Does your Google Business Profile get you into AI answers?

What 30 days of Burnaby searches show.

The short version

Yes, for Google's own AI. Mostly no, for everything else.

• Google's AI leaned on Google's own pages. For "best electrician in Burnaby BC", Gemini linked to Google Maps in 24 of 32 answers. Google AI Mode linked to Google's own result pages in 27 of 32. (The data)
• ChatGPT and Perplexity never linked to Google at all. ChatGPT still named the business in 30 of 31 answers. It got there through list sites and directories. (What each AI cited)
• AI Overviews mostly didn't show up. Google showed no AI Overview for this search on 29 of 32 days. The map pack, where your Business Profile lives, was the answer.
• The office address didn't decide it. The business is based in Vancouver, yet ChatGPT named it in 97% of Burnaby answers and 23% of Vancouver ones. (The address test)
• So: keep the Business Profile strong for Google, and work the directories for everyone else. (What to do)

I manage Google Business Profiles for local clients, and since AI search arrived the question I hear most is whether all that profile work carries over. I didn't want to answer from opinion, so I looked at a month of real answers for one local business, on one local search, in five AI systems.

The short answer

Your Google Business Profile matters a lot for Google's AI, and appears to matter very little for ChatGPT and Perplexity.

Google says as much in its own guidance. Its guide to optimising for generative AI features in Search covers local businesses, and Localogy's summary of that guide walks through what it says about local results. Google's page on AI features and your website also lists keeping your Business Profile information up to date as one of the basics.

What Google doesn't publish is which parts of the profile its AI uses, or how much. And ChatGPT and Perplexity aren't Google products at all. So the useful question is what each AI system actually did, and that's what the data below shows.

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How we measured it

The short answer: one real business, two local searches, five AI systems, every day for a month.

Our tool, LLM Visibility Lens, tracks Kato Electrical, a Vancouver-area electrician and our public demo. Every morning it asks his customers' questions from his own city in ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews and Perplexity, without logging in. It stores every answer, every business named and every source link. Google links are kept with their path, so a Google Maps link and a Google search link count separately.

This article covers 5 September to 6 October 2026 and two searches:

• "best electrician in Burnaby BC"
• "who is the best electrician in Vancouver BC", for comparison. Kato's office address is in Vancouver.

Perplexity was added on 23 September, so it has 13 days of answers; the others have about 32.

What this data can't tell you. We see what each AI cited and who it named. We can't see inside Kato's Business Profile (its exact categories, service areas or review count) or how it ranks in the map pack on a given day. So the links between profile and AI answer here are strong patterns, not proof. It's also one business and one trade. The method is on the how it works page.

I sell this tracker, so weigh my view accordingly. You can check every number in the demo.

Burnaby: five AI systems, one search

The short answer: three of the five systems named Kato for Burnaby at least half the time, and two of those three got there through Google's own pages.

Two things jump out.

Google's AI reached for Google. Gemini's single biggest source for this question was Google Maps: 86 links across 24 answers. AI Mode linked back into Google's own result pages 501 times across 27 answers. When AI Mode did that, it named Kato in 24 of those 27 answers. Kato's own website barely featured: one AI Mode answer cited it.

AI Overviews stepped aside. Google showed an AI Overview on only 3 of 32 days for this search. The rest of the time the page led with the map pack. For this kind of short "best [service] in [city]" search, your Business Profile is the answer, as we explained in why near me searches show no AI Overview.

You can open any of these days in the live demo and read exactly what each system said.

What each AI cited

Google's two AI systems leaned on Google. ChatGPT and Perplexity leaned on directories and list sites, and never linked to Google once.

ChatGPT: list sites that already name you. ChatGPT named Kato in 30 of 31 Burnaby answers without a single Google link. Here's what it cited:

Every answer that cited one of these sites named Kato. The pattern suggests he appears on the Burnaby pages of these lists and directories, and ChatGPT repeated them. That fits what we found across a whole month of ChatGPT sources in ChatGPT citations for local businesses: no Google Maps, no Business Profile, lots of directories and "best of" lists.

Perplexity: same directories, different pages. Perplexity cited BBB (13 answers), HomeStars (8), bestprosintown.com (9), Bark (11) and others for Burnaby. It named Kato in none of them. Yet for Vancouver, the same directories (HomeStars in 13 answers, BBB in 12) came with his name 9 times each. Our reading: Perplexity reads the city-specific pages on these sites, and his listing turns up on the Vancouver pages but not the Burnaby ones. More on Perplexity in Perplexity vs ChatGPT.

Gemini and AI Mode: Google's own data. Gemini linked to Google Maps in three-quarters of its Burnaby answers. AI Mode linked into Google's own result pages in 84%. Neither needed Kato's website to recommend him. That's consistent with what we saw over the full month in Google AI Mode for local businesses, where 58% of AI Mode's links pointed back to Google.

