AI Is Eating Local Search, and People Trust It Less. Both Are True.

How Many People Are Actually Using AI to Find a Local Business Now?

45% of consumers said they used an AI tool such as ChatGPT to get a local business recommendation in the past year, up from just 6% in 2025, according to BrightLocal’s 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey. That makes AI the third most-used discovery channel for local business, ahead of Yelp and Tripadvisor, behind only Google and Facebook.

ChatGPT is the clear leader, used by 31% of consumers for business recommendations in the past year, with Google’s own AI Mode second at 23%. Adults aged 30 to 44 are the heaviest users, with 64% having asked AI for a local recommendation. Google’s own review usage slipped too, from 83% last year to 71% now. For a shop in Barrie or a contractor in Simcoe County, that is a third of potential customers now asking a tool that may never see a Google-only review profile.

If AI Use Is Climbing, Why Is Trust in It Falling at the Same Time?

A year-over-year Fractl survey of over 1,000 U.S. consumers found the share who rate AI search more helpful than traditional search dropped from 82% to 54% in twelve months, a 28-point fall. Usage kept climbing anyway: 70% of consumers say they use AI for search more than they did a year ago.

The skeptic camp, people who now rate AI as actively less helpful than traditional search, grew from 3% to 17% of consumers in that same year. None of this means people are quitting AI. It means the early excitement wore off once answers started needing a second look before anyone trusted them.

• 84% of consumers want written AI content labeled, rising to 91% for video and 90% for images.
• Only 20% of organizations always disclose when content is AI-generated; 33% never disclose at all.
• 40% of consumers say heavy AI use by a brand would lower their trust in it, twice the 20% who said so a year earlier.

Does This Mean AI Is Fading as a Way People Find Local Businesses?

No. Adoption keeps climbing even as trust wobbles. BrightLocal found 88% of AI users still fact-check what an AI tool tells them, and Fractl found Google still wins trust for local business searches specifically, at 74%. AI is becoming an added step in how people research a business, not a replacement for checking it.

Among people who already use AI for local recommendations, 63% say they trust what it tells them. Among people who haven’t tried it yet, 53% say they don’t. And 97% of AI users say they at least sometimes double-check an AI recommendation against real reviews before deciding. AI has become the first stop in a longer research process, not the final word.

What This Means If You Manage Several Local Clients

Marketing teams handling several local clients face this same shift at scale, deciding where to spend limited hours across Google, other directories, and now AI visibility too. That prioritization work is exactly what our systems for marketing teams and agencies are built to support.

What Should a Barrie or Simcoe County Business Actually Do About This?

Keep your Google Business Profile accurate, since Google still wins the most trust for local searches. But also build real listings and reviews beyond Google, because AI tools cannot see inside Google’s private review data and pull from other sources instead. BrightLocal calls this a “reviews everywhere” approach, and it is the single most actionable move here.

• Keep your Google Business Profile complete: current hours, the right categories, and real photos.
• Build and maintain listings and reviews on at least one or two platforms beyond Google, since AI tools cannot read what happens only inside Google’s own review data.
• Publish plain-language answers to the questions customers actually ask. FAQ-style content is some of the easiest material for an AI system to find and cite.
• Respond to your reviews. AI summaries draw on the same signals a person would, and a profile with no responses reads as less current.

That trust does not stop at the search result. If a customer takes the extra step to check your reviews, decides you are the right call, and then reaches voicemail, all of that work undoes itself in one ring. A reliable way to answer every call matters just as much as showing up in the search itself, and it is the piece most local businesses still leave to chance.