How to Optimize Local Listings for AI Search

TL;DR: AI is changing how customers discover brands, pulling data from listings, websites, and social platforms to verify accuracy. If your local listings aren't complete, consistent, and up to date across every touchpoint, your brand visibility is at risk.

Search isn't what it used to be – and it's changing fast.

Customers still rely on Google, but they're not starting their search journey there. AI-powered platforms like Google's AI Overviews (AIO), ChatGPT, TikTok, YouTube, and Siri are rewriting the rules of customer discovery. Recent data shows how dramatic the shift has become:

• 52% of U.S. adults say they use large language model AI tools for information-search tasks.

• 76% of consumers say social content influenced a purchase in the last six months, including 90% of Gen Z.

• By 2026, search engine volume will drop 25% as search marketing loses market share to AI chatbots and other virtual agents.

Customers move fluidly across search engines, social platforms, and AI-driven tools to find what they need — often before ever reaching a brand's website.

For multi-location marketing, this shift means one big thing: if your data isn't consistent everywhere customers search, your brand visibility may be close to zero. Google still matters — a lot — but it's no longer the only player in town. AI platforms pull data from a much wider range of sources, like business listings on Google and longtail sites, customer reviews, and unstructured content on third-party sites.

To win in this new era, your brand needs to be visible and verifiable everywhere. This requires establishing a central source of truth for your brand's data — a Knowledge Graph — to ensure your listings are complete, accurate, and consistent across all platforms. Here's how to do it.

Your Google Business Profile and your website remain your most important digital touchpoints — but they must now be optimized for AI-driven visibility, not just human visitors.

• Make sure every field on your GBP is complete, including accurate address, hours, phone number, website URL, business categories, and services.

• Use high-quality photos and videos to enhance visual appeal and increase engagement. Visuals don't just catch customers' attention; they signal freshness to AI platforms.

• Use conversational FAQs. Write FAQs using the same natural language your customers do. This makes it easier for AI to recognize and surface your content.

• On your website, implement schema markup (a form of structured data) for events, products, reviews, and location data to make your content machine-readable.

• Conduct a website crawl to identify and fix broken links, outdated content, or duplicate metadata.

• Make sure your data is consistent and refresh it frequently. This signals to AI that your brand is notable and trustworthy, directly supporting the principles of E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness).

• Proactively manage your data so search engines like Google and AI platforms can see your commitment to quality, relevancy, and delivering value for customers.

• Optimize all of your digital touchpoints (traditional search engines, local pages, listings, first and third-party reviews, social media, etc.) because AI will check them all.

Pro Tip: Centralize your brand's data in a knowledge graph. It acts as a single source of truth, making it easier to manage listings across platforms like Google, Yelp, and Bing — while keeping AI-driven platforms, like ChatGPT, in sync.

AI models don't rely on a single source. They cross-check your brand data across multiple platforms to confirm accuracy before generating responses. Research from Yext found that 86% of AI citations come from brand-managed sources — including your website, listings, and customer reviews. If inconsistencies appear, AI systems are less likely to surface your business.

To stay consistent everywhere:

• Use listings management tools to automate updates across platforms whenever business information changes.

• Regularly audit and correct NAP data (name, address, phone number) across all directories to help maintain consistency.

• Update seasonal offerings or temporary changes (e.g., holiday hours, promotions) as soon as they occur. AI-driven platforms prioritize fresh content, and "recently updated" listings are seen as more credible.

• Set reminders to audit data quarterly for inaccuracies or outdated information.

Pro Tip: Think of AI verification as a "trust audit." If two or more platforms disagree about your details, AI models will default to competitors with cleaner data.

Your data strategy doesn't end with listings — it defines your brand's credibility in an AI-first environment. Generative AI models value verifiable, structured data, and reward businesses that maintain accuracy and recency.

Maintain control over your brand's data by:

• Assigning a dedicated owner (or team) to oversee all data updates and maintain accuracy.

• Monitoring GBP insights and analytics to identify trends on user behavior. Use this to refine your listings.

• Investing in AI-powered tools to analyze and optimize data quality and identify gaps in coverage.

• Collaborating with teams to develop a data governance policy outlining protocols for updating and verifying information.

• Conducting a competitor analysis to identify data features or attributes they've optimized that you may be missing.

Pro Tip:Accuracy isn't just about consistency. It's about credibility. A knowledge graph helps make sure your information is complete, structured, and aligned across every platform AI models check.

Once again, in AI search, conversational answers are generated cross-referencing and confirming data pulled from various sources. Don't neglect a single one — or it could cost you.

• Claim, verify, and update your presence on all major directories (e.g., Yelp, Bing Places, Facebook) and niche platforms relevant to your industry.

• Actively monitor and respond to first-party reviews (Google, Facebook) and third-party reviews (Yelp, Trustpilot). Reviews help shape how AI understands your brand, and responding to reviews shows AI that your brand is engaged and active.

• Maintain active, engaging social media profiles, optimizing bios and pinned posts with search-friendly details. Social platforms are becoming key search engines, and this helps customers find you faster.

• Use UTM parameters in all links to measure traffic and ROI from listings and profiles.

• Optimize your mobile site experience (e.g., fast loading speed, easy navigation) to make sure AI doesn't deprioritize you for a poor user experience.

• Optimize for Voice and AI Assistants: Ensure your data is structured for conversational queries from platforms like Siri, Alexa, and in-car navigation systems. These assistants pull directly from local listings for 'near me' searches, making NAP consistency critical.

Pro tip: Treat every platform as a potential search engine. AI doesn't care where your information comes from — only that it's verified and consistent.

Search has evolved. Customers are starting their journeys in more places than ever — from ChatGPT to TikTok to Google's AIO.

And as they move between platforms, AI models are verifying your brand's data every step of the way. If your listings aren't optimized, you risk being invisible at key moments of discovery.

If your data isn't fresh, AI may not trust you. And if you're still treating Google as the only source of truth, you'll miss opportunities where AI (and customers) are searching.

Ready to get started with your local seo optimization for the AI era? Check out our guide here.