Yext Consumer Search Behaviors Report · 2026
We surveyed 1,120 US adults in March 2026 about how they find local businesses, which platforms they trust, and what drives them to act. The findings challenge widely held assumptions about AI adoption — and point to what brands need to get right before the next wave hits.
Get the ReportUsed AI for local search
47%
Of all US adults — in just the past month
Use AI as much or more than last year
61%
Adoption isn't plateauing — it's accelerating
Take a verification step before acting
93%+
Even the highest-trust users still check
Non-adopters plan to try within 6 months
43%
The next wave of AI converts is already forming
The findings
The full report is coming soon, but here's a sneak peek into what we found. Select any finding to expand it.
AI Adoption
47%
of US adults used AI for local search last month
AI-driven local search isn't an early-adopter behavior anymore — it's mainstream. Nearly half of all US adults (47%) used an AI tool to find a local business in the past month. Among those who search daily, that figure climbs to 59%. And most notably, among households earning $150k or more, AI has already surpassed Google as the starting point for local business searches. For the consumers with the most buying power, the shift has already happened.
Category adoption spans only 15 points across the entire spectrum — from restaurants (52%) to automotive (37%). There is no category that can reasonably sit this out.
Key stats
59%
of daily local searchers have migrated to AI
61%
use AI as much or more than last year — adoption isn't plateauing
15 pts
spread across all categories — no category is safe to ignore
53%
vs. 49% Google — at $150k–$175k income, AI has overtaken Google as starting point
61%
vs. 57% Google — at $175k–$200k, the gap widens further
Demographics
54%
of 30–44 year-olds used AI — highest of any age group
Marketers tend to make assumptions about who is leading AI adoption. The data challenges most of them. Adults aged 30–44 lead on both adoption rate (54%) and trust (4.11/5). Meanwhile, 18–29 year-olds are the only age group where AI usage is declining year over year — 48% of young AI users say they're using it less than a year ago. The consumers driving this shift are the ones with purchasing power and decisions to make.
Income is the most important variable. The $125,000 household income threshold functions as a behavioral cliff, not a slope — AI trust scores jump sharply from the 3.67–3.89 range to 4.42 at the $125k–$150k band. And among non-adopters at the $175k–$200k level, 82% say they're likely to try AI for local search in the next six months. The next wave of high-value AI converts is already forming.
Key stats
4.11/5
trust score among 30–44 year-olds — highest of any age group
48%
of 18–29 AI users say they're using it less than a year ago
10%
of 45–60 year-olds act directly on AI recommendations — the highest rate
54%
vs. 43% female adoption — but female usage is growing while male is declining
82%
of non-adopters at $175k–$200k likely to try AI in the next 6 months
Customer Journey
47%
use AI for quick recs and thorough pre-decision research in equal measure
Welcome to the age of AI as a "swiss-army knife": it's involved in every stage of the buyer journey and for all types of tasks. People are turning to AI tools for discovery, comparison, shortlisting, deep research, deal-finding, and final purchase decisions. The buyer journey hasn't disappeared — it's collapsed into a single, multi-turn conversation that spans every stage. Brands that show up accurately at one moment but go missing at another will lose decisions they should have won.
Key stats
47%
use AI for a quick rec; 47% for thorough pre-decision research — AI serves every intent
43%
use AI for category discovery and comparison shopping
41%
use AI for deal and value finding
12 pts
all use cases score within a 12-point range — no single dominant use case
69%
of AI users trust AI recommendations overall
Verification Behavior
93%+
of AI users take at least one verification step before acting
Nearly three quarters of AI users (74%) rate their trust in AI local business recommendations at 4 or 5 out of 5. And yet: nearly every AI user still verifies. After receiving a recommendation, 62% immediately search Google for more information, 58% visit the business website directly, and 52% click through to sources cited within the AI's response.
What makes this remarkable is that verification rates are nearly flat across all trust levels. High-trust users (rated 5/5) verify via Google at 62%. Neutral users verify at 63%. Trust level doesn't predict whether someone verifies — it only predicts how. Either way, they check. A brand visible on AI but weak everywhere else will lose the sale at the finish line.
