How often do AI Overviews appear on local business searches?

AI Overviews rarely appear when someone searches for a local business, but often appear when they ask a question about one. In September 2026, 12% of UK “near me” and service searches I checked showed an AI Overview, compared with 60% of question searches about the same services. The map pack still appeared on 88% of “near me” searches.

I looked at 107 UK searches across trades, health, property, legal, beauty and other local services: 59 searches for a business (like “plumber near me” or “emergency dentist”) and 48 questions about those services (like “what is an EICR” or “how much does a rewire cost”). For each, I recorded which features Ahrefs saw on the Google results page.

Do AI Overviews show up on local searches?

Mostly not. Only 7 of 59 “near me” and service searches showed an AI Overview. The map pack showed on 52 of them. Weighted by search volume, the gap is wider: the searches with an AI Overview make up just 7% of the “near me” search volume in the sample, while the map pack covers 90% of it.

Questions are different. 29 of the 48 question searches showed an AI Overview, and none showed a map pack. Forum results, such as Reddit threads, appeared on 19 of the question searches and on none of the “near me” searches.

“People also ask” boxes were almost everywhere: 57 of 59 “near me” searches and 47 of 48 questions.

Which “near me” searches did get an AI Overview?

Seven, and in four of them the AI Overview appeared instead of a map pack:

Source: Ahrefs Keywords Explorer, UK, September 2026.

For those four searches there was no map pack at all when Ahrefs checked, so a business relying on the map pack alone had nowhere to appear above the organic results. Three other searches had neither an AI Overview nor a map pack: “mot near me”, “solicitors near me” and “funeral directors near me”.

Which questions get an AI Overview?

It depends on the kind of question:

• “What is…” questions got an AI Overview 7 times out of 8. Definitions like “what is an EICR” or “what is a party wall agreement” are easy for Google to summarise.
• “How long / how often / how to” questions got one 10 times out of 12. The two without were “how to find a good plumber” and “how to find a good builder”, which showed forum results instead.
• “How much does… cost” questions got one only 12 times out of 28. Prices vary by job and location, and 11 of the 28 showed forum threads, where people discuss prices they have been quoted or paid.

What does this mean for local businesses?

The map pack still decides most “near me” searches. A complete, accurate Google Business Profile, reviews and a website that clearly says what you do and where are still the main levers. See local SEO.

AI Overviews shape the research before the search. People ask what an EICR is, how long a loft conversion takes or how much a rewire costs before they look for a business. Those answers are built from pages that explain things clearly and specifically. See AI SEO.

Price questions are still open. With AI Overviews on fewer than half of cost searches, and forums filling the gap, a clear, honest pricing page is one of the few places a local business can still own that search.

How was this measured?

I built a list of 107 common UK local-service searches: 59 searches for a business and 48 questions about those services, across trades, health, property, legal, beauty and other local services. A few searches with no results page recorded in Ahrefs were left out, as were travel searches, which are covered in a separate study on the research page.

For each keyword, I used the search result features recorded in Ahrefs Keywords Explorer’s UK database in September 2026, along with Ahrefs’ average monthly UK search volume.

Limits. This is one snapshot of one results page per keyword. AI Overviews change often, and results vary by location, device and time. The sample is chosen, not random, so treat the percentages as a guide to the pattern rather than a precise national rate. The full keyword list is below.