Found on the map. Members who stay. Paperwork done.

Asked to recommend a local business in two Blue Mountains towns, an AI assistant named none at all.1 A results claim is presumed misleading until you can produce the member, so publish the quote, and be able to prove it.3

Your booking software may already chase the trial and the member who has gone quiet, and Mindbody’s own AI Concierge already turns a missed call into a text.4

The disclosure and easy-exit rule starts 1 July 2027 and reaches a rolling monthly membership within one billing cycle.6 The roster and the hours are kept against the award your business actually sits under.7

Your biggest competitor here is the council, and it publishes its prices to the cent: AU$113.70 a month at Springwood, AU$101.80 at Katoomba.8

1. Measured by us. Two questions put to an AI assistant on 25 August 2026 for a Blue Mountains business: asked for the best agents in the Lower Blue Mountains it named two franchise brands and no local firm; asked who to use to sell a house in Glenbrook or Blaxland it named no local business at all. One catchment, one day, two questions: a shape, not a benchmark.
2. Verified. Google, Tips to improve your local ranking on Google, support.google.com, read 29 August 2026, for “There’s no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google.” Google’s AI features documentation, 10 December 2025: “There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary.” The four things that get a page quoted are a controlled study of 252,000 trials, arXiv:2605.25517; our Get Found page carries it in full. ACCC guidance on online reviews, read 5 September 2026: a business may mislead consumers if they “suppress or edit negative reviews”, and an incentive must be “applied regardless of whether the reviewer leaves a positive or negative review” and disclosed.
3. Verified. Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth), Schedule 2, the Australian Consumer Law, Compilation No. 165, compilation date 1 July 2026, read as the authorised PDF 5 September 2026. Section 29(1)(e) and (f) catch a false or misleading representation that purports to be, or concerns, a testimonial, and s 29(2) provides that such a representation “is taken to be misleading unless evidence is adduced to the contrary”. Section 23(1) makes an unfair term of a standard form consumer contract void and s 23(2B) makes each unfair term a separate contravention; s 26(1)(b) takes the upfront price out of scope, so the membership fee itself is not attackable while the cancellation term, the notice period and the variation clause are; s 27(1) presumes a contract is standard form unless the business proves otherwise. The maximum is up to AU$2,500,000 for an individual and, for a body corporate, the greater of up to AU$100,000,000, three times the benefit, or 30% of adjusted turnover.
4. Verified. Mindbody, mindbodyonline.com/business/marketing and /business/ai-concierge, read 22 September 2026 and again 26 September 2026: “Automatically send win-back messages when clients miss appointments or haven’t visited in a while”; “re-engagement follow-ups” among its automated campaigns; and “AI Concierge follows up on missed calls and answers client questions through text and webchat”, which “is included in the Mindbody Ultimate plan”. Clubworx, clubworx.com, read the same two days: “Automatic reminders and follow-ups”. No native review-request feature was found on either vendor’s own page. Reported, not verified: whether AI Concierge is offered in Australia, which its page does not say. Corrected 26 September 2026: an earlier version of this note carried a conversion rate, a no-extra-cost claim and a Clubworx day range that are on neither vendor’s page.
5. Verified. Fitness Services (Pre-paid Fees) Act 2000 No 95 (NSW), read from the repealed-Act consolidation on legislation.nsw.gov.au 5 September 2026, repealed with a commencement of 3 August 2015 and nothing state-specific replacing it. NSW Fair Trading’s consumer-facing fitness and gyms page and its business-facing page, both read 5 September 2026: the consumer page says a cooling-off period “if applicable, will be outlined in the contracts term and conditions” and the business page says “Consider offering a cooling-off period or an obligation-free trial”. The same consumer page lists six terms that may be unfair in a gym contract, among them one letting the gym “make it hard or costly for you to cancel” or “require an unreasonably long notice period to cancel”.
6. Verified. Competition and Consumer Amendment (Unfair Trading Practices) Act 2026 (Cth), No 64 of 2026, read in full as the authorised as-made PDF from legislation.gov.au, 5 September 2026. Section 2, commencement table item 1: “The whole of this Act”, 1 July 2027. Schedule 1 Part 3 inserts Division 4A of Part 3-1 of the Australian Consumer Law, ss 48B to 48H. Section 48B(2) catches a contract for the “recurring or continuing supply of goods or services for an indefinite period” under which a person automatically incurs liability to pay, and s 48B(5) the free trial that converts. Section 48D(2) and (4) require disclosure when the offer is made, of the liabilities to pay, the period, its renewal or continuation, any notice required and how to end it. Section 48F(1) requires a way out that is “easy to find”, “straightforward” and “requires the subscriber to take only steps that are reasonably necessary”, with one of those ways online where the supplier offers an online way in. A rolling monthly membership is drawn in within one billing cycle by s 312(2).
7. Verified. Fitness Industry Award 2020 MA000094, the Fair Work Commission consolidated award text at library.fairwork.gov.au, read 5 September 2026, incorporating amendments up to and including 1 July 2026. Clause 4.3(e) excludes employers and employees covered by the Local Government Industry Award 2020, so a council leisure centre’s staff sit on a different award from the independent gym down the road. Not tested: the Local Government Industry Award rates, so no comparison of the two wage floors is published here.
8. Verified. Blue Mountains City Council, the leisure centres page and the 2026-27 fee brochures for Springwood Aquatic and Fitness Centre and Katoomba Sports and Aquatic Centre, both downloaded from bmcc.nsw.gov.au and read 5 September 2026. Adult fitness membership by direct debit: Springwood AU$113.70 a month, Katoomba AU$101.80. A trainer who wants to use a council leisure centre for their own clients pays AU$1,850 for six months. Tested and absent: Blacktown City Council’s prices, whose pages and fees PDF both returned HTTP 403 to a command-line fetcher on 5 September 2026; a 403 is a bot block and is never evidence that a price does not exist.