Local search used to be one thing: turn up in the map pack when somebody nearby searched for what you sell. That still matters and still pays. But there is a second front page now, and it does not look like a results page at all. It is an assistant answering in a paragraph, naming two or three businesses, and never showing a map.
Most local SEO advice, including most of what agencies sell, is still written for the first one only.
What the assistants actually say about local businesses
We measured this instead of guessing. The AI Visibility Index put buyer questions to ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews across ten Australian sectors. Five of those are service industries, the kind of business that lives or dies on local enquiries: healthcare, real estate, builders, manufacturers and law.
The category questions came back mixed. Healthcare businesses were named in 62 per cent of answers we could score, real estate in 53, builders 51, manufacturers 49, law 42. For comparison, ecommerce brands were named 94 per cent of the time. So roughly half the time a buyer asks an assistant about a local service category, the answer contains no business at all.
Then we asked about price, which is the question people actually open an assistant to ask. Across those five service sectors, eight of 149 cost questions returned an answer naming a business. Real estate scored zero out of thirty. Manufacturers zero out of thirty. Law one out of thirty.
Many of the businesses in those healthcare and real estate panels are Melbourne firms, including several of the agencies that sell most of this city's housing. Somebody asking what an agent charges in Melbourne is getting an answer with no agency in it.
Why the assistant is a harder room than the map pack
The map pack runs largely on proximity, relevance and prominence. Google knows where the searcher is, it knows where you are, and distance does a lot of the work. That is why a mediocre profile can still turn up for somebody standing outside your door.
An assistant has no map and usually no location. It is working from what it absorbed during training and whatever it can retrieve while answering. It has no reason to mention you because you are nearby, because it does not know that it is anywhere. It mentions you because enough sources that are not your website say you exist, say what you do, and say it consistently.
That is the part most businesses have never worked on. A well-kept Google Business Profile is necessary and not sufficient. The assistant is reading the directories, the association listings, the local press, the review platforms and the comparison pages, and stitching a picture out of them.
The order that actually works
Start with the profile, because it is free, it is fast, and it feeds both surfaces. Correct categories, real services listed, current photos, and answers to the reviews you have been ignoring. Our plain-English entries on local SEO and the Google Business Profile cover what each field is for.
Second, make your own site answer the questions people ask out loud. What you charge, what you cover, how long the work takes, which suburbs you serve and which you do not. Assistants quote pages that answer a question plainly, near the top, with specifics. A capability statement gives them nothing to lift.
Third, fix the corroboration. Same business name, same address, same phone number, everywhere it appears. Get listed where your industry is genuinely listed. This is the slow part, it is the part nobody sells because it is unglamorous, and it is the part that decides whether an assistant will put your name in an answer. There is more on how that works in getting mentioned by ChatGPT.
What not to spend money on
Do not buy reviews and do not spam directories. Both can get a profile suspended, and neither survives a Google update. Do not build a page for every suburb in Victoria: a hundred near-identical pages with the suburb swapped is a pattern both Google and the assistants read as exactly what it is.
And do not pay for a separate "AI visibility" product bolted onto a local SEO retainer. The signals overlap almost completely. Anyone charging twice for one body of work is counting on you not knowing that.
Where this leaves you
The honest summary is that local search got harder to fake and easier to win. Harder, because an assistant cannot be tricked by proximity. Easier, because in most service categories your competitors have done nothing about it, and the answers currently name nobody at all. An empty answer is an opening.
If you want to see the full measurement, the AI Visibility Index is published with its methodology. If you want this run for your business, that is local SEO in Melbourne, and it sits inside one retainer with the answer-engine work rather than beside it.
FAQ
Does local SEO still work now that people ask AI assistants?
Yes, and the same work feeds both. The map pack still drives a large share of local enquiries, and the signals that win it, an accurate Google Business Profile, consistent details across the web, and real reviews, are the same signals an assistant reads when deciding who to name. What changes is that proximity no longer helps you, because an assistant does not know where the person asking is standing.
Why do AI assistants not name local businesses?
Usually because nothing outside your own website says you exist. Assistants build answers from sources they can verify, so a business with an unclaimed profile, inconsistent details and no third-party listings gives them nothing to work with. In our AI Visibility Index, eight of 149 cost questions across five Australian service sectors returned an answer naming any business at all.
How much does local SEO cost in Melbourne?
We run local work inside the Search and AI Visibility retainer, which is $2,000 to $10,000 or more a month depending on scope. A single location in a quiet category sits at the lower end. Several locations, or a category with entrenched competitors, moves up it. It is not sold as a separate product because the map pack and the answer engines draw on overlapping signals.