Google your own business name today. You may not like what the AI says.
Do this right now. Grab your phone, open Google, and type in the name of your business. Go ahead, I'm serious.
If a neat little AI-written summary is sitting at the top of the page, congratulations, you have just been summarized by a robot who has never met you. Maybe it nailed it. Maybe it says you closed in 2022, serve a city you have never driven to, and charge a price you have never once quoted. Fun times.
What changed (and what didn't)
Search Engine Land reported on October 1 that Google's AI Overviews, the AI summaries at the top of search results, showed up on about a quarter of the branded searches DemandSphere tracks at the start of September. By the end of the month that number was over 80%, with a peak above 90% on September 27. A branded search just means someone typing in a company name, like yours.
A few honest caveats, because I like you. Google hasn't announced a change. Nobody has measured what this does to clicks yet. And the tracked searches lean toward bigger brands, so your business name may or may not trigger a summary today. (A separate test did find AI Overviews for 93 of 100 big brands, and for some smaller companies too.)
So, no panic. But this is the rare bit of marketing news where checking takes ten minutes and costs nothing, so you may as well.
Why this matters if you run a service business
Think about how people actually hire a home service company. A neighbor mentions you over the fence. They spot your yard sign. Somebody recommends you in the Facebook group. And then what does everybody do? They Google your name.
That search is the moment a recommendation turns into a phone call, or doesn't. If an AI summary is sitting right there at the last step and it's out of date, or leaning on some review site you forgot you signed up for in 2016, you lose the job before the phone rings. You'll never know, either, because nobody calls to say "we almost hired you, but the robot said you were closed."
The 10-minute audit
Do this on your phone, since that's where a lot of your customers are doing it. Search these three things:
Your business name
Your business name plus the word "reviews"
Your business name plus your city
For each one, screenshot whatever the AI summary says and write down which sources it cites. Those little source links are the interesting part, because they tell you where Google is getting its information about you.
Then ask yourself:
Is anything wrong? Hours, services, service area, whether you're still in business.
Is anything missing that you'd want a customer to know?
Which websites is it pulling from, and do you control any of them?
Prefer to hand this off? I'll do the digging and tell you exactly what to fix.
Fix the sources
An AI summary is only as good as what it reads. You can't edit the summary, but you can clean up everything it reads.
Your Google Business Profile
Update your hours, services, and service area, and make sure your description says what you actually do. It's free, it takes about fifteen minutes, and it's the most neglected tool in local marketing.
Your website
Say, in plain English, what you do, where you do it, and how your pricing works. You don't have to publish a price list. "Free written estimates and flat-rate pricing on most jobs" tells a robot (and a human) far more than a tagline like "Crafting Spaces Since 2009."
Your old listings
Check Yelp, Angi, and the BBB. Claim them, correct them, or ask to have them removed. That abandoned Yelp page with your old phone number is exactly what an AI will happily quote, because it's the only page with any words on it.
Reviews are content now
AI summaries lean on review text. A five-star rating with no words gives the robot nothing to work with. "Great service!" is lovely for your ego and useless for everything else.
Ask happy customers to mention what you did and what part of town they're in. Compare "Great service!" with "They replaced our water heater in one afternoon, cleaned up after themselves, and we're in Maple Ridge." The second one tells Google what you do, where you do it, and that you're tidy, which is rare and worth real money.
An easy way to ask: "If you have a minute, could you mention what we did and what part of town you're in? It helps your neighbors find us." Please don't write reviews for people or offer them a reward. Google doesn't allow it, and your reputation won't thank you either.
Not sure where your listings and reviews stand? That's exactly what an audit covers.
Do it again every month
Add this to the same checklist where you review your ad spend. Three searches, a few screenshots, five minutes. Summaries can change without warning, and so can the sources behind them, so a one-time check goes stale fast. Put a reminder on the first Monday of the month and be done with it.
If you run the audit and something looks weird, or you'd like a second set of eyes on it, come say hi at fundamarketing.com. I promise to be nice about whatever the robot got wrong.
