How AI assistants find local businesses (and how to help them find yours)

“Who does good kitchen remodels near me?” used to go into a search box. More and more, it goes into an AI assistant instead, and the assistant answers with a short list of names.

That shift has a name in our industry: agentic search. Instead of showing ten blue links, an assistant reads the web on your behalf, summarizes what it finds, and sometimes takes the next step for you.

Nobody outside these companies knows exactly how each assistant chooses which businesses to mention, and the tools change often. But we do know what they can and can’t read. That’s where the practical work is.

What an assistant can see about your business

When an assistant looks into a question about local businesses, it typically draws on a mix of:

• Your own website, if it can load and read it
• Search results and business listings, such as Google Business Profile and other directories
• Reviews and mentions on other sites
• Maps and listing data: your name, address, phone number and hours

It can only use what it can access and understand. A beautiful site that hides its key facts inside images, slow scripts or confusing pages gives it very little to work with.

Six things that make your business easier to recommend

1. Put the important facts in plain text

Your services, service area, hours, prices (if you share them) and contact details should be written on the page as real text, not baked into images or loaded late by scripts. If a human can copy and paste it, a machine can usually read it.

2. Give each service its own page

A page called “Services” with twelve bullet points is hard to cite. A clear page for each main service, saying what it is, who it’s for and where you offer it, gives an assistant something specific to point to.

3. Keep your details identical everywhere

Your business name, address, phone number and hours should match on your website, your Google Business Profile and the directories you’re listed in. Conflicting details make it harder for any system to be confident about you.

4. Answer the questions customers actually ask

Think about the questions you hear on the phone every week. Do you offer free estimates? Do you work weekends? Is there parking? Answering them on your site helps customers, and it gives assistants clear, quotable answers.

5. Add structured data

Structured data is a small block of code that labels the facts on a page: this is the business name, this is the address, these are the opening hours. It doesn’t guarantee anything, but it removes guesswork for machines reading your site.

6. Don’t block the crawlers you want

Some websites, often by accident, tell automated visitors to stay away. Check your site’s robots.txt file, or ask whoever manages your site to confirm, that search engines and the assistants you care about are allowed to read your pages.

What not to do

• Don’t stuff pages with keywords or write for robots instead of people. Assistants summarize. Clear writing summarizes well.
• Don’t invent reviews, awards or statistics. It’s dishonest, and it can backfire badly.
• Don’t trust anyone who guarantees you’ll appear in AI answers. Nobody can promise that.

Where to start this week

Pick your most important service and read its page as if you were a stranger. Can you tell, in ten seconds, what you do, where you do it and how to get in touch? If not, start there.

This kind of work is part of the ongoing care we provide at Localmade: keeping sites clear, accurate and readable for both people and AI assistants, and reporting what we’ve done every week. See how care works.