Google Business Profile

TL;DR: Google Business Profile, formerly known as Google My Business, is Google’s free business listing tool. It’s also a data source for Google's AI functionalities. Gemini answers questions from it, AI Overviews can surface it, AI Mode can converse over it, and Search agents can use it to help customers take action. Complete, accurate, fresh profile data helps AI correctly surface and represent your brand.

What is Google Business Profile (FKA Google My Business)?

Google Business Profile, or GBP, is Google’s free tool for managing how a brand location appears across Google Search and Google Maps. It was previously called Google My Business, but Google rebranded it to Google Business Profile in 2021.

For multi-location brands, GBP is more than a digital storefront. It is structured location data that Google uses to understand who you are, where you are, what you offer, when you are open, and how customers can engage with you.

As Google's local search experience has evolved, active profiles have become increasingly important. Engagement signals like reviews, photo activity, profile interactions, and content freshness appear to play a larger role in visibility than they once did, rewarding brands that continuously maintain and update their listings. Google says local rankings are based on relevance, distance, and popularity, and that complete, accurate business information can help profiles appear in local results.

But in the AI search era, the stakes are higher. Your GBP data can also help inform AI-generated answers, local recommendations, and booking experiences.

What can brands do with a Google Business Profile in 2026?

Brands can use their Google Business Profile to:

• Claim and verify listings for each location
• Manage hours, addresses, phone numbers, service areas, website links, and other core business information
• Add staff bios, photos, videos, and virtual tours
• Manage reviews, respond to customer feedback, and leverage Google's AI-powered fraud detection tools
• Create posts using AI-enhanced images
• List top products, services, providers, parking recommendations, current promotions, and more
• Use AI to turn a PDF or photo of a menu into a more engaging, detailed menu
• Support bookings through Reserve with Google and newer agentic booking experiences
• Feed business information into Google Search, Maps (including Ask Maps), AI Overviews, Gemini-powered experiences, and ads

What changed in Google Business Profile (2024–2026)?

AI search is growing quickly. As of June 2026, ChatGPT reached one billion monthly active users, highlighting how rapidly customers are adopting AI-powered discovery experiences. At the same time, ChatGPT became the fifth most-visited website in the world, reflecting a broader shift in how people find information online. And according to exclusive Yext research:

• 44% of consumers worldwide used AI for local search in the past month
• 71% of AI users say they use it more than they did a year ago
• 29% of consumers tried a new local business via an AI recommendation in the past 6 months

But while AI search is gaining momentum, Google remains the dominant search platform. Google still processes an estimated 16.4 billion searches every day, making it the starting point for billions of customer journeys worldwide.

Even so, Google Search isn't the same product it was a few years ago – and neither is Google Business Profile. Some older GBP features have been retired: Google discontinued Business Profile chat and call history in July 2024, while websites built through Google Business Profiles were sunset later that year.

These changes reflect a broader shift in how Google helps customers discover and engage with brands. Increasingly, Google's AI-powered experiences answer questions, compare options, and facilitate actions before a customer ever visits a website or business profile. As Google's products have evolved, the company's focus has shifted toward AI-powered discovery, recommendations, and transactions rather than standalone profile features.

Why your Google Business Profile matters in the AI era

In the past, brands optimized their Google Business Profiles to earn a spot in Google's local results, whether that was the Local Map Pack or the first page of search results. But today, customers increasingly see AI-generated answers before they ever see those traditional results.

AI Overviews often occupy the most prominent position on the page, summarizing options, answering questions, and shaping customer decisions before a click ever happens. That’s why earning visibility in AI-generated responses is becoming just as important as ranking in the top search results or appearing in the Map Pack.

The information in your profile helps Google understand your locations, services, products, hours, and reputation. It can also influence how your brand is represented across AI Overviews, Gemini-powered experiences, Maps, and other Google surfaces.

For multi-location brands, the goal is no longer just to rank. It's to provide accurate, complete, and current information that helps Google's AI systems confidently recommend your locations when customers are ready to discover, compare, and choose a brand.

Your profile's newest reader is an AI agent

Google still matters – a lot. But customers no longer discover brands through a list of blue links. Today, they increasingly interact with AI-powered search experiences that answer questions, compare options, and recommend businesses before a customer ever clicks through to a website or profile.

Google's AI Overviews can summarize local options directly in search results. Gemini-powered Ask Maps helps customers discover businesses through conversational questions rather than keyword searches. AI Mode extends that experience, allowing customers to refine local searches through a back-and-forth conversation. And Google's newest Search agents can help customers move from discovery to action by completing tasks like bookings and reservations on their behalf.

That’s why brands now need to think of AI like a potential customer. Popular tools like ChatGPT scour every corner of the internet, including trusty go-to data sources like GBPs. But, AI search experiences don't just reference prominent online data sources. They also reference local listings on more obscure, niche, or long-forgotten long-tail sites like YP.com and hundreds of other publishers, review sites, and social platforms.

The good news is that much of what AI reads is information brands already own. According to Yext research, 86% of citations come from brand-managed sources such as websites, local listings, and other digital properties. That means brands have more influence over how AI represents them than they may realize.

When an AI platform answers a question about your locations, recommends your services, or helps a customer make a booking, it's drawing from the information it finds across the web. The more complete, accurate, and consistent that information is, the more likely AI is to represent your brand correctly. In the AI search era, your Google Business Profile isn't just a listing – it's part of the source material AI agents use to understand and speak for your brand.

Google Business Profile optimization for multi-location brands

To help customers trust (and choose) a brand when they search, location listings need to be complete, accurate, and optimized to increase engagement. But as search keeps changing and customer journeys diversify, managing all this information is easier said than done. It's also difficult to know which changes and optimizations you need to make.

Once, local businesses had to update listings by hand. Multi-location brands could only do bulk uploads using spreadsheets. Not only was this process wildly inefficient, but it also prevented real-time updates for one — let alone hundreds or thousands of local listings. Naturally, this created problems when customers encountered inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and duplicate profiles. Multi-location brands need an automated, accurate, scalable solution.

Today, the challenge is even bigger. Brands aren't just managing listings for customers. They're managing data that powers AI search experiences, recommendations, and transactions. Multi-location brands need an automated, accurate, and scalable way to maintain that information everywhere it appears.

Managing GBP at scale — and beyond Google

Google Business Profile is an important part of any brand’s visibility strategy, but it's only one publisher. Yext Listings distributes verified brand data directly to Google and 200+ publishers, without an aggregator, to help brands keep their information consistent across the search engines, maps, directories, review sites, and platforms that customers and AI systems rely on.

Underneath it all, Yext Knowledge Graph serves as a centralized source of truth for location, product, service, and brand data. When information changes, brands can update it once and publish it everywhere.

Underneath it all, Yext Knowledge Graph serves as a centralized source of truth for location, product, service, and brand data. When information changes, brands can update it once and publish it everywhere. Brands can also use Yext Pages to create and maintain optimized local landing pages that help customers and AI systems find accurate, location-specific information.

As AI search continues to reshape discovery, brands also need visibility into how they're being represented. Yext Scout helps brands understand how AI platforms represent each location, identify gaps in visibility, benchmark performance against competitors, and uncover opportunities to improve how they appear across AI and traditional search experiences.

To learn how Yext syndicates verified data to Google and 200+ publishers, check out Listings – and for a deeper look at optimizing and managing Google Business Profiles, explore the Yext Guide to Google Business Profile.