2026 AI Discovery Research Series

How Consumers Are Changing Local Search in 2026 — and What South Carolina Businesses Should Know

Customers have not stopped using Google, reviews, or business websites. They have added a new first step: asking an AI system to narrow the choices. Several large 2025-2026 studies show that this behavior is moving into the mainstream.

By SC Marketing & AI Research•Published August 2026

Key Findings

Newsroom Snapshot

45% of U.S. consumers in BrightLocal's 2026 survey said they had used AI tools for local-business recommendations, up from 6% in the prior year's survey.
31% used ChatGPT for business recommendations in the prior 12 months; 23% used Google AI Mode, according to BrightLocal.
64% of adults ages 30-44 in the BrightLocal survey had asked AI for a local-business recommendation, compared with 24% of adults over 60.
42% of U.S. adults told Pew Research Center in 2026 that they use AI chatbots to search for information, and 60% said they read AI summaries at the top of search results.
97% of AI users in BrightLocal's local-recommendation research said they at least sometimes double-check AI recommendations against real reviews.

These are national U.S. figures. No source cited here establishes that exactly 45% — or any other national percentage — applies specifically to South Carolina consumers.

The change is not Google versus AI

The most useful way to understand local discovery in 2026 is not to imagine that one channel has replaced another.

A customer might ask ChatGPT for three HVAC companies, search one of the names on Google, check its reviews, open the company website, look at Facebook, and then call. Another customer may start with Google AI Mode and never open a traditional result until she is ready to verify a recommendation.

The journey is becoming layered.

BrightLocal's 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey is especially useful because it focuses on local-business behavior. The survey used a representative panel of 1,002 U.S. adults. It found that 45% had used AI tools for local-business recommendations, compared with 6% in the prior year's survey.

ChatGPT was the most-used individual AI tool for this purpose at 31%, followed by Google AI Mode at 23%.

National Consumer Adoption Data

U.S. consumer research on AI search & recommendation adoption

45%

Used AI for Local Business Recs

BrightLocal 2026 (up from 6% in prior year)

31%

Used ChatGPT for Recs

BrightLocal 2026 (23% used Google AI Mode)

64%

Ages 30-44 Asked AI for Recs

BrightLocal 2026 (vs 24% of adults over 60)

42%

Use Chatbots to Search

Pew Research Center 2026 (60% read AI summaries)

97%

Double-Check AI vs Reviews

BrightLocal 2026 (88% verify sources/reviews)

AI use is growing, but it is not evenly distributed

Age matters.

BrightLocal found that 64% of adults ages 30-44 had used AI for a local-business recommendation. Among adults over 60, the rate was 24%.

That difference is a reminder that local businesses still need broad coverage. A company serving homeowners across age groups cannot assume that every customer researches the same way.

Traditional search, maps, reviews, social media, and AI discovery are overlapping channels, not mutually exclusive ones.

Broader U.S. research shows the same direction

Pew Research Center surveyed 5,119 U.S. adults in February 2026. Forty-two percent said they use AI chatbots to search for information. Separately, 60% said they read AI summaries at the top of search-engine results.

McKinsey's August 2025 AI Discovery Survey, fielded among a representative U.S. consumer panel of 1,927 people, found that about half intentionally seek out AI-powered search. Among AI-search users, 44% said AI-powered search was their primary and preferred source of insight, ahead of traditional search at 31% in that comparison.

Different surveys define AI use differently, so their percentages should not be stacked into a single adoption number. Together, though, they point in the same direction: AI is becoming a normal part of information discovery rather than a niche tool used only by technology enthusiasts.

The click is becoming a later event

Pew's 2025 browsing-data study shows another important shift.

Researchers analyzed the browsing behavior of 900 U.S. adults and examined 68,879 unique Google searches. When an AI summary appeared, users clicked a traditional search-result link on 8% of visits. When no AI summary appeared, they clicked a traditional result on 15% of visits.

Only 1% of visits to pages with an AI summary resulted in a click on a source link inside the AI summary itself.

