There is no separate AI ranking to win. Google’s own guidance says there are no extra requirements to appear in its AI answers and no special optimisation is needed. What gets a landscaping business named is work you already recognise: a page that answers the question in its first line or two, a Google Business Profile filled in properly, current reviews, and pages that say something specific about your towns and your jobs. Nobody can promise you will be named, and anyone who does is guessing.
What is AI search, and is it sending you any work?
About a quarter of people used an AI tool somewhere in their last local search, and almost nobody used one on its own.
BrightLocal’s consumer search behaviour survey, published on 9th July 2026 and based on 1,227 consumers, found 8% began their most recent search for a local business with an AI tool, 23% used one at some point during it, and 2% used AI as their only channel. Of the people who did start with AI, 43% then went and checked Google.
So AI search is not replacing Google for your customers. For some of them it is now the first step, and for rather more it is a second opinion on a shortlist they already have. The same survey found 84% had looked for a local business online in the previous three months, and that 73% of those searches happened on a phone.
What follows from that is not “drop everything and chase AI”. It’s that you are being filtered a step earlier than you used to be. If the answer somebody reads on the way to Google doesn’t mention you, you’re not on the list they arrive with, and you never find out you were dropped.
Does an AI answer stop people visiting your website?
Often, yes. Which is why being named inside the answer now matters more than the click that used to follow it.
Pew Research Center published a study on 22nd July 2025 that watched what people actually did, using browsing data from 900 adults across 68,879 Google searches made in March 2025. Where an AI summary appeared, people clicked a search result on 8% of visits. Where no summary appeared, 15%. They clicked one of the sources named in the summary on 1% of visits, and they stopped browsing altogether on 26% of pages carrying a summary, against 16% of pages without one.
That data is a year old now and it counts clicks rather than enquiries, so treat it as a direction rather than a forecast for your business. The direction isn’t really in dispute.
The practical version for a landscaping company is straightforward. Somebody asking what a resin driveway costs may read the answer, form a view about the price, and never open anybody’s website at all. Nothing you do to your site changes that. What you can change is whether the answer they read has your name in it, and whether the sentence about you is accurate.
Is there a special way to optimise for AI search?
No, and Google says so in writing. Anyone selling you a separate AI package is charging you twice for search engine optimisation.
Google’s own documentation on its AI features, last updated in December 2025, states there are no additional requirements to appear in its AI answers, and no special optimisation necessary. Its guide for site owners, last updated on 10th July 2026, goes further and lists what you do not need to do: no files or tags written specially for AI, no chopping your pages into small pieces, no rewriting your copy into some AI-friendly language.
What it does ask for reads like every sensible piece of advice about websites written in the last decade. Content with something in it that isn’t on fifty other sites. Clear headings, so a section can be read on its own. Pages that work properly on a phone. And for a local business, a Google Business Profile that is filled in and looked after.
That is the same work as search engine optimisation, pointed at a different reader. We run AI search optimisation as an angle on it rather than as a separate product, and the paragraph above is the reason.
What does an AI answer for a landscaping search actually look like?
Two or three businesses, a star rating against each, and a short list of the sites the answer came from.
Google AI, searched for “landscaping company”, captured on 5th August 2026.
Three things are worth reading off that. The businesses are named in order, and the only things a customer can compare at that moment are the star rating and the number of reviews behind it. ALS Landscaping, a client of ours working around Lincoln, is first with 4.9 from 202 reviews.
Next, look at the panel on the right, which is where Google says it got the information. It is headed with a count of 23 sites and shows three of them. One of those three is ALS’s own website. The other two are a directory listing and another landscaping company’s site. Your own pages can be the source, which is the entire argument for writing them so they answer a question, and a directory can occupy the space your website should have had.
One caution about screenshots like this, including ours. AI answers are not reproducible. Search the same words tomorrow from a different postcode and you will get a different answer with different businesses in it. This is one snapshot on one afternoon, not a league table.
Do your Google reviews decide whether AI recommends you?
