AI is rewriting how customers find local businesses. Here’s what’s shifting and how to adapt before your competitors do.
The way people search is changing faster than at any point since smartphones arrived. AI Overviews now sit at the top of many Google results, and millions of people ask assistants for recommendations directly. For local businesses, that’s both a threat and an opening.
When an AI answers a question outright, the user often never visits a website. That means being the business named in the answer matters more than ever — and being merely “on page one” matters a little less.
The fundamentals didn’t disappear — they got more important. Businesses that move now, while most competitors are still ignoring AEO, will own the answers by the time everyone else catches on.
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