BrightLocal’s 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey found that about 45% of US consumers had used generative AI tools such as ChatGPT to get a local business recommendation, up from 6% the year before. It is a survey of around a thousand adults, and BrightLocal publishes the full report, so read the method before you quote the figure. The direction is clear: some of your next customers will ask an AI assistant who to call instead of searching Google.
What the same survey says about reviews
The survey also reports that 97% of consumers still lean on reviews to guide a purchase, and that Google’s share as a review source fell from 83% to 71% in a year. Reviews are not going away, and they are spread across more places than they used to be.
What to do about it
- Complete your Google Business Profile: services, service areas, hours, photos and a clear description of the windows and doors you install.
- Ask every satisfied customer for a review while the finished job is fresh, and reply to the ones you get.
- Keep your name, address and phone number identical everywhere you are listed. Assistants cross-check sources, and inconsistencies make a business look less certain.
- Publish plain, specific pages about what you do and where, in the words a homeowner would use: “replace rotten windows in a 1950s house”, not “fenestration solutions”.
- Put real projects online. A before-and-after of a recognizable local street is more convincing than stock photography.
What nobody can promise
No one outside the AI companies can tell you how an assistant chooses which contractors to name. Agencies selling “AI visibility” services mostly cannot either, and the conversion figures they quote are rarely independently verified. The sensible approach is the one above: be clearly and consistently present, with good reviews, in the places the assistants read.
Once a homeowner has found you, the proposal is your next impression. A branded link with a render of their own house, sent the same day, tells them you are organized before you have fitted a window. See also render software for US installers.