They are a large part of it, because increasingly what the customer reads is a summary of your reviews rather than the reviews themselves.
BrightLocal’s Local Consumer Review Survey 2026, in findings published on 10th March 2026 and based on 1,002 consumers, found 45% had used an AI tool to get a local business recommendation and 31% mostly use ChatGPT for it. Half of consumers said they trust an AI-written summary of reviews. Among the people who use these tools, 97% said they sometimes cross-check what they are told against the actual reviews.
Which means the words your customers type become the raw material for the sentence written about you. “Lovely job, very pleased” gives an AI nothing to repeat. “Built a raised patio and fixed the drainage underneath it” gives it something specific to say, in language somebody else might use to search.
We have written about what reviews now need to look like, and how to ask for them without breaking Google’s rules, in our post on what Google Business reviews now do, so there’s no sense repeating it here.
Can you actually measure whether you are showing up in AI search?
Partly, and that only became true this year.
Google’s guide for site owners, updated on 10th July 2026, now points you at a report inside Search Console that separates out how your site performs in its AI answers. That is a genuine change. Until this year the honest answer to “am I in it?” was that nobody could tell you, and we said so on our own service page.
It still only covers Google. Nothing reports what ChatGPT or Claude say about your business, so the method there is the blunt one: ask them. Type the questions your customers ask, read what comes back, and write down whether you were named and whether what was said about you was true. That last part catches more than people expect, because these systems repeat whatever they found. An old mobile number, a service you stopped offering, a town you no longer cover.
What none of this gives you is a guarantee. We will not promise you a place in an AI answer, for the same reason we will not promise a map position. It is not ours to give, and the companies building these systems do not offer one either.
Where to start this week
Ask Google AI, ChatGPT and Claude the three questions your customers ask you most, and write down what each one says about your business.
That takes about twenty minutes and it is the only part of this nobody can do for you, because you know which three questions come up on every quote. Note whether you were named, and correct anything that was wrong about you wherever it came from.
Then two jobs on your own site. Check your Google Business Profile is complete and current, which our guide to setting up your Google Business Profile correctly covers step by step. And take your three most important pages, the ones about the work you most want more of, and try to put the straight answer to the page’s question in the first two lines. Not paragraph nine.
None of this is a new kind of marketing. It is the same local reputation work, aimed at somebody asking a question rather than typing one. Our post on local SEO trends every landscaping company should watch in 2026 covers what else is moving, and AI search is the part of it you can start on this week without spending anything.
Frequently asked questions
What is AI search?
It is what happens when a search engine or an AI tool answers a question itself instead of handing over a page of links. A customer types or speaks a full question, and gets a short answer that names two or three businesses. For you the difference is simple: there is no page two to be on. You are either in the answer or you are not.
Do I need a different website to appear in AI search?
No. Google states that there are no extra requirements to appear in its AI answers and no special optimisation is necessary. What helps is a site that answers questions directly, loads properly on a phone, and says something specific about the towns you cover and the jobs you do. If your site does not do those things, that is a website problem rather than an AI one.
How long does it take to show up in AI search?
There is no honest number, and we wouldn’t trust one that was offered. AI answers are assembled from your website, your Google Business Profile, your reviews and the listings that mention you, and those all move at different speeds. The reviews and the profile are the parts you can improve fastest.
Should I pay for a separate AI search service?
Not as something bolted on top of search engine optimisation you are already paying for. Google’s own guidance says there is no separate AI optimisation to do, so a package that promises one is selling the same work twice. It is a fair question to put to whoever handles your marketing.
Does it matter which AI tool my customers use?
Less than you would think, because they mostly use them alongside Google rather than instead of it. BrightLocal’s 2026 consumer search behaviour survey found only 2% of people used AI as their only channel, and 43% of those who started with an AI tool then went to Google. Getting the basics right feeds all of them.
Can I make AI mention my business?
You cannot make it, and you should be wary of anyone who says they can. What you can do is make sure the information it draws on is accurate, current and specific to your area, and that your reviews give it something worth repeating. Then check what it says about you every couple of months.