Burnaby vs Vancouver: the office-address test

If a Business Profile's address were what drove AI answers, Kato should do best in Vancouver, where his office is. He doesn't, at least not everywhere.

• ChatGPT: 97% in Burnaby, 23% in Vancouver. For Vancouver it cited different list sites (bestprosintown.com in 27 answers, verifiednode.com in 25, trustanalytica.org in 15), and they mostly didn't name him.
• Google AI Mode: 78% in both. The two Google-driven systems were the steadiest across the two cities. For Vancouver, though, AI Mode linked to Google's pages far less (6 answers) and leaned on HomeStars, Yelp and a Housecall Pro booking page instead. When that booking page was cited, it named Kato in 16 of 16 answers.
• AI Overviews: for Vancouver, an AI Overview appeared on 25 of 32 days and named Kato in 13. When it cited his own website, it named him all 13 times.
• Perplexity: 0% in Burnaby, 69% in Vancouver. The opposite of ChatGPT.

So the city in your address isn't the deciding factor for ChatGPT or Perplexity. Which lists and directory pages name you for that city is. Google's AI moved less between cities, which is what you'd expect if Google's own local data is doing most of the work.

What Google says

Google is clear that its normal rules apply. Its page on AI features and your website says there are no special requirements for AI Overviews or AI Mode, and lists up-to-date Business Profile information among the basics. Its newer guide to optimising for generative AI features, summarised by Localogy, adds local-business guidance. Google's own business help page explains that local results rank mainly on relevance, distance and prominence.

What Google hasn't published: which profile fields its AI reads, how it picks which businesses to name, or any review threshold. If someone tells you AI Mode needs 4.6 stars or reads your last 30 reviews, they're guessing.

What this means for your Business Profile

Keep it strong, because Google's AI clearly draws on Google's own local data. But don't expect it to carry ChatGPT or Perplexity.

1. Treat the profile as your Gemini and AI Mode page. Correct primary category, real services, accurate service areas (include the suburbs you actually serve), hours, photos, and steady reviews with replies. Google's guide to business details in Search covers what it reads.
2. Win the map pack for short local searches. When Google shows no AI Overview, as with Burnaby on 29 of 32 days, the map pack is the whole result.
3. Make your booking page match the profile. AI Mode cited a Housecall Pro booking page in 16 Vancouver answers and named Kato every time. Same name, services and areas everywhere.

What to do beyond the Business Profile

For ChatGPT and Perplexity, the work happens on other sites.

1. Find the list sites ChatGPT reads for each city. For Burnaby, ThreeBestRated, HomeStars, PublicLeads and BBB all named Kato, and ChatGPT followed them. For Vancouver, it read different lists that mostly didn't. Check whether you're on the lists for each city you serve, and read how each site selects businesses before paying anyone.
2. Check the city pages on the big directories. Perplexity read HomeStars and BBB for both cities but only named Kato from the Vancouver pages. Make sure your directory profiles list every area you serve, so you appear on each city's page.
3. Keep your website answerable. AI Overviews named Kato every time they cited his site for Vancouver. Pages that say plainly what you do, where, and for whom are what Google's index feeds its AI. See how to rank in AI Overviews.
4. Let the crawlers in. ChatGPT and Perplexity can only read your site if their crawlers can reach it. See how to rank in ChatGPT.
5. Check each AI separately. The five systems rarely agree, as we showed in 5 AI systems, 35 questions. A strong Business Profile can make you look great in AI Mode while ChatGPT names someone else.

BrightLocal's study of AI directory sources is a good guide to which directories matter in other countries. In the US, Yelp shows up more than it did in our Canadian data.

How to check your own

Ask your customers' local questions in each AI system from your own city, logged out, daily for a few weeks. Note who each one names and which sites it links to, especially whether it links to Google Maps. One check isn't enough; see what one free check can and can't do.

LLM Visibility Lens does this every morning across all five systems. It keeps every source, so you can see whether an AI is reading your Business Profile, your website or the directories.

Each month it turns that into an action plan: the directories and list sites to get onto for each city, and the questions where nobody is named yet.

Agencies managing Business Profiles for clients can add AI visibility reports under their own name. See the agency plan.

The plans start free. There's a plain comparison with Semrush's AI visibility tool, the changelog, the FAQ page and the security page. Background reading: We asked AI who to hire 80 times, why there's no rank #1 in ChatGPT and spoken questions. If you'd like me to look at how AI treats your Business Profile, get in touch.

Questions people ask

Harjeet Singh Bedi Founder, LLM Visibility Lens · SEO consultant, Bedi SEO

Harjeet has worked in SEO since 2010, first in agencies and now running Bedi SEO, where he manages Google Business Profiles and local SEO for clients. He built LLM Visibility Lens after clients kept asking whether they showed up in ChatGPT and Google's AI and nobody could give them an honest, measured answer. Every figure in this article comes from answers his tool collected.

Connect with Harjeet on LinkedIn