Bill BrownFounder of ServiceTitan Hacks community (9k+ pros) | INC 5000 Contractor | Helping contractors win with AI & Automation

Local Search Still Works for #Contractors in the AI Era

23 May 2026 · 1 min

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In this commentary, the speaker highlights a significant decline—about 50‑60%—in overall website traffic, attributing much of the loss to AI-generated search overviews that now appear on the search engine results page (SERP) for more than half of all queries and up to 92% of informational or research‑based queries. However, the speaker emphasizes that simple, local, high‑intent searches (e.g., “plumber near me”) still trigger traditional SERP elements such as paid ads, Google Business Profile listings, map results, and organic listings, and continue to generate a notable number of conversions directly from the Google SERP. The message is aimed at contractors and local businesses, reassuring them that while AI overviews erode general traffic, local search remains a viable channel for leads.

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It is true that traffic is declining by quite a bit, 50 to 60% across many websites. However, I want to call out the type of traffic. Because this is happening from AI overviews, these AI overviews are surfacing on the search engine page 50% of the time or more. Well, when the query from the user is informational or research-based, it's actually 92% of the time. If it's simple, local, high intent, hey, I'm looking for a plumber near me, and those types of queries can still generate your ads, it can still generate your GBP and your map results, your local results and your organic results. And we still see a fair amount of conversions happening directly from the Google search engine page for searches just like that.