Two years ago, if someone was looking for a bike repair shop in Gràcia, they typed "bike repair gracia" into Google and looked at the map. Today some of those people type something else, somewhere else: "can you recommend a reliable bike repair shop near Gràcia that won't take a week?". More and more customers ask ChatGPT instead of Google.

This isn't an anecdote. According to BrightLocal's Local Consumer Review Survey 2026 — 1,002 consumers in the United States — the share of people using AI to get recommendations for local businesses went from 6% to 45% in a year. Over the same period, Google's share as a local discovery channel fell from 83% to 71%. There's no equivalent study in Spain yet: we use the figure because the trend is the same, and we say so because the source isn't. AI is already the third channel, ahead of Yelp or Tripadvisor.

The fact that more and more customers ask ChatGPT instead of Google doesn't mean Google is dead. It means there are now two shop windows, and most businesses are only looking after one. And only half-heartedly.

The awkward difference: on Google you appear, in AI you get cited

On Google, if you search "peluquería Sant Antoni" (a hair salon in the Sant Antoni neighbourhood), you get ten results. You're there even if you're seventh. In an answer from ChatGPT or Google AI Mode you get three or four names, in prose, and there's no page two. Either it names you or you don't exist.

That changes the game. You're not competing for position, you're competing to be mentionable. And a model only mentions what it can state with some confidence: who you are, what you do, where you are, and what people who aren't you say about you.

This is where most small businesses fall down. Not because their website is bad, but because there's nothing to cite. We saw it when we counted Barcelona's hair salons one by one: 61% had no website of their own. An Instagram profile and a listing on a booking app aren't yours, and they're a poor source for an AI trying to answer someone who's asking about prices and opening hours.

What an AI actually looks at when someone asks about your sector

Nobody on the outside knows the exact weightings, and be wary of anyone who tells you otherwise — we've already written about the impossible promises of AI marketing. But we do know where the sources come from: the open web, your Google profile, directories, reviews and mentions on sites the model has already read.

Translated into what you control:

Consistent name, address and phone number. If Google says "Taller Riera", your website says "Riera Bikes SL" and the neighbourhood directory says "Taller Riera Bicis", the model sees three weak businesses instead of one strong one.
Text that can be cited. Concrete, affirmative sentences: "We repair electric bikes of any brand. Diagnosis in 24 h. €45 for a full service". That can go into an answer. "Quality and commitment since 1998" can't.
Recent reviews, with replies. They're the clearest outside signal that you exist and that you're still open.
A website that can be read. If the content loads through JavaScript, or lives inside images, or only exists in a PDF, then for a crawler it isn't there.

The checklist: what to do this week

None of this needs an agency. It needs an afternoon.

1. Ask the AI about yourself (10 minutes).

Open ChatGPT and type the question a customer would ask, not the one you would: "Which good gestorías are there in Poblenou for an autónomo who doesn't bill much?" (a gestoría is an admin and tax agency; an autónomo is a self-employed worker). Note which names come up. Repeat with Perplexity and Gemini. If you don't appear, now you know where you stand. If a competitor appears, look at what they have on their website that you don't.

2. Claim and complete your Google profile (30 minutes).

The right primary category, real opening hours including public holidays, phone, link to your website, services listed one by one with a price if you can. If the profile is unclaimed, anyone can suggest changes to it.

3. Use the same name everywhere (20 minutes).

Pick one exact form of your name, address and phone number. Copy it as is into Google, your website, Instagram and your trade directory. Identical, down to the street abbreviation.

4. Write three paragraphs an AI can cite (45 minutes).

On your home page: exactly what you do, for whom, where, and what the most common job costs. With numbers. Without adjectives. If you're uncomfortable publishing fixed prices, give ranges.

5. Add a frequently asked questions page (1 hour).

Six questions you get on the phone every week, each with a two-sentence answer. "Do you take walk-ins?" "Do you issue invoices?" "How long does it take?". It's the format that carries over best into a generated answer.

