BrightLocal: 45% of Consumers Now Use AI to Find Local Businesses — Up From 6% Last Year
What happened
BrightLocal's 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey reveals a dramatic shift in how consumers find local businesses. The proportion of people using AI tools like ChatGPT and Google Gemini for local business recommendations has surged from 6% in 2025 to 45% in 2026 — making AI the third most-used tool for local discovery.
The same survey found that 64% of AI users now trust tools like ChatGPT as much as traditional reviews when choosing a local business.
Meanwhile, Google's share as the go-to review platform has dipped from 83% in 2025 to 71% in 2026. Consumers are using an average of six review sites, with video platforms — YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok — gaining traction.
Other key findings: 31% of consumers now ignore businesses rated below 4.5 stars (up from 17% in 2025), and 74% only care about reviews from the last 90 days.
What this means for tradespeople
Three things matter here:
AI is no longer niche. Nearly half of consumers are now asking AI to recommend local businesses. If you're an electrician in Birmingham and ChatGPT doesn't know you exist, you're missing almost half of potential discovery.
Review standards are rising. The bar has moved from "have some reviews" to "have recent, high-rated reviews." If your last review is from six months ago or your rating is 4.3, a growing number of homeowners will scroll past you — and so will AI.
Google is still the foundation. Despite the platform share dip, Google remains where 71% of consumers check reviews. And crucially, it's the primary data source that AI tools pull from. Your Google reviews feed both the traditional search path and the AI discovery path.
What to do about it
Keep your review flow consistent. A steady stream of recent 5-star reviews on Google does double duty: it satisfies the 74% of consumers who only look at reviews from the last 90 days, and it gives AI tools fresh, positive signals to recommend you. Don't let your review pipeline go cold.
Source: BrightLocal