Yext Research explainer · 1:45

Does AI read your reviews?

The businesses all four AIs put first got 12.2 new reviews a month, against 1.9 for the typical business.

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When each finding is saidWhere the film is now
The film's numbers
52%
Half of the businesses they put first were rated 4.8 stars or higher, 52%
62%
And they answered 62% of their reviews. The typical business answered 33%

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What this film covers

Someone asks an AI where to get a flat tire fixed near a bike shop in Minneapolis, and the AI reads the reviews of every shop nearby. Across Gemini, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude, 52% of top picks were rated 4.8 stars or higher. The 15,472 businesses all four AIs put first got 12.2 new reviews a month against 1.9 for 6.6 million typical profiles, and answered 62% of their reviews against 33%. Ask happy customers for a review after every visit, and answer the reviews you get every month.

The research behind it

Yext Research · 2026-09-04Four AIs, one question, four different answersRead the report →

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Transcript

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  1. 0:13Say you run a bike shop in Minneapolis, and someone asks an AI where to get a flat tire fixed.
  2. 0:18The AI reads what it can find about every shop nearby, and that includes your reviews.
  3. 0:23At Yext Research, we looked at what the reviews of AI's top picks have in common.
  4. 0:28We asked Gemini, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude the same local questions, from February to August 2026.
  5. 0:36Half of the businesses they put first were rated 4.8 stars or higher, 52%.
  6. 0:42The median top pick was rated 4.8.
  7. 0:45So AI's top picks tend to have high ratings.
  8. 0:49Then we took the businesses all four AIs put first for the same question.
  9. 0:54We compared those 15,472 businesses with 6.6 million typical profiles.
  10. 1:01They got 12.2 new reviews a month. The typical business got 1.9.
  11. 1:06That's about six times as many fresh reviews, month after month.
  12. 1:11And they answered 62% of their reviews. The typical business answered 33%.
  13. 1:17A reply puts the owner's own words on the page, where people and AI can both read them.
  14. 1:23Across thousands of businesses, AI's top picks led on ratings and reviews.
  15. 1:29So ask happy customers for a review after every visit,
  16. 1:32and answer the reviews you get, at every location, every month.

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For every 10 views a business got lower on Google's first page, one in the top three got about 27.

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How does AI decide who to trust?

Locations on 50 or more platforms got 150% more customer actions the next month than locations on 20 or fewer.

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