What’s actually changing
79% of New Zealanders used AI in the past year, and 58% use it at least weekly (InternetNZ Aotearoa Internet Insights, 2025). 55% of Kiwi AI users use it inside search engines, the single most common use (InternetNZ Aotearoa Internet Insights, 2025). And it’s not just search inside search: 39% of Kiwis surveyed had used an AI chatbot instead of a search engine (IAB New Zealand, 2025).
Overseas the pattern is the same and further along: 45% of consumers have used AI to get local business recommendations, and 88% still check the business out afterwards (BrightLocal, 2026). People trust the shortlist, then check. That means two things for a small business: you need to be on the shortlist, and what they find when they check needs to hold up.
How an AI decides who to recommend
Nobody outside the labs knows the exact recipe, but the pattern is clear from what AI assistants actually cite. They read the same things a careful human would:
- Your website: can it tell in one pass what you do, where, for whom, and how to contact you?
- Reviews: Google, and increasingly others. Volume, recency and what people actually say.
- Directories and maps: Google Business Profile, Bing Places (ChatGPT leans on Bing’s index), Apple Maps and NZ directories. Consistency across them reads as legitimacy.
- Mentions elsewhere: local news, industry bodies, suppliers, community pages.
- Clear, quotable facts: an AI recommends businesses it can describe confidently. Vague marketing copy gives it nothing to work with.
Put simply: the AI is doing what a diligent customer would do, faster. The businesses that are clear, consistent and well-reviewed get recommended. The ones hiding behind slogans don’t.
The checklist
- Say what you do in plain words on your homepage and every service page. “Emergency plumber serving Hamilton, Cambridge and Te Awamutu, available 24/7” is quotable. “Solutions that flow” is not.
- Keep your facts identical everywhere (name, address, phone, hours, services) across your site, Google, Bing, Apple and directories.
- Answer real questions on real pages. What does it cost? How long does it take? Do you cover my suburb? Put the answer first, then the detail.
- Collect reviews continuously and respond to them. This is the strongest trust signal for AI and humans alike.
- Add structured data (LocalBusiness, Service, FAQ) so machines can read your details without guessing.
- Let AI crawlers read your site. Some websites block them in robots.txt by default. If you want to be recommended, you need to be readable.
- Claim Bing Places and Apple Business Connect, not just Google.
- Make your site fast and mobile-friendly. AI tools visit your pages; slow or broken pages get skipped.
Three myths to ignore
- “You need an llms.txt file.” Google has said plainly it has no effect on visibility. Harmless, optional, not a strategy.
- “AI search needs a whole new discipline.” Agencies are selling “GEO” and “AEO” packages. The work is the same as good SEO done honestly: clarity, consistency, reviews, structure. If someone quotes you a separate AI-search retainer, ask what’s in it that good SEO isn’t.
- “AI will replace Google.” Not this year. Google handles 88.8% of searches in New Zealand (Statcounter, July 2026). Build for both; they reward the same things.
Google’s AI answers
Google now shows AI-written summaries above many results, with the sources it drew from linked underneath. Being one of those sources is the new position one. Google’s own guidance is that there are no special requirements: helpful, clear, well-structured pages that answer the question get cited. Which is exactly the checklist above.
Every website and SEO plan we build includes this by default, because it isn’t a separate thing. Here’s how we approach SEO, and here’s how we use AI ourselves.