Google, the map and AI answers: who decides which local business gets shown

Your next customer might find you on the map, in an answer Google’s AI writes for them, by asking an AI assistant like ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot or Gemini, or because a neighbour mentioned you. The first three each have their own rules about who gets shown. Here’s what each maker publishes, in its own words, and what you control in each.

Why are there three places now?

Because Google added written AI answers to search, and some people now ask AI tools directly. Google began rolling out AI Mode in Australia on 8 October 2025.1 AI Mode is a part of Google Search that answers your question in writing, instead of handing you a list of websites.

In a survey by the research firm Telsyte of 2,023 Australians aged 16 and over, in April and May 2026, 12% said AI tools were their main way of finding information online, up from 5% a year earlier.2 In the same survey, 81% were aware of AI summaries in search results. That’s finding information in general, not finding a local business.

Place one: the map

What the customer sees. A map with businesses pinned on it, each with its stars, opening hours and a button to call. It shows up when someone searches for a trade or a shop near them, on Google or in Google Maps.

What Google says decides it. Google’s help page says local results “are mainly based on relevance, distance, and popularity”, and its three headings are Relevance, Distance and Prominence.3 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”, and Prominence is “how well-known a business is”, partly based on “how many websites link to your business and how many reviews you have”.3

Google also says: “There’s no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google.” It publishes the three factors and keeps the details confidential.3

The other maps. Apple’s listing tool is now called Apple Business; the old name, Apple Business Connect, is retired, and Apple said the new one would be available from 15 April 2026.4 Microsoft’s Bing Places for Business still runs, at a new address: bing.com/forbusiness.5

What you control. Your Google Business Profile, which is your listing on Google’s map: the name, the category, the hours, the phone number, the area you serve and the photos. Google’s own advice for relevance is to “provide complete and detailed business info”.3

You can’t change your distance from the customer. You can ask every customer for a review, the same way, and answer every review you get.

How to check it, from your phone:

• Search the way a customer would: what you do and your suburb, like “electrician Penrith”, not your business name.
• See whether you appear, and check that the hours, phone number and category are right.
• Do the same in Apple Maps and on Bing.
• Write down the date and what you saw, so next month you can compare.

Place two: Google’s own AI answer

What the customer sees. A written summary at the top of the search results, which Google calls an AI Overview, or a full written answer in AI Mode. Either one can name local businesses.

What Google says decides it. Google says: “There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode”.6 It also says you “don’t need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, or markup to appear in these features”;6 markup is extra code written into a page for search engines. So if someone sells you a special file to get into Google’s AI answers, Google has said in writing that you don’t need one.

On the profile, Google says a Business Profile “can help your products and services to be visible in both AI responses and other Google Search results”.7 It hasn’t published how. I searched Google’s own help, developer and blog sites and found no page that explains how a local business gets picked inside its AI answers.

What you control. The same Google Business Profile, kept complete and up to date, and a website that says plainly what you do and where you do it. If you have a website, Google’s Search Console, the dashboard Google gives website owners, now has a Generative AI performance report showing how often your site appeared in AI Overviews and AI Mode.8 It says nothing about clicks, and not every site can see it; a site with too few appearances won’t.

How to check it:

• Search on Google the way a customer would, and note whether an AI Overview appears and whether it names you.
• Ask the same question in AI Mode.
• Write down the date, the question and what it said.

Place three: what do the AI assistants say when someone asks who to use?

That depends on the AI assistant, and none of the makers I checked publishes how it chooses. OpenAI, which makes ChatGPT, Anthropic, which makes Claude, and Perplexity each publish how a website can avoid being blocked from their search; none publishes how to be recommended in an answer.9 I haven’t yet read Microsoft’s pages for Copilot or Google’s for the Gemini app on this point, so I won’t speak for them.

What you control. Very little, and anyone who tells you otherwise should show you where the maker says so. The one thing in your hands: make sure your website doesn’t block the programs these tools use to read websites. Whoever built your site can check a file called robots.txt, which tells those programs what they may read; OpenAI, for one, says to make sure you “aren’t blocking OAI-SearchBot”, the program behind ChatGPT’s search.9

How to check it:

• Ask ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot and Gemini the question your customer would, like “Who’s a good electrician in Penrith?”
• Write down who each one names, and the date.
• Ask again next month. One answer on one day tells you very little.

Nobody can promise you’ll be named by any of them, and that includes me.

Nobody has counted this for Western Sydney

I found no figure for how people here choose between the map, a search, an AI assistant and word of mouth. I found no Australian one either. I went looking for an Australian survey of how people find a builder, a plumber, an electrician and a gym, and came up empty each time.

That isn’t proof none exists. Those searches covered a handful of named websites and web searches, and some industry bodies’ own research pages weren’t opened. Word of mouth is the fourth route, and I found no Australian figure for it either.

What will we measure?

Two things. Once a month, I’ll ask ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot and Gemini about my own business and write down whether it’s named, with the date.

I’m also going to run a local survey, asking business owners in Western Sydney and the Blue Mountains how their newest customers say they found them: the map, a search, an AI assistant or word of mouth. I’ll publish what we find, with the dates and how many owners answered, once there are enough answers to mean something.

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