Key stats
74%
rate trust in AI recommendations at 4 or 5 out of 5
62%
search Google immediately after an AI recommendation
58%
visit the business website directly
52%
click through to sources cited in the AI response
7%
act on a recommendation without any additional research
Closing the Deal
34%
cite star rating as their #1 purchase influencer after AI
When consumers verify — and nearly all of them do — reviews are the signal they trust most. Review signals dominate the purchase decision across the board, occupying five of the top six purchase influencers. Reviews are no longer a reputation management checkbox. They're the conversion layer between an AI mention and an actual customer.
A telling pattern reinforces this: review-checkers show growing AI usage over time (3.48/5 weighted average), while consumers who verify only through AI's cited sources are declining in usage (2.63/5). The next wave of AI adopters will rely on reviews, not citations, to close their decisions. That makes the review signal more important over time, not less.
Key stats
34%
star rating — the #1 purchase influencer after AI
30%
word of mouth
29%
review recency influences their decision
28%
weight review sentiment
28%
cite review count as a key purchase factor
3.48
vs. 2.63 — review-checkers show growing AI usage; citation-clickers are declining
Social Media
40%
start their local search on social — the #2 channel overall
Social media's role in local search is easy to underestimate because it operates across two separate moments in the journey, and neither is obvious. At the top of the funnel, social is the second most common starting point for local business recommendation searches — 40% of consumers start there, trailing only Google at 59%. It isn't a passive channel for content distribution. It is an active search destination. Further along the journey, 28% of AI users check a brand's social profiles after receiving an AI recommendation, making social part of the verification loop alongside Google and reviews.
The less obvious effect is brand familiarity. Consumers who have encountered a brand on social media — even without actively engaging — are measurably more likely to act on an AI recommendation for that brand. Brand familiarity from social scores 23% as a purchase influencer, which ranks alongside review sentiment and total review count. Passive social exposure converts to purchase confidence at the recommendation moment.
Among the highest-trust AI users, social signals become even more influential. Social content quality (32%), follower count (29%), and brand familiarity from social (27%) all spike at the highest trust level. Social presence and AI trust are co-reinforcing: the consumers most committed to AI search are also most influenced by a brand's social footprint.
Key stats
40%
social is the #2 starting channel for local search (behind Google at 59%)
28%
check a brand's social profiles after receiving an AI recommendation
23%
brand familiarity from social as a purchase influencer
32%
social content quality among highest-trust AI users (5/5)
29%
follower count influence among highest-trust users
What's Next
43%
of non-adopters say they're likely to try AI within six months
More than half of US adults (53%) have not yet used AI for local search. The natural assumption is that this group represents a long-term holdout. The data suggests otherwise — most of them are closer to converting than their non-adoption status implies.
Among non-adopters, 43% say they are likely to try AI for local search within the next six months. Their barriers are telling: the top reason for not having tried AI isn't distrust or privacy concern — it's that their current approach works fine (43%), followed closely by the fact that they simply haven't thought about it (38%). Habit and low awareness are the dominant blockers, not skepticism — and those are addressable through demonstration and exposure, not through product changes.
The conversion opportunity concentrates at the highest-frequency and highest-income end. Among non-adopters who search daily, 60% say they're likely to try AI within six months — and their top barrier is simply that they haven't thought about it. Among non-adopters at the $175k–$200k income level, 82% express likelihood to try. These are not skeptics. They are people who haven't yet been prompted.
Key stats
53%
of US adults have not yet used AI for local search
43%
top barrier: current approach works fine
38%
haven't thought about it — habit, not skepticism
60%
of daily-searching non-adopters likely to try in 6 months
82%
of $175k–$200k non-adopters likely to try within six months
The bottom line
Our research shows that brands who win this shift won't be the ones that pick a single platform — AI or otherwise — and optimize for it. They'll be the ones who show up during multi-phase AI conversations, whose data is accurate everywhere customers look for verification, whose reviews are fresh at every location, and whose social presence shows up at every stage of the journey.
Yext Consumer Search Behaviors Report · 2026
Get complete data, demographic breakdowns, and category-level insights — plus the analysis that turns these findings into a visibility strategy your team can act on.