Your Next Customer’s First Conversation May Already Have Happened With AI.

← Back to Insights

Part 2 of our look at AI search and local businesses

In Part 1, we looked at CallRail’s research on how customers discover businesses through AI. The home services figure we cited amounted to fewer than two calls out of every thousand.

That was a reason to keep AI search in proportion.

We also left a question open: What if those calls are better leads?

If some of the researching, comparing and narrowing happens in an AI conversation, it makes sense that a customer might arrive further along in the decision.

A recent article by Duane Forrester in Search Engine Journal gives us a useful example of what that can look like. It also gives us a reason to be careful about what “further along” actually means.

The customer who already did some homework.

Forrester describes shopping for a truck. He gave an AI assistant the VIN and received a summary covering the vehicle’s history, pricing and potential problems, along with questions to ask the dealership.

He says he arrived knowing more about that particular truck than the person selling it.

Now consider how a customer might prepare before contacting a local service business.

• A Kansas City homeowner could ask what goes into a roof replacement estimate and what to ask a contractor.
• Someone considering dental implants could research the process, recovery and factors that affect the cost.
• A person looking for an attorney could ask what experience matters for their particular situation.

For the customer who does this kind of research, your first conversation may begin somewhere different than you expect.

They may already have questions, expectations and an idea of what a good answer should sound like.

More confident doesn’t necessarily mean better informed.

There’s an important detail in Forrester’s story.

He acknowledged that he hadn’t verified everything the AI assistant told him. His preparation had increased his confidence without necessarily giving him a way to judge the accuracy of every answer.

That’s the complication for a local business owner.

A customer may call with a price range that doesn’t fit the job. They may expect a service you don’t offer. They may misunderstand what makes one approach appropriate and another unsuitable.

They can be further along in their research and still need help understanding what applies to them.

And some of what they were told may be about you. When AI has limited or inconsistent information about a business, it can describe that business inaccurately or point the customer to a competitor instead. You won’t see that conversation. Your customer will have had it anyway.

So, are these better leads?

Further along in the research doesn’t automatically mean more ready to buy, or more likely to choose you.

The example helps explain why our question is worth asking. It doesn’t settle it. We still don’t have enough evidence here to claim higher closing rates for local service businesses.

Small referral numbers don’t tell the whole story.

There’s also a measurement question worth considering.

A customer can use AI to research a problem, understand the options and decide what questions to ask. Then they can open Google, look up a business and call from its Google Business Profile.

Where does that lead get counted?

It may get counted as Google. And Google did help produce the call.

But AI may have helped shape the decision that came before it.

The AI doesn’t even have to be a separate tool. Pew Research Center found that six in ten U.S. adults say they read the AI summaries at the top of search engine results. A customer can be influenced by AI without ever opening ChatGPT.

We don’t have a reliable number for how often this happens among local service customers. But even the possibility means we should be careful about treating AI-attributed calls as a complete measure of AI’s influence.

Keep the numbers in proportion. Understand what they measure.

AI research is becoming ordinary.

Pew’s 2026 survey also found that 49% of U.S. adults report using AI chatbots, and 42% report using them to search for information.

That doesn’t tell us how many are choosing a roofer, dentist or attorney with AI. It does tell us that using these tools to look things up is becoming familiar to a substantial share of the public.

For a business owner, the practical question is straightforward:

When a customer does research before contacting us, are we giving them good reasons to understand, trust and choose our business?

That question matters whether the research happens in Google, an AI conversation or both.

Start with the evidence. Then pay attention to the conversation.

Our advice from Part 1 still applies.

A complete Google Business Profile. Meaningful customer reviews. Accurate business information across the web. Clearly described services and service areas. A website that answers useful questions and demonstrates what you know. Fresh, useful content, published consistently.

Keep doing those things well.

They give customers, and the systems helping customers, clearer information to work with. They won’t guarantee an AI recommendation or prevent every mistaken answer. They are still work worth doing.

Two additional habits make sense.

Take a look at what AI says about your business.

Ask about your services, your service area and whether your business fits a particular need. Try some of the questions a prospective customer might ask.

Are you mentioned? Is the description accurate? What sources, if any, support the answer?

Treat those answers as spot checks. They can vary between tools and conversations. One answer won’t tell you everything, but it may reveal something worth investigating.

Ask customers: “What have you already looked into before reaching out to us?”

Whether someone calls or walks into your business, that simple question can tell you more than launching into the same explanation you give everyone.

Some people will need the basics. Others will want help comparing options. Some will need an expectation clarified.

Listen first. Explain what applies to their situation and why.

That’s an opportunity to earn trust.

Keep the main thing the main thing.

Customers have always formed opinions before contacting a business.

AI gives them another way to do that, and it can help them assemble information much faster.

Your opportunity is to make your business easier to understand during that research, and then be helpful when the conversation reaches you.

Get Found. Get Trusted. Get Chosen.

The fundamentals still matter. So does what happens when the customer reaches you.