23 September 2026 · 6 min read · Oscar Markham
What AI search actually means for a local business
People increasingly ask an AI assistant rather than typing into a search box, and every agency in the country has started selling a service about it. Most of that is speculation. Here is what can be said with reasonable confidence, and what you can genuinely do about it.
Where the answers come from
AI assistants answering a local question are mostly reading the same public web that search engines index — your website, your Google profile, directories, reviews and news. They are not reading a separate AI index you can submit to.
Which means the work that makes you findable in search is largely the same work that makes you quotable by an assistant. That is the single most useful thing to understand about this.
What appears to matter
Clear, factual, consistent information. An assistant summarising your business needs to find what you do, where you work and what it costs, stated plainly and matching across your site, your profile and directories.
Contradictions hurt. If your website says you cover three counties and your Google profile says one, an assistant has no way to resolve that and may simply use a competitor whose details are consistent.
- Consistent name, address and phone number everywhere
- Plain statements of what you do and where
- Prices or ranges, stated in text rather than in an image
- Real FAQs answering what people actually ask
- Structured data marking up your services and location
- Reviews, which assistants frequently summarise
The thing you can do that most cannot
Answer questions directly on your site, in text, in the words a customer would use. Assistants extract answers; they cannot extract from a PDF brochure, an image of a price list or a page written entirely in marketing language.
A page that says 'a standard boiler service in Kildare costs €90 and takes about an hour' is quotable. A page that says 'we pride ourselves on exceptional service' is not.
What is being oversold
Submission services promising to register you with AI engines. Schema packages sold as an AI ranking fix. Anyone quoting a guaranteed position in an AI answer.
There is no submission process, no ranking to buy, and no reliable way to verify a guarantee. Treat all of it with suspicion.
The honest position
This is early and it is moving. The defensible strategy is the one that was already correct: accurate information, stated plainly, consistent everywhere, with real reviews behind it.
If something specific and reliable emerges, it will be worth doing then. Paying for it now is paying for a guess.
Written by Oscar Markham, founder of Dublin Growth Digital. We run lead generation for Irish estate agents and trades, reported every Friday in enquiries and booked work.