That does not mean websites no longer matter. It means the website may influence a decision before receiving a visit, and the eventual click may happen later in the customer's journey.

For local businesses, visibility increasingly includes being accurately represented in the answer, not only winning the click.

People still want proof

The rise of AI recommendations has not eliminated reviews.

BrightLocal found that 97% of AI users sometimes double-check AI recommendations against real reviews. Forty-two percent said they always check reviews on native review platforms, while others do so occasionally. Eighty-eight percent check either the legitimacy of a cited review or the source behind it.

That makes reviews part of the AI-era customer journey rather than a relic of the old one.

An AI answer may create the shortlist. Reviews, business profiles, local coverage, and the official website can still determine whether the customer trusts the shortlist.

What this means in South Carolina

SC Marketing & AI's own South Carolina benchmark suggests that supply-side visibility is still selective.

In a 50-business subset covering HVAC, plumbing, roofing, and electrical, 19 official domains surfaced in the study's search-backed AI retrieval snapshot for the relevant recommendation-style query. That is 38% of the sampled businesses under the test conditions. (See full study details in our AI vs. Google Local Business Visibility study).

This number is not a statewide estimate of how many South Carolina businesses are visible in ChatGPT. It is a snapshot showing that a business can have a functioning website and strong branded visibility while still failing to enter the source set for a non-branded local recommendation question.

The consumer trend and the business-visibility trend meet at the same practical point: more people are asking recommendation-style questions, and not every business that is easy to find by name is entering those discovery conversations.

A better local-marketing dashboard for 2026

Businesses do not need to abandon the metrics they already use. They need to add a few. Alongside rankings, local-pack visibility, calls, forms, traffic, and review growth, consider tracking:

Whether the business is named for realistic AI recommendation prompts
Whether the description is accurate
Which sources are cited or surfaced around the answer
Whether the official website is included
Whether major AI/search platforms agree
Whether the answer reflects current reviews, services, locations, and hours
Whether AI-referred visitors convert differently when they do reach the site

The goal is not to chase every new interface. It is to understand how customers are building a shortlist now.

The simple takeaway

Consumers are not choosing between search and AI as neatly as marketers sometimes talk about it.

They are asking, searching, checking, comparing, and verifying across several systems. The companies most prepared for that behavior will be the ones whose information is easy to find, easy to understand, and consistently supported wherever the customer looks next. (Explore our core South Carolina AI Discoverability Benchmark 2026).

Methodology and limits

This article is a research review combining national U.S. consumer studies with clearly labeled original South Carolina discoverability data. BrightLocal's 2026 survey used a representative panel of 1,002 U.S. adults, with some AI-user analyses based on the 455 respondents who had used AI for local-business recommendations in the previous 12 months. Pew's 2026 survey included 5,119 U.S. adults. Pew's 2025 browsing study tracked 900 U.S. adults. McKinsey's AI Discovery Survey included 1,927 U.S. consumers in August 2025.

These national studies should not be interpreted as South Carolina-specific polling. SC Marketing & AI's local figure comes from a separate 50-business recommendation-query subset and measures search-backed retrieval, not a final personalized consumer ChatGPT recommendation.

Sources

BrightLocal, 2026 AI and local business recommendations research— U.S. consumer local review & AI trust survey.
Pew Research Center, Americans and AI 2026— Survey of 5,119 U.S. adults on AI chatbot search usage.
Pew Research Center, Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears— 2025 click-behavior study of 68,879 Google searches.
McKinsey & Company, New front door to the internet: Winning in the age of AI search— August 2025 consumer survey.
SC Marketing & AI, South Carolina AI Discoverability Benchmark 2026— Original SC benchmark dataset.
OpenAI, ChatGPT Search— ChatGPT Search documentation.

2026 AI Discovery Research Series

Explore the Complete South Carolina Research Series

This article is part of SC Marketing & AI's 2026 research series examining how search behavior, AI retrieval systems, and web consensus impact local business discoverability in South Carolina.