BrightLocal 🇺🇦

Are ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and AI Overviews actually predictable for local visibility? Or is it a total toss-up? 🗑️ Join us for our upcoming webinar to get the hard data you need to build a winning strategy. Myles Anderson (CEO & Co-Founder of BrightLocal 🇺🇦) and Shawn D. (Sr. Content Writer at Duda) unpack BrightLocal’s large-scale study testing thousands of queries across AI platforms benchmarked against Google Maps. They'll be covering: ✔️ How visible, consistent, and stable local businesses are across AI platforms ✔️ How results vary by location, industry, business type, and time ✔️ What drives AI recommendations and where to focus your efforts 📆 October 6, 2026 at 10:00 AM PT (Can't make it live? Register anyway to get the full recording!) 👉 Save your spot here: https://bit.ly/4jmFY1T #LocalSEO #AISearch #LocalMarketing #DigitalAgencies #SEOStrategy #BrightLocal #AIOverviews

We sat down with Mike Forgie to talk about the changing nature of search, from tracking which AI platforms are driving traffic to creating content that gives AI the context it needs. Mike also digs into what it takes to become a trusted source, and why getting specific with your content could help your business show up in AI search. Watch the full conversation: https://lnkd.in/e-inwF9s

Ready for part two? 👀 Following our webinar with Duda on website optimizations for AI visibility, we’re joining forces again. This time, we’re bringing the data. 📈 Our CEO, Myles Anderson, will join Duda’s Shawn D. to dig into our research into thousands of local searches on ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and AI Overviews. They’ll cover: • How visible and consistent local businesses are across AI platforms • How results change by location, industry, business type, and time • What drives AI recommendations • Where agencies and local marketers should focus their efforts Register for free: https://lnkd.in/eStKcMxv

We analyzed 1.9 million AI citations, and directories showed up again and again. This week, we’re looking at the top 10 directory sources across ChatGPT, AI Mode, and AI Overviews, plus what that means for your local SEO strategy. Also inside: how one local SEO agency is using Claude Code to save time on reporting and strategy. Read this week’s newsletter. 👇

Local SEO doesn’t need to feel complicated. Our Local SEO Essentials series breaks it down, step by step, to help you understand how local search works and what helps your business get found. We’ve already released a handful of episodes on our YouTube channel. Start with Episode 1, get up to speed, and come back every Tuesday and Thursday for more: https://lnkd.in/epy7x2wn

A little preview of what’s coming tomorrow... 📹 Shawn Davis from Duda joins us to explore the website signals linked to stronger AI visibility, backed by research from Duda. 🔴 Join us live tomorrow for the full session. 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm BST Can’t make it live? Sign up and we’ll send you the recording. Sign up for free below. https://lnkd.in/eU9eHBud

AI search can be unpredictable. Our latest research shows just how much. We analyzed 200,000+ local AI searches and 1.9 million citations to find out what makes businesses appear in ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and AI Overviews and how often those recommendations stick. Plus, there’s just one week to go until our webinar with Shawn Davis from Duda, digging into AI search research and what it means for local marketers. Catch up on everything below.👇

🤖 Back looking at local AI search data again. This time what 200,000 non-branded searches can tell us about business mention rates and beyond. Using data from BrightLocal 🇺🇦's new Local AI Visibility Tracker I looked at: 🔍 How much variance there is between report runs (quite a lot, actually) 🗺️ How much changes if you search in different locations in the same town 🟢 How wide a radius each AI looks at There's quite a lot to dig into. A few main takeaways: 🔄 Change in recommended businesses comes in all sorts of forms. It's not as simple as saying 'businesses change in each answer'. Often there's a core of the same, but the list changes in length. That's still reported as 'different'. 🗾 Google Maps is still more reliable, and ranking on it doesn't lead directly to AI mentions. 🛜 Websites still matter. AIs use them a lot for their info. Full study: https://lnkd.in/eUhrYWxt

The point of all our AI work at BrightLocal 🇺🇦 comes down to one thing: our customers. They don't care how much AI we use, and they shouldn't. They care that we make their jobs easier, solve their problems, and lead them to better answers faster. And that when they need a human, there's someone there who understands them. AI gives us the means to build better products and services that solve their issues with greater speed and impact. But technology is only half the equation. Our people bring the things AI cannot replace – connection, empathy, and the judgment to know when quality is right. These are what build a genuine understanding of our customers and their needs, and what earns their trust in us. So we use AI to free up our team to spend more of their time where that judgment and connection count most, with human oversight applied at the key stages of delivery. That's the real opportunity here. Not replacing the people doing great work, but giving them the tools and the time to do even better work, and giving our customers more of the people who know them best. My benchmark: Is it making things meaningfully better for our customers? How are other leaders measuring that?

Websites crawled by AI saw 3.2x more human traffic. That’s just one finding from Duda’s research into more than 858,000 small business websites. We’ll be digging into the data with Shawn Davis from Duda to uncover what’s helping local businesses get discovered by AI, and what you can do about it. Join us on September 24 at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm BST. Come see what the data has to say. Sign up now 👇 https://lnkd.in/eTpZNHgq