If you've used ChatGPT in the last few months, or watched someone else use it, you've probably had the same reaction a lot of business owners are having: this is a genuinely different way of finding information than typing something into Google. Instead of a page of blue links, you get a written answer, conversational, direct, and sometimes surprisingly good. Google itself has taken notice, announcing this month that it's testing its own AI-generated answers built directly into search results. We're at the very beginning of something, and it's worth talking about honestly, without overselling how much has actually changed yet.

What's Actually Different Right Now

Today, in mid-2023, ChatGPT doesn't browse the live internet or know about your business's current hours, address, or reviews. Ask it about a specific Houston plumber and it generally can't tell you, it isn't pulling from Google Maps or your website in real time. What it's changing right now is a different kind of search: the more general, research-style questions people used to type into Google. "How often should I replace my air conditioner filter" or "what's a fair price for a kitchen remodel" are the kinds of questions increasingly being asked in a chat window instead of a search bar.

Google's newly announced AI search experiment is a closer thing to watch, because unlike ChatGPT it will pull from actual web pages, meaning a business's website content could plausibly get referenced or summarized in an AI-generated answer at the top of a Google results page, before a searcher ever scrolls down to the traditional listings. That feature isn't widely available yet, and how it will actually work for local business searches specifically is still unclear.

Why We're Not Telling You To Panic

It's tempting, whenever something new like this shows up, to declare that everything you know about getting found online is now obsolete. We don't think that's true, at least not yet, and probably not for a long while when it comes to local, buy-something-nearby searches. When someone needs a plumber tonight, the evidence so far suggests they're still typing "plumber near me" into Google or asking Siri, not opening a chat app for a back-and-forth conversation. Local, urgent, transactional searches are a different animal than research questions, and that's the kind of search that puts money in most small business owners' pockets.

That said, ignoring this entirely also seems like the wrong call. The way people search is genuinely shifting for a certain category of question, and the businesses whose websites already do the fundamentals well, clear, well-written answers to common customer questions, accurate and specific information, a site that's easy for any kind of search tool to read, are the ones best positioned no matter how this plays out.

What's Actually Worth Doing Today

  • Keep doing the local SEO basics that already work: an accurate, complete Google Business Profile, consistent business information across the web, and genuine customer reviews
  • Write website content that actually answers the specific questions your customers ask you in person, in plain language, not keyword-stuffed marketing copy
  • Don't restructure your entire website around a technology that's still being tested and doesn't yet have a proven playbook

Our honest take: this is worth watching closely over the next year, not reacting to today. We'll keep paying attention to how Google's AI search feature actually rolls out and what it does with local business information once real data exists, rather than guessing now. If you're doing right by your customers with clear, honest, useful content, you're already in a reasonable position for whatever comes next. We just don't know yet exactly what that will look like, and we'd rather tell you that plainly than sell you a strategy for a moving target.

Since this was written, AI answers have stopped being an experiment and the playbook has gotten a lot clearer. Start with how to get your business listed in ChatGPT and AI search, and if you would rather have it handled, that is what our AI search optimization service does.

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