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Two out of three shops near you fell off Google
Joy Hawkins measured Google's new AI local results in May 2026 and found only 32 percent of businesses survived the switch. Review recency and photo freshness now decide whether your shop makes the cut.
A plumber in Fishers showed me his Google Business Profile analytics last Tuesday. Calls from Google had dropped by almost half since April. His profile looked clean. Reviews were current, photos were there, hours were correct. He hadn't done anything wrong.
I didn't have a good answer for him. A few weeks later, Joy Hawkins published the measurement that explains it.
Hawkins is a local SEO researcher who has tracked Google's local results for more than a decade. Her data has been the standard the industry uses to understand what Google is actually showing people. In late May 2026, she ran a fresh measurement comparing Google's new AI-powered local results against the old three-listing map pack.
Only 32 percent of the businesses that appeared in the old map pack appear in the new AI local result.
Two out of every three shops that used to appear when a Fishers homeowner searched for a plumber, or a Carmel resident searched for a salon, are now invisible in that AI answer.
What the new Google local results look like
The old map pack showed three businesses with a phone number and a directions link under each. You tapped the number, called the shop, done.
That format is changing for search terms where Google has enabled agentic booking, which as of June 2026 includes home repair, beauty, and pet care, with more categories rolling out this summer. Instead of a three-business list with a call button, Google writes a conversational answer and surfaces a smaller set of businesses. The call button is gone. Hawkins confirmed this. It's not a display glitch.
If your shop isn't in the set Google chooses for that answer, you're not in the answer.
Why did your shop fall out of Google's results?
The AI local result doesn't use the same ranking signals the old map pack did. The pattern across Hawkins's analysis and the June 2026 FOMO.ai local search data:
Review recency beats review count. A barbershop with 40 reviews from the last two months outranks a barbershop with 400 reviews where the most recent came in last fall. If you got a surge of reviews in 2022 or 2023 and haven't asked for one since, the AI is reading your profile as dormant.
Photo freshness on your Google Business Profile. The AI checks whether you're actively maintaining your listing. Photos from three years ago, even the good ones, signal inactivity. New photos added in the last few weeks signal that you're open and current. Real photos of your space or your work. Stock images don't register.
Those two signals, review recency and photo freshness, are what separate the 32 percent from the 68 percent for most shops.
The phone stopped ringing and nothing was wrong with the profile. That's the new problem.
What to do this week
Pull up your Google Business Profile. Click on Performance. Look at the calls you received in May and June 2026 compared to February 2026.
If calls are down and your profile looks otherwise fine, you've likely fallen into the 68 percent.
The fix is unglamorous. Ask every paying customer for a review before they walk out. Send a follow-up text the same day with a direct link to your Google review page. Do it for every job, not just the ones where you expect five stars. Five reviews a week from recent customers beats twenty reviews from a push you ran eighteen months ago.
Upload a photo to your Google profile this week. Something recent: a finished job, your counter, your team. Then do it again next week. Two minutes.
If your business takes bookings
Service businesses that accept appointments have one more piece to think about. Google is rolling agentic booking out to all US users this summer. When someone searches for your service in AI Mode, Google's system tries to complete the booking inside the search result. The customer never goes to your website.
If you run Housecall Pro, ServiceTitan, or Jobber, you likely have the agentic booking endpoint available. Log in and confirm it's enabled and pointed at your live availability. If you schedule out of a paper calendar or a Google Calendar that only you touch, you won't receive AI-generated bookings until that changes.
For most shops, the review and photo work is the move with the highest return right now. The booking endpoint is the next step for the ones who want to compete at the top of the AI result for their category.
The plumber in Fishers is going through his job history from May. He's sending a review request to every customer he closed. It's tedious, costs nothing, and the results show up within a month.
That's a reasonable way to spend a Tuesday afternoon right now.
Sources
| # | Source | What it backed up |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The New AI Local Pack Cuts Two Out Of Three Businesses (Marketing Code, June 4, 2026) | Joy Hawkins's 32% measurement, the call button removal, review and photo recency signals, agentic booking details and timing. |
| 2 | Google Search's I/O 2026 updates: AI agents and more (Google Blog) | Agentic booking rollout categories (home repair, beauty, pet care) and summer 2026 timeline. |
| 3 | Google's AI Mode Begins Rolling Out Agentic Booking (Stan Ventures) | Confirmation of agentic booking rollout to US users. |
| 4 | Introducing Search Generative AI performance reports in Search Console (Google Search Central Blog, June 2026) | Google's June 2026 announcement on AI impression data now tracked in Search Console. |
All sources verified 2026-06-26.