| Hey — |
| Big week for the plumbing behind how customers find you. Google spent it rewiring the local stack — AI answers that speak on your behalf, Local Services Ads folding into Google Ads, and a lead-gen format that just lost its enterprise price tag. Four stories worth your time, and a tip you can run this afternoon. |
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IN THIS ISSUE
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1. AI is answering for your business — and often getting it wrong
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2. In Google's AI Mode, your Business Profile does the talking
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3. Local Services Ads are moving into Google Ads
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4. Google's lead forms drop the $50K velvet rope
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01 · REPUTATION WATCH
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AI is answering for your business — and often getting it wrong
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| Vendor tests keep catching AI assistants inventing services, botching postcodes, and telling customers that open businesses are permanently closed. |
| The errors turned up everywhere the tests looked: wrong locations, services the business never offered, and closed-for-good claims about places that are very much open. The piece walks through auditing your own answers across five AI platforms, and the fixes mostly live in places you already control — your Business Profile, your listings, your site. |
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Why it matters: A customer who hears you're closed doesn't double-check — they book someone else, so what AI says about you is now part of the reputation you manage.
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via Search Engine Journal →
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02 · AI SEARCH
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In Google's AI Mode, your Business Profile does the talking
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| New data shows Google itself is now the second most-cited domain in AI Mode answers, driven largely by Business Profile and Knowledge Panel cards. |
| When someone asks AI Mode about a local business, the answer often gets built from Google-hosted cards — your hours, photos, and reviews — rather than your website. That means the profile you maybe haven't touched since January is being quoted straight to would-be customers. |
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Why it matters: Your Business Profile and the reviews on it are becoming the script AI reads from, so keeping them complete, current, and well-reviewed is now a visibility play, not just a rankings one.
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Read the full story →
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03 · LOCAL ADS
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Local Services Ads are moving into Google Ads
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| Google is folding Local Services Ads into Google Ads as Performance Max pay-per-lead campaigns, with changes rolling out starting August 2026. |
| Bidding, reporting, and day-to-day management all shift into the Google Ads interface, which means new controls to learn and new ways for budgets to behave unexpectedly. If you run LSAs for yourself or for clients, the next few weeks are your window to get familiar before the move. |
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Why it matters: If pay-per-lead calls are a core pipeline for you, block an hour in August to watch bids and budgets the week things migrate — surprises here cost real money.
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Read the full story →
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04 · LEAD GEN
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Google's lead forms drop the $50K velvet rope
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| Google removed the $50,000 ad-spend requirement for Lead Form assets, opening its native lead capture to small advertisers. |
| Lead forms let a prospect send you their details straight from the ad — no landing page, no extra click. Google is also adding new integrations and simplifying eligibility, so a format that used to be an enterprise toy is now something a local budget can actually test. |
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Why it matters: You can now capture leads inside the ad itself on a modest budget, which is worth testing against your landing pages — especially for mobile searchers who bail on slow forms.
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via Search Engine Land →
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| QUICK HITS |
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‣ Local Inventory Ads switch on by default for all Shopping campaigns starting Aug. 31 — check your settings now if you don't want store stock advertised automatically. →
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‣ A new analysis found Google's AI Mode shows ads on nearly a third of commercial searches, and the advertisers almost never appear among the cited sources. →
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‣ A £50 Meta campaign that quietly spent £1,000 is this week's reminder to double-check budget caps before you hit publish. →
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TIP OF THE WEEK
The 15-minute AI mystery shop
Once a month, ask ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google's AI Mode the five things a real customer would: are you open, what do you do, what does it cost, where exactly are you, and 'is this place any good?' Screenshot anything wrong, then fix it at the source — your Google Business Profile, your website's FAQ, and your top directory listings. AI doesn't invent most of its errors; it repeats stale data you can actually correct.
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How was this issue?
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Until next week,
— the Praising team
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| P.S. If the mystery shop turns up something truly unhinged about your business, hit reply and show me — I'm building a collection. |