When someone asks an AI assistant for a good dentist or HVAC company nearby, the recommendation leans on the same public record Google Maps already ranks on: your business profile and your reviews. Finish the profile, ask for reviews the legal way, & the assistants have something true to read about you.
This is the third post in a series. The first showed you how to measure your AI traffic in GA4, the second how to get indexed in the source ChatGPT searches, and this one covers the layer neither of those can touch: how assistants pick which local businesses to name.
The Recommendation Layer Is Growing Fast
Use of ChatGPT and other generative AI tools for local business recommendations grew from 6% to 45% in a year, per BrightLocal’s 2026 consumer survey (BrightLocal). BrightLocal sells local-SEO software and surveys consumers every year; the answers are consumer-reported.
In the same survey, 42% of consumers trust AI platforms as much as traditional reviews for local recommendations (BrightLocal).
Google is building for that behavior directly. Its new Ask Maps feature answers conversational questions inside Google Maps, with recommendations drawn from place data, and it is releasing in the U.S. on Android and iOS (Google).
Google’s Ask Maps announcement: the profile that feeds Maps now also answers questions in a chat box.
None of this asks you to learn a new discipline with a new invoice. Google’s local ranking guidance still points at relevance, and it states plainly that “a profile with inaccurate/differing information might not show up for relevant searches in the area” (Google). Accurate and complete is the whole assignment, field by field.
Finish the Profile, Field by Field
Most issues are minor changes that can be made by signing in at google.com/business with the account that owns your profile. If a marketing company set it up and you can’t get in, stop here and recover ownership first; nothing below works from someone else’s login.
Use this list (the fuller field-by-field version lives in the Google Business Profile checklist):
- Categories. Open Edit profile, then Business category. Set the primary category to your main trade, then add every secondary category that honestly applies. If you need help deciding how to set up your categories, setup a 15-min meeting w/ me.
- Services with descriptions. In Edit services, click into each service and write a few simple sentences describing it. Google suggests services based on your category, and you can add your own (Google).
- Hours, phone, address, website. Check every one against your website. Google’s guidance ties accurate information directly to showing up for relevant searches (Google).
- Photos and logo. Upload real photos of your work and your people. A logo helps customers recognize your business on Google (Google). Skip stock imagery, and keep phone numbers off the photos themselves so they aren’t flagged & removed.
- Service area. List the actual municipalities you serve. St. Louis work rarely stops at the city line; if you take jobs in Belleville and Edwardsville, say so here.
Why completeness matters: Google’s documentation reports customers are 2.7 times more likely to consider a business reputable with a complete profile, 70% more likely to visit, and 50% more likely to consider purchasing (Google).
Google’s own local-ranking guidance: complete, accurate business information is the documented lever (support.google.com).
A complete profile is the half of the record you write. Reviews are the half your customers write.
Reviews: What Works, and Two Tactics to Refuse
Reviews are what carry the recommendation layer. The same BrightLocal survey found 97% of consumers read reviews for local businesses, and 74% only care about reviews written in the last three months (BrightLocal).
Count still matters too: 47% of consumers won’t use a business with fewer than 20 reviews (BrightLocal). Put those two numbers together and a steady trickle of fresh reviews serves you better than a mountain from years past.
The consumer survey behind this section’s numbers. BrightLocal sells local-SEO software; the answers are consumer-reported.
The playbook that helps you grow naturally:
- Ask every customer, personally, right after the job. A text with the direct review link is enough.
- Reply to every review, and mention the service and the area naturally when it fits (“glad the furnace install in Affton went smoothly”).
- Stay consistent in asking for reviews, so that “last three months” window always has reviews in it.
Two tactics to watch out for:
- Review gating. That’s the funnel where happy customers get sent to Google and unhappy ones get sent to a private form. Google prohibits discouraging or prohibiting negative reviews and selectively soliciting positive ones (Google). The FTC’s Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule, in effect since October 21, 2024, addresses review suppression as well (FTC). If a vendor’s “reputation funnel” filters by sentiment before Google sees it, that is gating, and the business whose profile it is takes the hit.
- Incentivized reviews. Google does not allow offering payment, discounts, or free goods or services in exchange for reviews (Google).
The FTC’s own explainer on the reviews rule. Review suppression is a federal matter now; the honest ask is the safe playbook.
The honest ask, done consistently, is slower, and it compounds without risking your Google Business Profile (GBP).
Picture two hypothetical Maplewood dental offices. One has a mountain of reviews that dried up two years ago and a half-filled GBP. The other has a modest count of reviews from this month, each of their services described in their GBP, and hours that match the website. The numbers above say the second office surfaces more often, and an assistant asked for a Maplewood dentist has more true things to read about it.
Both of those halves live inside Google. Two more moves live outside it and cost nothing.
Two Free Wins Past Google
Claim Apple Business Connect at businessconnect.apple.com. Apple Maps usage nearly doubled in BrightLocal’s survey, from 14% to 27% (BrightLocal), plus claiming only takes minutes with your existing Apple ID (or create a free one).
Give each real service area a designated page. If you serve Chesterfield and St. Charles, make a landing page for each, written from the POV of the people & mention any work you’ve done there. This gives both search engines and assistants something specific to match against Google’s relevance standard (Google).
What this does NOT tell you
- No one can show you a report of “AI recommendations received.” GA4 counts clicks and Search Console counts impressions, and there is no owner-facing counter for how often an assistant speaks your business name aloud.
- Completeness correlates with winning; it isn’t a rank guarantee. Google’s 2.7x reputability figure (Google) describes converted user behavior toward complete GBP.
- We can’t audit the assistants’ “recipe”. How much weight ChatGPT, Gemini, or Ask Maps put on reviews versus profile data versus your website is undisclosed. What’s documented are the inputs they read from.
Where This Series Lands
Three posts, one position: you have the power to measure, get into the indexes for free, and set up a public record of your business before paying anyone who claims to “whisper to the machines”. The number you wrote down in post one is your baseline. The work in posts two and three is the honest work that moves it.
If you’d like the whole setup reviewed in one pass, with your accounts staying yours, email matthew@jamisonsoftwaresolutions.com. The calendar runs about two weeks out, and I’d be glad to look.
May your next review be five stars well earned. I hope this helps.