When someone searches "emergency electrician near me," Google now often answers with AI before they ever see the map pack. If your business isn't in that answer, you're invisible at the exact moment of highest intent.
Google's AI Overviews now generate a written answer at the very top of many "near me" searches — often above the map pack and the ads. For UK service businesses, that means the first thing a customer reads about your trade may be an AI summary you didn't write, naming competitors you didn't choose.
If you run a trade, clinic, or service business, the way customers find you on Google changed quietly over the last year. Here's what actually happened, and what to do about it.
An AI Overview is the AI-generated paragraph (or set of bullet points) Google now places at the top of many search results. Instead of a list of ten blue links, the searcher gets a synthesised answer — pulled from multiple websites — with a handful of cited sources beside it.
Google has confirmed AI Overviews now appear for a large share of searches, and they increasingly trigger on local, commercial queries — the exact "find someone to do this job" searches your customers run.
"Near me" searches are the most valuable queries in your world. Someone typing "emergency plumber near me" or "Invisalign dentist near me" is not browsing — they are ready to book. They used to scroll straight to the Google Map Pack (the top three local businesses on the map).
Now, many of those searchers read an AI Overview first. That changes the game in three ways:
The signals that win an AI Overview citation are the same signals that win the Map Pack — just turned up louder:
AI is now the front page of Google for the searches that matter most to you. The businesses that win aren't the ones with the flashiest website — they're the ones with a steady stream of fresh reviews, accurate information everywhere Google looks, and a system that answers every enquiry instantly.
That's exactly what Remy and Rosie are built to do: engineer the review momentum and local consistency that get you named in the answer, while Rex makes sure every resulting call gets picked up.
Not sure whether you appear in AI answers for your own trade and town? Get a free Visibility Report — within 24 hours we'll show you exactly where you show up across Google Search, Maps, and AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity, and where you don't.
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