How do local businesses show up in AI search?

They are among the strongest single signals. AI engines routinely cite review platforms when justifying a recommendation, and a brand with no verifiable review presence gives the model nothing to point at. Engines will sometimes state outright that they could not find reviews for a brand — and then recommend a competitor whose ratings they can quote.

Decide the canonical version of every core fact, publish it plainly on your own site in both text and structured data, then propagate it to every profile you control and request correction everywhere you do not. Inconsistency is penalised because a model that finds three answers will confidently state none of them.

Entity SEO is making sure search and AI systems understand your brand as a specific, identifiable thing rather than a string of characters. It matters because AI engines reconcile what they read against a knowledge graph — a brand they cannot resolve confidently is one they are reluctant to name.