How to Ensure Your Business Gets Cited in AI Overviews for Local Searches

What Changed in AI Overviews for Local Search?

On July 22, 2026, Search Engine Journal reported that AI Overviews now answer most local searches, with AI generated answers outpacing the traditional local pack (the three map listings under a search) across more than 15 markets. That is not a cosmetic update. It marks the point where the AI Overview, not the map pack, is the first thing a searcher sees when they ask about a nearby business.

The move has been building for over a year. Whitespark's baseline study of 540 local queries across Houston, Phoenix, and Denver found AI Overviews already appearing in an average of 68% of local business type queries, against 39% for the local pack (Whitespark, May 12, 2025). At that point, pure local intent searches like 'plumber near me' still favored the local pack, appearing 93% of the time versus 15% for AI Overviews. Informational and hybrid queries, the ones that ask a question rather than request a list, were already dominated by AI Overviews at 92% and 97% respectively.

Fourteen months later, the balance has flipped in enough markets that AI Overviews are now the more common answer format, even for the local intent searches that used to belong to the map pack.

Who Does This Change Affect?

Any business that depends on someone typing '[service] near me' or '[service] in [city]' and picking from a list. That spans home services, healthcare, legal, real estate, hospitality, and most other categories covered in the underlying research.

It hits informational and hybrid local queries hardest, the ones a customer asks before they are ready to call: 'how much does a root canal cost in Denver,' 'how long does an eye exam take.' Those queries were already 92% to 97% AI Overview territory well before this year's shift, so any business whose visibility strategy stopped at the map pack has been effectively invisible on that half of the funnel for over a year.

It also affects multi location and service area businesses more than single location ones. AI Overviews synthesize from a wider set of web pages and mentions than a Google Business Profile alone, so a thin, unowned web presence across locations gives the model very little to cite.

What Does the Before and After Actually Show?

Line the dates up and the shift is stark. In May 2025, AI Overviews were common but not yet dominant for local intent searches. By November 2025, Whitespark had formally split its ranking factors research into two tracks, local pack signals and a distinct AI Search Visibility score, evaluated across all 187 factors in its report. That is the industry acknowledging, in its own research design, that ranking for the map pack and getting cited in an AI answer are related but no longer the same job. By July 2026, SEJ's reporting shows AI Overviews outpacing the local pack outright across 15 or more markets.

The practical read: this was not a sudden feature flip. It was a steady widening of an existing gap, and it is still moving in one direction.

1. May 12, 2025: AI Overviews average 68% appearance on local business queries, versus 39% for the local pack (Whitespark).
2. May 12, 2025: Pure local intent queries still favor the local pack, 93% to 15% (Whitespark).
3. November 6, 2025: Whitespark adds a distinct AI Search Visibility scoring dimension across all 187 local ranking factors.
4. July 22, 2026: AI Overviews outpace the local pack across 15+ markets for local search answers (Search Engine Journal).

How Should Local Businesses Respond?

The fix is not a trick. It is publishing content specific enough that an AI system has something worth quoting, and keeping it current enough that the model trusts it.

1. Answer the question directly in the first two sentences of every local page. Hybrid and informational local queries already trigger AI Overviews 92% to 97% of the time (Whitespark), so burying the answer under three paragraphs of throat clearing wastes the one shot at being quoted.
2. Keep the Google Business Profile current: hours, services, and reviews. It still anchors the local pack and feeds part of what AI Overviews draw on.
3. Publish content that would survive being quoted out of context: specific prices, timelines, service areas, and real answers, not vague claims.
4. Track visibility across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and AI Overviews, not just Google map pack position. A page that ranks but is never the one cited is not doing its job.
5. Refresh location and service pages on a real schedule. AI systems favor current information over pages that have not been touched in years.

What Should Local Businesses Stop Doing?

A few habits from the map pack era are now actively working against local visibility.

1. Stop treating the Google Business Profile as the entire local strategy. It still matters for the local pack, but the local pack is no longer the only, or even the primary, answer surface.
2. Stop publishing duplicate location pages with just the city name swapped. That content gives an AI system nothing distinct to cite.
3. Stop measuring success by rank position alone. A page can sit on page one and still never be the one an AI answer quotes.
4. Stop ignoring the informational and hybrid queries that come before the transactional one. By the time someone searches '[service] near me,' many have already gotten their answer, and their shortlist, from an AI Overview.

Where Does Local Pack SEO Still Matter?

The local pack has not disappeared, and Whitespark's own research design still scores it separately from AI Search Visibility for a reason: transactional and navigational local searches ('directions to,' 'call,' 'open now') still lean on the map pack, and Google Business Profile signals still feed both surfaces.

The honest summary is that local pack SEO and AI Overview visibility used to be nearly the same job and are now two related but distinct disciplines, each worth measuring on its own terms. Businesses that only do one are leaving the other's traffic, and citations, on the table.

Sources

AI Overviews now outpace the local pack across 15+ markets for local search answers Search Engine Journal, 2026-07-22

AI Overviews appeared in an average of 68% of local business type queries versus 39% for the local pack, in a 540-query baseline study Whitespark, 2025-05-12

Local intent queries appeared with AI Overviews 15% of the time versus 93% for the local pack; informational queries hit 92% and hybrid queries hit 97% Whitespark, 2025-05-12

Whitespark's 2026 Local Search Ranking Factors report added a distinct AI Search Visibility scoring dimension across all 187 ranking factors Whitespark, 2025-11-06