Yes, AI is already impacting your business.
Whether you are an individual master plumber, a mid-size manufacturer, or a multi-national B2B service provider with nine hundred employees, your business is being impacted by AI and as a business owner you need to be ahead of the resulting changes.
Do these AI related statements sound familiar to you?
“But I don’t have an e-commerce website.”
All websites are being impacted by AI. Search engines are becoming AI engines. That doesn’t mean that your website is no longer useful, but how you use it as a channel to drive business is changing.
“I offer an in-person service to communities in my area, so this doesn’t apply to me.”
Local businesses that provide goods or services are being impacted because the shift to AI engines is changing how people find providers.
“I like the personal touch, I don’t want to use AI in my business.”
You don’t need to adopt AI as part of your business processes, but you do need to understand how people are using the technology and what that means for your business.
How is AI changing the way people find my business?
Depending on which media you consume, you are hearing many different messages about AI:- It’s going to replace all entry level jobs.
- Students aren’t learning to think critically.
- Many industries are going to disappear.
AI Search Is Taking Over—Are You Visible?
Google it. Whatever business you have, start a search for your company name. Assuming your website is in working order, it should show up at the top of your search results. Next, open a new tab and search for your industry, or a product that you sell.- Does your website appear near the top?
- Do you have a local listing (or multiple) that appears in the results?
Local SEO Is Your Secret Weapon in the Age of AI Search
Local businesses, those that have customers visit their location, or those that visit homes and businesses in a certain geographic area, have one wonderful item in their toolbox: Local SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Sometimes referred to as local listings, these are the internet equivalent of the Yellow Pages (remember those big books full of phone numbers?). If you run a local business, you want to be on as many of these lists as possible.
Search engines are smart enough know that if I’m searching for an Italian restaurant, I want one near my location (in our case, Eastern Massachusetts) rather than one in Italy. You probably use many of these services on a regular basis without realizing it. Yelp – local listing. Google Business – local listing. Depending on your industry, you may be eligible for over 65 local listing services!
Maybe you have been in business for a number of years and never thought about your listings – they just started appearing organically, so they must be updated with information about your business on a regular basis, right?
Almost all local listings provide a free tier and some offer advertising capabilities based on your industry. But managing all of your listings individually, and ensuring they contain correct information, could become a full-time job. We use a listing service to ensure that our listings, and the listings for our customers, stay correct, relevant, and available.
Not sure if your local listings are up-to-date?
Paid Ads Still Matter in an AI-Driven Search World
Search engines have built their business on advertising revenue, and they’re not about to give that up. AI chat bots will also need to start bringing in revenue – what better way than offering advertising placements? Even if you’ve never run ads before, exploring the right advertising opportunities for your business can help secure customer visibility in or above AI results.
Google Local Business Ads
One of the most effective advertising opportunities starts with a well-optimized Google Business Profile listing with excellent reviews. For local businesses, checking your industry eligibility for Google Local ads is a smart first step. To qualify, you’ll need team members who interact with customers in person to pass Google’s free background checks, along with the proper licensing and insurance for your service area.
Search Ads
Search ads— on Google, Bing or other search engines—place your business directly in front of the customers who are searching for your products or services. By targeting specific you can appear at the very top of search results, often above both organic (non-sponsored) listings and AI-generated summaries.What About SEO?
Does AI use traditional ranking factors?
In most cases, yes—AI-powered search experiences still start with traditional search systems. That means many of the same signals that influence where you appear in Google or Bing can also influence whether you’re included (and cited) in AI-generated summaries. What’s changing is the outcome: it’s no longer only about earning the click, it’s also about being trusted as a source.- Relevance + freshness: rankings often improve when you update pages to better match what searchers want.
- Authority (especially backlinks): trusted sites are still more likely to rank well and be used as source material in AI answers.
- Structured content + schema: clear headings, definitions, FAQs, and schema make it easier for machines to understand what your page is about and quote it accurately.
- Recent studies show users prefer multimedia: Including helpful video content can improve user understanding and engagement—signals that can indirectly support SEO performance. Wyzowl’s 2025 Video Marketing Statistics report that 89% of consumers say video quality impacts their trust in a brand.
What is Schema and why does it matter?
Schema refers to a form of structured data that you add to your website’s code. By adding schema markup to your website, you provide search engines and AI systems with clear, organized information about your business, products, services, and content. This structured data helps AI understand and trust your site, making it more likely your company’s information will be featured in AI-generated overviews and in answers to questions.Compare AI’s attitude toward a website without vs. with schema:
| Aspect | Without Schema | With Schema |
| Page role | Helpful page | Official source |
| AI confidence | Cautious | High |
| Citation likelihood | Inconsistent | Very high |
| Framing | “Example site” | “Publisher dataset” |
| Attribution | Generic URL | Named organization |
| AI summaries | Vague | Precise + scoped |
Why does Ecommerce matter to AI tools?
As AI agents become increasingly sophisticated, they’re now able to assist shoppers by not only recommending products but also placing orders directly on their behalf. This shift means that businesses with ecommerce-enabled websites—where users can seamlessly purchase online—are positioned to take full advantage of AI-driven shopping experiences.
At minimum, your business offerings (products and services) should be updated to include schema markup to make them distinguishable from other types of content. Schema provides structured data that helps AI recognize a page as a product listing, enabling more accurate referencing and interaction. Because ecommerce sites typically implement schema and support online transactions, AI tools prefer them—they can identify, recommend, and even transact on behalf of users, all within a trusted, well-defined framework.
However, before customers can instruct their agents to purchase from your product pages, they will need to be enabled for agentic checkout. At the time of writing, there are two infrastructures developing the capability: Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol and Stripe’s Agentic Commerce Protocol.
Your site can also be enabled with MCP (Model Context Protocol) to enable agent to agent communication. Ultimately, having properly structured product pages increases your visibility and accessibility in the AI-powered marketplace.