Each day the amount of traffic searching for information online is shifting away from the traditional search engines like Google, and is diverting to the AI chat based solutions like ChatGPT. These services provide users with a natural "answer" vs. a list of links that users have to dig through themselves.This answer format is more attractive to users in many cases, and users are switching. Since answers for local service providers contains recommendations for specific providers, those who want to be included need to work on ranking into that shot list.

As voice search becomes more prevalent, AI can help small businesses optimize their online presence for this growing trend.AI voice will save a tremendous amount of time and money staffing the phones for Support, Operations, Training and Sales, both inbound and outbound.

The shortlist is what we call the very few local service provider names that are offered to a user in an AI Answer engine (compared to Google). Depending on many criteria, the list of names could range from as low as 1-3 or up to 5-7 (only).

AI Agents are the known future of AI search, and what we are preparing for. Agents are autonomous and empowered to complete a task. They will gravitate towards service providers who have the ability to help them complete their task, e.g. set up an appointment.