For years, local search followed a rough sequence, shaped largely by the dominance of Google. A consumer searches, evaluates results, chooses one, and converts.
That model is breaking down.
People no longer move through a simple linear funnel, according to SOCi’s 2026 Local Discovery Index, an annual survey of more than 1,000 U.S. consumers now in its third year. Their behavior resembles a loop: discovering a business on one channel, seeking corroborating info in another, and using a third to make a final decision, often within the same few minutes.
The most dramatic evidence of this fragmentation is the rise of AI search. The share of consumers who used an AI tool to find a local business in the last 30 days rose from 9% in 2025 to 52% in 2026, close to a sixfold increase in a single year.
But the data also shows something search marketers should note: usage and trust are moving in opposite directions. The more consumers rely on AI, the more they double-check it using other sources like search and social. That raises the stakes on cross-channel brand consistency.
Local discovery is a loop, not a funnel
The study’s central finding reframes how the customer journey works. Consumers:
- Discover local businesses across multiple channels:
- 83% use search.
- 55% use social.
- 52% use AI.
- Verify before committing:
- 99% read reviews.
- 43% preview a business on social media.
- Decide on a mix of signals:
- 72% favor businesses that respond to reviews.
- 63% have walked away from a business that couldn’t answer a question they needed answered.
There’s no single entry point to focus on and no orderly hand-off between channels to manage.
A consumer might meet a brand in an AI-generated answer, compare it against competitors in recent reviews, and decide based on a video they saw on Instagram, in any order. We call this the verification loop: discovery on one channel gets cross-checked against others before a decision gets made.
The loop exists because no single channel is both complete and trustworthy on its own. AI is fast but sometimes wrong. Reviews are credible but rarely contain everything a consumer needs. Search is comprehensive but unfiltered. Consumers compensate by triangulating.
It’s worth noting that the more complex the path, the less last touch attribution explains.
AI adoption for local search has reached a tipping point
Three years of data make the trend line clear:
- In 2024, almost no consumers used AI to find local businesses.
- By early 2025, roughly 19% had tried an AI search.
- By 2026, 60% use AI as a frequent discovery channel, and 52% use it for local business research.
Adoption is not even across the population, which matters for anyone segmenting by demographics.
Regular AI use rises from 47% among consumers earning under $50,000 to 76% among those earning $100,000 or more. By generation, Millennials are the heaviest users at 63%, ahead of Gen Z (49%) and Gen X (48%), with Baby Boomers far behind at 11%. The likeliest AI researchers are Millennials with money to spend.
Consumers seek AI out directly (57% use ChatGPT, 51% use Gemini) and encounter it passively inside tools they already use: 51% have seen an AI answer at the top of Google results, 35% have clicked into Google’s AI Mode, and roughly a third have encountered AI content on Meta’s platforms or in mapping apps.
Local consumers generally don’t trust what AI tells them
Usage is climbing sharply. Trust is not.
Among AI users, 67% say they’ve been given wrong information about a local business at least once, and 30% say that bad information caused a real inconvenience. Only 27% say their trust in AI has grown over the past year, meaning 73% haven’t seen their confidence increase, and 23% say their trust has declined.
That gap spurs verification. When an AI tool recommends a business, 81% of consumers take some kind of verification step first, checking reviews (33%), the business’s social media (20%), search (16%), or multiple sources (12%). Only 19% go straight from an AI recommendation to contact.
Winning the AI answer is necessary but not sufficient. A business that appears in an AI-generated response but has thin reviews or an inactive social presence risks losing the customer at the next step. AI visibility and reputation aren’t separate problems to manage; they’re stages of the same evaluation process.
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Social platforms are functioning as search engines
For a meaningful share of consumers, social platforms now work like search engines. Use of social media to discover local businesses rose from 17% in 2024 to 55% in 2026, and 43% use social specifically to preview what a place is like before visiting. Among social searchers, Facebook (73%) and YouTube (69%) lead, ahead of Instagram (67%) and TikTok (50%).
What’s notable is that the leading platforms are the older, high-reach ones, not the newest. YouTube’s second-place finish points to real demand for video that shows the atmosphere of a place or lets a service provider display expertise. TikTok reaches half of social searchers but skews younger; it’s the one platform Gen Z favors over Facebook.
Social also converts: 59% say a social post or video has turned them into a customer of a local business, climbing to 70% among Millennials and holding above half for Gen X (54%) and Gen Z (52%), while dropping off among Baby Boomers (22%).
Reviews still gate the decision; responses change outcomes
AI and social expanded the discovery ecosystem, but reviews remain the filter that decides who makes the shortlist. They are, in effect, the Reddit of local: the biggest readily available source of peer feedback.
Ninety-nine percent of consumers read reviews before a first visit at least some of the time, and 68% do so always or most of the time. That’s no surprise: reputation isn’t just a ranking signal, it’s closer to a gating factor.
What’s changed is how much consumers reward engagement, not just star count. Seventy-two percent are more likely to choose a business that responds to its reviews, up from 65% in 2025. Sixty-five percent say they’d be more likely to revisit after a helpful response to a negative review, and 87% say they’d consider revising that review to a positive one.
Reputation sensitivity tracks with income. The share reading reviews always or most of the time rises from 63% among those earning under $50,000 to 76% among those earning $100,000 or more, and the preference for businesses that respond rises from 62% to 80% across the same range. Higher-value customers are the most reputation driven.
The journey looks different by industry
Where consumers start, and what determines their choice, both vary by industry.
Search leads in every category studied, but the runner-up shifts.
- AI-first journeys are most common in healthcare (21%) and grocery (19%).
- Social is surprisingly popular for financial services (20%).
- Mapping apps are the most common entry point for fuel and auto (25%), which tracks with how those searches tend to be need-driven and location-specific.
Decision factors split by category, too.
- Reviews and word of mouth lead in five of eight categories, from restaurants (41%) to healthcare (38%).
- Visual content is the top deciding factor for apartment searches (43%), while practical details like hours and location matter most for grocery (37%) and fuel (36%).
- Brand credentials carry the most weight in financial services (34%).
A one-size-fits-all visibility strategy will not match what each category prioritizes.
Takeaways for search marketers
Fundamentally, it’s important to track signals like these so your marketing strategy matches the behavior of today’s consumers. No survey measures this perfectly, but the Local Discovery Index signals are strong enough to act on:
- Understand the journey. Today’s consumers loop from search to AI to social, so brands must be available on all prominent channels.
- Overcome the AI trust gap. Establish accurate, consistent signals in search and social that reinforce AI answers.
- Treat social as a local channel. Consumers want local social presence that engages and informs, not national or regional marketing.
- Reputation is built one local review at a time. Local reviews shape AI visibility and consumer choice, and responding improves conversion.
- Industry context changes the playbook. What decides a healthcare visit isn’t what decides a grocery run or an apartment tour. Category-specific benchmarks beat blended averages.
Methodology
SOCi surveyed more than 1,000 U.S. consumers for the 2026 Local Discovery Index, weighting results to mirror the U.S. population on age (median 39), gender (near 50/50), and household income (median roughly $81,600). Respondents were asked how they discover, evaluate, and choose local businesses across search, social media, AI, maps, and reviews. Figures for 2024 and 2025 come from the two prior annual editions, previously published as the Consumer Behavior Index. Figures are rounded to the nearest whole number.