What voice search means for a local business
When someone asks a phone or a speaker “who can fix a leaking pipe near me”, they get one spoken answer or a short list, not ten blue links. That is the reason owners ask how to get into it. The honest answer starts with a limit: the companies behind Siri and Alexa+ document where business information goes, but not how they pick between businesses. So the work is to make your facts correct in the places they come from, and to check what the assistants say.
We found no current, independent figure for how many customers use voice to choose a local business, so we do not quote one. The BrightLocal Local Consumer Review Survey 2026 (1,002 US adults) found that 45% had used ChatGPT or other AI tools for local recommendations and that Apple Maps use as a source rose from 14% to 27%, but the figures we read do not cover voice assistants. This guide is part of the profile checks in our how customers see you review.
Siri: your Apple Maps place card
Apple’s January 2023 announcement of Business Connect says businesses can customize information shown to more than a billion Apple users across Apple Maps, Messages, Wallet, Siri and other apps. A caption adds that place card information appears across Siri, Wallet and Messages. Claiming is free, and Apple verifies the business first.
In March 2026 Apple announced Apple Business, which replaces Business Connect. It launched on April 14, 2026 in more than 200 countries and regions, is free, and migrated existing Business Connect data, including claimed locations and place cards, automatically. Apple’s help site now states that Apple Business Connect is now Apple Business. Apple’s announcement says businesses first claim their location on Maps, then customize the place card with photos, location details and hours, and that place cards appear across Apple Maps, Safari and Spotlight. It lists Siri, with Apple Maps, Mail and Wallet, among the places where businesses can reach customers. The 2026 announcement does not say how Siri uses a place card, so the Siri link rests on Apple’s 2023 wording.
What Apple does not document is how Siri chooses between two plumbers. So, what you can do is:
- Claim your location in Apple Business and keep the place card accurate.
- Make the name, phone, hours and service area match your Google profile.
- Add a booking or contact link if you have one.
- Ask Siri about your business on an iPhone and check the answer.
Apple’s announcement also says ads in Maps would come to the US and Canada in summer 2026. Ads are a paid option and not needed for a correct listing. Step-by-step claiming is in our guide to Apple Business Connect and Bing Places.
Alexa+: partners, not one database
Alexa+ is Amazon’s newer assistant. In December 2025 Amazon announced four new integrations, with Expedia, Yelp, Angi and Square, “all coming to Alexa+ in 2026” (TechCrunch reported the announcement on December 23, 2025). Amazon gave no month, and we could not confirm which are live today, so check on your own device.
What Amazon’s announcement says about each:
| Partner | What Amazon says Alexa+ will do | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Yelp | Surface business reviews and local home services by searching Yelp’s database of local businesses | Your Yelp page is a source for home services requests |
| Angi | Search, find and request quotes from home professionals by voice | A listing on Angi may matter if you do home services |
| Square | Find beauty and wellness providers in Square’s network, and make, manage and reschedule appointments | If you book through Square, ask Square how your business appears |
| Expedia | Hotels | Not relevant to most service businesses |
The home services list in Amazon’s announcement includes handyman, plumbing, electrical, landscaping, cleaning, moving, pest control, HVAC and appliance repair. Amazon does not say where Alexa gets local business information in general, or whether it keeps its own database, so we do not claim that Alexa reads your Google or Apple profile. Where a source names Yelp, we say so, and nowhere else.
The practical steps are small. Claim and correct your Yelp page, because it is the one local source Amazon names. If you use Square Appointments, ask Square whether and how providers in its network are found by Alexa+. Do not pay anyone for “Alexa listing” services until they show you the documentation.
Google: voice search through the usual profile
For Google, there is no separate voice program for local businesses. Google’s guide to generative AI features says responses can include information about local businesses, and that Merchant Center and Business Profiles can help your products and services be visible in AI responses and other results. Keeping the profile accurate and current is the practical step. Our Google Business Profile checklist covers it.
A word on a popular myth. Voice search guides often tell local businesses to add speakable markup. Google’s documentation describes it as a beta feature that publishers use to mark news sections for text-to-speech, working for English-language users in the US with Google Home devices. It is not a local business tool, and Google’s guide says no special schema.org markup is needed for its generative AI features.
Seven steps that are worth doing
- Fix the facts first. Name, phone, hours and area must match on your website and in every directory. See NAP consistency.
- Claim the four sources. Google, Apple Business, Bing Places and Yelp. They cover Search and Maps, Siri, Bing and the partners Amazon names.
- Make the name speakable. If an assistant has to read your name aloud, a name stuffed with keywords, symbols or numbers sounds odd. Google’s guidelines require your real-world name anyway.
- Put the answer in text. Google recommends making important content available in textual form. Write service pages that answer the plain question in the first sentence: what you do, where, what it costs or what it depends on, and how to book. Spoken questions are usually full sentences.
- Say your service area in words. “We serve Cambridge, Somerville and Newton” is easier to read aloud than a map or a zip list.
- Answer the phone. Many voice searches end with “call” or “directions”. If the call goes unanswered, the work was wasted. Our guide on what missed calls cost shows how to count it.
- Reviews with detail. Assistants that surface reviews, as Amazon says Yelp’s integration will, read what customers wrote. Real, specific reviews are the ones worth earning. See do reviews affect AI recommendations.
A ten-minute voice test
Run this on your phone and, if you have one, a smart speaker. Use your own words, in your service area, not “near me”.
- “Hey Siri, find a [your trade] in [your town].”
- “Hey Siri, what time does [your business] close today?”
- “Alexa, find a [your trade] in [your town].”
- “Alexa, what is the phone number for [your business]?”
- Ask Google’s assistant on your phone (Gemini or Google Assistant, depending on your device) the same two questions.
For each answer, write down whether you were named, whether the phone and hours were right, and which competitors were named. Repeat in a month. Results vary, so one run is a data point, not a verdict. The same method for chat assistants is in our 30-minute ChatGPT self-test.
What nobody can promise
No agency, directory or tool controls what Siri, Alexa+, Google or ChatGPT say. What we can do, and what is worth doing, is make your facts correct and consistent, in text a person or a machine can read, and then check the answers over time. The GEO audit checklist covers the same work for chat assistants and AI search. If you want to see how customers and AI assistants find your business today, ask for a free demo: a short call, then a demo for your business with how customers and AI assistants see you, one positioning idea and 3-4 competitors side by side. It is free and carries no obligation.
Published . Updated .