6. Check the legal side (20 minutes).

An aviso legal (legal notice) with your name or company name, address, NIF (tax ID) and a contact; a privacy policy; a cookie banner that can be rejected. Article 10 of the LSSI-CE (Spain's e-commerce and information society law) requires this of any website with an economic activity, not just online shops, and failing to publish it is a minor offence. It isn't an AI signal, but it's the one that can cost you money.

What nobody tells you: what's slow and what never ends

If you do the six steps above, in one afternoon you've done more than most of your street. Now the honest part.

Quick, and done once: using the same name everywhere, the legal notice, the Google profile. You do them once and they last for years.

Slow: getting picked up by the models. Between publishing and being cited, weeks or months can pass, depending on how often your website is crawled and when the index each assistant consults is updated. There's no button to speed it up and nobody can guarantee it happens. Anyone who gives you a date is making it up.

The part that never ends: reviews, opening hours, prices and replies. A website that's correct in January is out of date by June if you've raised your prices or changed your August hours. And you have to ask the AI about yourself again every so often, because the answers change on their own without you touching anything.

That last part is what makes most people give up. It isn't hard: it's that it's every week, forever, and you have a business to run.

FAQ

Should I stop worrying about Google?

No. Google is still 71% of local discovery and, on top of that, the same signals Google cares about (a complete profile, consistent details, reviews) are the ones that feed the assistants. That said, they aren't the same job either: across 15,000 queries, only 12% of the pages AI cites are in Google's top ten. We break it down in SEO and AI, with the source of every number in sources.

Can I pay to appear in ChatGPT?

Not the way you pay for Google Ads. Some assistants have advertising formats, but the recommendations that appear inside the answer can't be bought. If someone offers to "rank" you there for a monthly fee, ask them exactly what they do for that money.

I have Instagram and it works for me. Do I need a website?

Instagram brings you customers, but it isn't yours and it's a poor source for an assistant: no structured prices, no readable opening hours, no text that's easy to crawl. If the profile disappears or the algorithm changes, you disappear with it.

How long before I notice anything?

Your Google profile can make the phone ring within days. Citations in AI assistants take weeks or months, with no guarantee. Anyone who promises you a specific timeframe is guessing.

The six steps, with the clock running

Add up the times above: 10 + 30 + 20 + 45 + 60 + 20. Three hours and five minutes. That's the easy part, and it's real: in one afternoon you do more than most of your street.

What doesn't fit into that afternoon is everything else. Building the website where those citable texts and that questions page live: choosing a template, domain, hosting, certificate, compressing photos, and making sure robots.txt lets the assistants in instead of blocking them through a rule inherited from a template — something that happens to more people than you'd think. A long weekend, if you know how.

And then step 1 again. And again. Because AI answers change on their own without you touching anything: asking once in September tells you nothing about October. It's twenty minutes every few weeks, forever, and it's the first thing people stop doing.

How we split it

Three steps are yours and you don't need anyone: asking the AI about yourself, claiming your Google profile and using the same name everywhere. They're free, they're quick and we recommend them even if you never sign up for anything.

Three are the ones that get left half-done, and we do those. Your wiweb page is born with your services and their prices in widgets that can be cited, with your frequently asked questions answered, with the legal notice and the AEPD (Spain's data protection authority) cookie setup written — and with the door deliberately open: the robots.txt and the sitemap are written so that ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google can read you, not inherited from a template that blocks them.

And step 1 stops being your job. On Grow (€9/month) we check every month whether ChatGPT and Perplexity mention you, for which questions, and which competitors show up where you don't. On Pro (€24/month) it's every week, with Gemini and Google's AI results included, and anything technical that breaks fixes itself. Always the same questions, so that the comparison means something.

Creating and publishing your page is free and needs no card: set it up in two minutes. Exactly what we look at is in SEO and AI, and what each plan includes is on our pricing page.

What we won't give you, and nor will anyone else, is a date for getting cited.

More and more customers ask ChatGPT instead of Google: what it means for your business