Google Business Profile remains the #1 ranking factor for local results — in AI search and traditional search.
If your profile is unclaimed, half empty, or missing photos, that single fix outranks anything else you can do.