Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode pick local businesses from the same pool as regular search: pages that are indexed and eligible to appear with a snippet, plus the places data behind Google Maps and the Business Profile. Google says there are no extra requirements and no AI-specific files or markup. What changes is how the answer is assembled: AI Mode runs several related searches at once, so a service page, a review summary or a local list can each pull your business in. You measure it in two Search Console reports, in Business Profile performance data, and by asking Google’s AI the same questions every month.
What Google has said, in its own words
Start with the official documentation, because most of what circulates about AI SEO is not in it. Google’s AI features and your website page says: “There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary.” The requirement is the one that always existed: your pages must be indexed and eligible to appear in Search with a snippet.
The same page closes the door on a cottage industry. “You don’t need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, or markup to appear in these features,” and “There’s also no special schema.org structured data that you need to add.” If someone is selling you an llms.txt file as the key to Google’s AI, this is the page to read first.
Google also notes that AI Overviews appear only when its systems decide they add value, so they “often don’t trigger.” Whitespark’s May 12, 2025 study of 540 local queries in three US cities found them on 15% of plain local searches but 92% of informational ones and 97% of hybrid ones such as a cost question tied to a city. Google’s AI mostly enters while a customer is still researching, before they type “near me.”
In a May 21, 2025 Search Central post, Google’s John Mueller gave the only official advice list so far: make “unique, non-commodity content,” provide “a good page experience,” make sure “Googlebot isn’t blocked,” keep structured data so that “all the content in your markup is also visible on your web page,” and “support your textual content with high-quality images and videos on your pages.” He also warned against focusing “too much on clicks instead of the overall value of your visits from Search.” Keep that line in mind for the measurement section.
How query fan-out works, and why it matters locally
Google describes AI Mode and AI Overviews as using query fan-out: “issuing multiple related searches across subtopics and data sources” to build one response. In the May 20, 2025 post that opened AI Mode to everyone in the US, Google’s Elizabeth Reid explained that AI Mode breaks a question into subtopics and issues many queries at once, which lets it cover more of the web than a single search.
A Royal Oak homeowner asks “who should I hire to replace a furnace in Royal Oak, how much does it cost, and do they do same-day service.” AI Mode may search separately for furnace companies in Royal Oak, replacement cost in Michigan, same-day HVAC service in Oakland County, and reviews of the companies it finds. Google says the result can show “a wider and more diverse set of helpful links” than classic search.
Three consequences follow.
- One strong page is not enough. The business that wins the fan-out answers each sub-question somewhere: a service page, a cost section, a service-area statement, reviews that mention what customers ask about.
- Third-party pages count as much as yours. A local roundup, a Yelp profile or a news mention can be the page pulled in for one sub-query.
- Follow-ups are new searches. Search Console’s Performance report documentation says a follow-up question in AI Mode is treated as a new query, with “All impression, position, and click data in the new response” counted against it.
What the Business Profile contributes
Google has not published how AI Mode weighs Business Profiles, but AI Mode’s local answers, Ask Maps and AI calling all run on the same places data as the map pack, and Google has published how that ranks. Google’s local ranking help page names three factors. Relevance is “how well a Business Profile matches what someone is searching for.” Distance is “how far each business is from the customer who’s searching.” Prominence “means how well-known a business is,” which Google says is “based on info like how many websites link to your business and how many reviews you have.”
Two more lines from that page do most of the work: “Businesses with complete and accurate info are more likely to show up in local search results,” and “More reviews and positive ratings can help your business’s local ranking.” Google adds that “There’s no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google.”
For AI answers, completeness has a second job. AI Mode and Ask Maps summarize what they find in text, so a precise primary category, services with descriptions, attributes, holiday hours and current photos give the model specific things to say. We cover the photo and video side in our guide to Google Business Profile photos and video, and the cross-platform picture, including ChatGPT and Apple Maps, in our guide to how AI search picks local businesses.
Reviews feed AI twice: as a ranking input and as raw material for the summaries customers read. BrightLocal’s Local Consumer Review Survey, published February 11, 2026, surveyed 1,002 US adults and found 82% read AI-generated review summaries and 23% would rely on the summary alone. If your last twenty reviews mention slow replies, that is what the summary will say.
AI Mode’s local features: calls, reservations and Ask Maps
Google’s AI now acts on a customer’s behalf, and each action touches your Business Profile.
AI calls to your business. On July 16, 2025, Google rolled out to all US Search users an option to “Have AI check pricing.” Someone searching for pet groomers or dry cleaners can have Google call local businesses, gather pricing and availability, and present the results as options. Google’s help page for the feature says “Google only calls for the specific information you’ve requested,” and Google says “businesses are always in control via their Business Profile settings.” The Business Profile help page on automated calls gives the path: More, then Business Profile settings, then Advanced settings, where toggles under “Google automated calls and text messages” cover customer bookings and inquiries, profile updates, and posting on your behalf. Before you turn them off, consider that the business that answers and gives a clear price is the one that lands in the customer’s option list.
Reservations and appointments. On August 21, 2025, Google added agentic reservations to AI Mode for Google AI Ultra subscribers in Labs. AI Mode searches reservation platforms for availability matching party size, date, time, location and cuisine, then links to the booking page. Named partners were OpenTable, Resy, Tock, Ticketmaster, StubHub, SeatGeek and Booksy, with local service appointments and event tickets described as coming “soon.” The same post introduced personalized dining results for US Labs users based on past searches and places tapped in Search and Maps. A restaurant that takes reservations by phone only is invisible here.
