I want to put one number in front of you and then explain why it changed how I think about every local client I work with.
A year ago, about 6 percent of consumers said they’d used an AI tool like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity to find a local business. This year, BrightLocal’s survey puts it at 45 percent. That’s not a trend line. That’s a switch, and it flipped in twelve months while most local businesses were still arguing about whether to update their Google profile.
The old way was a list. You searched, you got ten results, you clicked two or three, you formed an opinion. The business’s job was to be on that list and look good when clicked.
The new way is an answer. You ask who’s good at this in Charlotte, and the AI names two or three businesses with a sentence about each. AI answers typically name one to three businesses, and there’s no page two. The business’s job is now to be one of those names, and then to survive what happens next, which is usually a search for that name rather than a click.
Three things follow from that, and each one is a change in what local marketing means.
Only about 17 to 54 percent of the sources cited in AI answers come from the traditional top ten results. You can rank fourth and get cited, or rank first and get ignored. What the AI wants is a business the web agrees about, described the same way on its site, its Google and Bing listings, Yelp, Foursquare, and in its reviews. Consistency beats position.
For local questions, ChatGPT leans on directories more than websites. Over 70 percent of local business results in ChatGPT come from Foursquare, and Yelp was the most cited source for local queries across AI tools last year. Most businesses stopped tending those listings years ago. They’re now load-bearing again.
When an AI answers, about 8 percent of people click anything, and almost nobody clicks the citation. So being named doesn’t bring traffic. It brings a name search, a follow-up question, or a direct visit from someone who’s already half-decided. Winning those moments is the second half of local marketing now, and almost nobody’s playing it.
I run this check for Charlotte businesses regularly, and the pattern is consistent. The businesses that get named aren’t the biggest. They’re the ones whose Google profile, website, and reviews tell the same story. A three-person firm with forty specific reviews and a clear site beats a twenty-person firm with a hundred vague ones and a homepage that says “exceptional experiences.”
The other pattern is that most Charlotte businesses aren’t in Bing’s index at all, because nobody ever set up Bing Webmaster Tools, and ChatGPT reads Bing. So a good number of businesses that rank fine on Google simply don’t exist to the tool 45 percent of their prospects are now using. That’s a ten-minute fix and it’s the first thing I check.
And the local pack is thin. For a lot of categories in Charlotte, the AI is choosing between a handful of businesses that have done the basics, because the rest haven’t. That’s an opening, and it won’t stay open once the bigger shops notice.
Ask the AI who it names. Ask ChatGPT and Google’s AI Mode the three questions your best customer asked before hiring you, with Charlotte in them. Write down who comes up. That’s your real competitive set now.
Get into Bing. Import your site from Search Console into Bing Webmaster Tools. Ten minutes. Then check the AI Performance report in a week to see what’s being cited.
Make the listings agree. Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Yelp, Foursquare. Same name, same address, same phone, same category, same description. Fix the mismatches, then leave them alone.
Ask for specific reviews. Not “great guy.” What you did, where, and what changed. The AI reads the words, not just the stars.
Answer the questions on your site. What it costs, how long it takes, whether you work with businesses like theirs. In plain sentences, in the first paragraph, with an FAQ section that carries the question as a heading.
Watch brand searches, not traffic. Search Console, filtered to queries with your name in them. If that’s rising, the AI is doing its job, even when the traffic line is flat.
Everything above is the same instruction wearing different clothes: make the web agree about you. Your site, your listings, your reviews, and your profiles describing one company in one way. That’s what a brand is when you strip the logo off it, and it’s why the story has to be settled before any of the tactical work sticks. The AI is the strictest reader you’ve ever had. It doesn’t fill in gaps. It just picks someone whose story has none.
The number went from 6 to 45 in a year. Best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. Second best time is now.
Want to know how Charlotte’s AI answers see you? Send me your website and I’ll check the ten questions your buyers ask, tell you where you land, and what I’d fix first. Takes me a day, no charge, and it’s me doing it, not a bot.
GiddyBrands is a senior-led branding studio in Charlotte, North Carolina, working with founder-led businesses across the US and abroad. No account manager layer, the person you talk to builds the work. The portfolio shows what that looks like in practice.
People increasingly ask an AI who to call instead of scrolling a list. Use of AI tools for finding local businesses went from 6 percent of consumers to 45 percent in a year. The AI names one to three businesses, so the goal shifted from ranking on a list to being one of the names, and then winning the name search that follows.
Be in Bing’s index, keep your Google, Bing, Yelp, and Foursquare listings identical, collect reviews that mention what you do and where, and answer buyer questions in plain sentences on your site with an FAQ section. The businesses ChatGPT names in Charlotte are the ones whose site, listings, and reviews tell the same story.
More than for a big one. Local businesses face less competition for a specific service in a specific city than national brands do for broad categories, and in many Charlotte categories the AI is choosing between a handful of businesses that have done the basics. Doing them now is a real advantage while it lasts.
Sources: BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2026. Pew Research Center, July 2025. Industry AI citation studies on source share for local queries, 2025 to 2026. Microsoft Bing Webmaster Blog, 2026.
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