What Google Really Says to Small Businesses

Column by Frank Grandjean Frank Grandjean November 10, 2026 3:54 p.m. Before wanting to "be visible in AI", a small business must know in what form Google already responds to its customers. I ranked 198 AI Overview and AI Mode responses across five professions

Chapô: Before wanting to “be visible in AI”, a small business must know how Google already responds to its customers. I classified 198 answers from Google on five professions. The form changes completely from one profession to another, and it decides what to write.

We explain to small businesses that they now need to be “cited by AI”. But cited in what? Since the AI ​​Preview was installed at the top of its pages, Google no longer only renders a list of ten links. He gives a response, and this response has a form: a list of addresses with a map, a price table, advice, a call to make contact. This form is not the same depending on what is asked of it. This is what I wanted to measure.

Between October 16 and 23, 2026, from Lyon, I noted 205 customer searches on a real browser, with a tool that reads three things: the first ten classic results, the AI ​​Preview (the summary that Google places at the top of the page) and the AI ​​Mode (the tab where Google responds in conversation). For 198 of them, I classified Google's response into a grid of five types:

The same response can have several types. The research covered five areas: a beauty salon and a barber in Lyon, a dog trainer in the area, a roofing company near Nantes, the jobs of a web agency, and SEO questions asked to Google by professionals.

Beauty (40 searches, manicure, haircut, beard). Nine out of ten AI responses rely on a directory. For the beauty salon, it’s 97% of AI Previews. Three-quarters talk about price, and barbering goes up to 91%. In the classic results, the map with its three records appears in 58% of searches, and there are on average 3.4 directories among the first ten links. In other words: a customer looking for a manicure in Lyon first reads prices, taken from reservation platforms.

Building (41 searches, roofing, repair). The call for contact is almost systematic: 95% of AI Previews invite you to request a quote or to call. The directories are there too (87%), the local list in six out of ten responses, and the map in 85% of the results pages. Google treats these searches as an emergency to solve, not a subject to understand.

dog education (10 searches, sessions, walks, assessments). Quite the opposite of beauty on one point: almost no directories (10%), few maps (20%). But price dominates even more: 80% of AI Previews and 90% of AI Mode responses talk about prices. Ten searches are not much; I give this figure as a clue, not as proof.

Machine-translated from French