Ask Maps. On March 12, 2026, Google launched Ask Maps in the US and India on Android and iOS. It answers location questions in plain language, drawing on more than 300 million places and reviews from over 500 million contributors, and can book a restaurant or start navigation from the answer. Its material is your profile, your photos and your reviews.
Google surface by surface: what it reads, what you control, how to measure
| Google surface | What it draws on | What you control | How to measure |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI Overviews | Indexed pages eligible for a snippet; several related searches per query | Service pages, FAQs, structured data that matches visible text, crawl access | Search Generative AI report (impressions by page); Performance report, Web type (clicks mixed in) |
| AI Mode | Same index via query fan-out, plus Knowledge Graph and Maps data for local answers; some personalization | All of the above plus Business Profile completeness, reviews, third-party mentions | Same two reports; follow-ups count as new queries; a fixed monthly prompt set you run yourself |
| AI calling (“Have AI check pricing”) | Your phone line and what staff say | Business Profile automated-call toggles; a staff sheet with clear prices and availability | Calls in Business Profile performance; ask customers how they found you |
| Agentic reservations | Reservation platforms (OpenTable, Resy, Tock, Booksy and others), Knowledge Graph, Maps | Being on a partner platform with live inventory; accurate hours | Bookings attributed to Google in your reservation platform |
| Ask Maps | Places data, reviews, photos, your profile and website | Business Profile categories, attributes, photos, review replies | Business Profile performance: direction requests, calls, website clicks from Maps |
Reading the Search Console reports
Google gives you two views, and they answer different questions.
The regular Performance report. Google’s AI features page says AI feature traffic “is included in overall search traffic” and appears in the Performance report under the Web search type, with no filter to separate it. The counting rules matter: “An AI Overview occupies a single position in search results,” and “all links in the AI Overview are assigned that same position.” Clicking through to an external page from an AI Overview or AI Mode counts as a click; clicks that stay inside Google do not. Search Labs experiments are excluded. In practice, a page cited in AI Overviews may show a steady average position near the top with impressions far above its clicks.
The Search Generative AI performance report. Google introduced this on June 3, 2026 for a subset of sites and, per a note on the same post, rolled it out to all websites worldwide on August 31, 2026. It shows impressions, defined as “How often URLs from your site appeared in generative AI features in Search and Discover,” by pages, countries, devices and dates. It does not include clicks, click-through rate or queries, and Google says it may add metrics over time. Google’s Search Console data anomalies log recorded a logging error that cut reported generative AI impressions from August 13 to 17, 2026, restored August 21, so check that page before reacting to a dip.
How to read the two together:
- Open the generative AI report and sort pages by impressions. These are the pages Google’s AI is quoting. If your homepage is the only one there, your service pages are not doing their job.
- Compare that list to the Performance report for the same pages. Rising AI impressions with flat clicks is normal. Pew Research Center’s July 22, 2025 study of 900 US adults found users clicked a traditional result on 8% of visits when an AI summary appeared versus 15% without one. Being cited is the win; the click is a bonus.
- Watch the device split, because mobile users are the ones who tap to call.
- Then open your Business Profile performance report. Calls, direction requests, website clicks and messages are the outcomes an AI answer produces when it works. Google’s AI features page itself suggests tracking conversions and time on site rather than clicks alone.
Impressions, not mentions. The generative AI report counts your URLs appearing as links in AI answers. It cannot tell you whether AI Mode named your business without linking to you, or how many AI calls reached your front desk. Those you track yourself.
What changed in 2025 and 2026
The dated log at the top of this page is the record. In short: 2025 made AI Mode the US default and taught it to act (calls in July, reservations in August); 2026 brought the same layer into Maps and gave site owners a way to measure it in Search Console. Google’s May 2025 post also reported that AI Overviews drove a 10%+ increase in usage for the queries that show them, based on an experiment in the US and India, so expect more of them. We update the log when Google publishes a dated change, and anything not on a Google page with a date stays out of it.
A practical plan
This month. Audit the Business Profile against Google’s three factors: correct primary category, every service listed with a description, hours including holidays, attributes, current photos and at least one short video. Decide on the automated-call toggles on purpose, and if you leave them on, give whoever answers the phone a one-page sheet of current prices and availability. Open the generative AI report in Search Console and record the baseline.
This quarter. Build or rewrite one page per core service so each sub-question in a fan-out has an answer: what the service is, who it is for, which Detroit neighborhoods or suburbs you serve, a price range or the factors that set it, and five to eight FAQs in the words customers use. If you take reservations or appointments, get onto a platform Google’s agents can read. Ask every customer for a review and reply to all of them. Keep structured data matching the visible text. Pitch one or two local lists or outlets with a real story, because those pages get pulled into fan-out too. Current commercial photography for the profile and service pages is one of the cheaper line items here.
Every month. Write 10 questions a real customer would ask and run them in AI Mode, signed out and signed in, and in Ask Maps. Log who was named, in what order, what was said about you and which pages were linked. Keep the generative AI report and the Business Profile performance report in the same spreadsheet. Over three months the pattern shows which pages Google’s AI trusts and which gaps a competitor is filling.
Do not buy reviews, do not stuff pages with “near me” phrases, and do not pay anyone who promises a guaranteed spot. Google personalizes some AI Mode results and says AI Overviews often do not trigger, so nobody can promise placement. The FTC rules on reviews apply to anything you do to earn them.
How we handle this at RAW Digital Group
RAW Digital Group offers AEO to Detroit and Michigan businesses, with no promises of placement, because none can honestly be made. See our AI search optimization (AEO) service.