ChatGPT Is Now Recommending Contractors. Here Is What Decides Whether It Is You.

0:00 ChatGPT Now Recommends Contractors
Ask ChatGPT to find you a water damage company in your town.

0:07 Yelp OpenAI Deal Changes Local Search
Go ahead, try it tonight. Somebody’s business comes back with a name, a rating, and a button that says request a quote. Here’s who decides whether that business is yours. I’m Annie, and this is PushPro from PushLeads. On July 23, 2026, Yelp announced it is licensing its reviews, ratings, photos, and business details to OpenAI. That is 330 million reviews and more than 8 million business listings feeding straight into ChatGPT. When someone asks for a plumber, a roofer, or a restoration company, ChatGPT can now answer with live Yelp data, and Yelp’s request to quote features coming inside the chat itself. The customer never visits your website, they never see Google, they ask, they get a name, they tap.

This is part of our AI search visibility guide.

0:52 Angi Thumbtack Also Inside AI Assistants
And it is not just Yelp. Angi has integrated with Google’s Gemini. Thumbtack has integrated with Anthropic’s Claude. Both of them are also inside ChatGPT. The entire home services stack is wiring itself into the assistance people already talk to. One number to hold onto. A July study of 28 million AI responses to local business questions found Yelp cited 3 .4 times more often than the next closest platform. If you have spent years ignoring Yelp because the review filter drove you crazy, I understand. But the assistants did not get that memo.

1:25 Google Local Search Still Holds for Now
Let me be fair to Google here, because the sky is not falling on local search yet. AI overviews now show up on roughly 48 % of all Google searches, and where they appear, organic clicks drop by about 38%. That is brutal for blogs and how -to articles. But for local intent, emergency plumber near me, AC Repair Phoenix, AI overviews appear on only about 7 % of searches. The map pack with 3 businesses, reviews, and a phone number is still what most customers see. Here is what is changing underneath it.

1:57 AI-Powered Local Packs Are Rolling Out
Google is rolling out AI -powered local packs. Sterling’s guy is tracking them on about 7 % of local keywords, mobile only, United States only, so far. And the call button on business profiles is showing up less and less on mobile. Businesses that hold their ranking are still watching calls from their profile decline. Same rank, fewer calls. That is the trend line.

2:19 Four Signals AI Uses to Pick You
So what does ChatGPT or Gemini or Claude look at when it decides which contractor to name? Four things. And none of them are secret. First, your reviews. Not just the star rating. Volume, recency, and whether the reviews are actually visible on your public profile or sitting in Yelp’s not recommended section, where the assistant may never see them. Second, your business details. Hours, service categories, service area. If your categories say general contractor and the customer asks for water damage restoration, you are not in the conversation. Third, your website. The assistants read your pages the way of very fast, very literal customer would. Answer first content, clear service pages, real numbers. Fourth, your Google Business Profile. It still anchors the entity. When your profile, your website, your Yelp listing, and your reviews all say the same thing about who you are and what you do, the assistant can recommend you without hesitation. When they disagree, it moves on to someone I can trust.

3:22 PushRank Tracks AI Mentions Weekly
At PushLeads, we do not guess at this. We track it. Our push rank dashboard checks every week whether Google’s AI overviews, ChatGPT, and the other assistants mention our clients and where the citations come from. First, you can also use the tools in our own space, terms like local SEO firm, disaster restoration SEO, and top plumbing keywords. We did not buy that. We earned it by publishing the exact kind of answer first content the assistants prefer.

3:52 Six Actions to Take This Week
And we have watched it work for a client. One restoration company went from 72 AI mentions to 336 in four months. Same business, same service area. We change two things and we are going to walk through both of them in the next video. Here is what to do this week. One, clean complete your Yelp profile even if you hate it. Categories, hours, photos, service area. It is now a data source for the biggest assistant in the world. Two, review velocity. Ask every finished job for a review on Google and on Yelp. Recent beats many. Three, consistency. Your name, address, phone, and categories should match across Google, Yelp, Angi, and your website. Every mismatch is a reason for the assistant to pick someone else. Four, put a dedicated tracking number on your Yelp profile so you can see the calls the assistant send you. Five, add an AI assistant to the how did you hear about us question on your intake form. ChatGPT clicks from the web show up in your analytics as ChatGPT .com, but clicks from the mobile app show up as direct traffic. Most contractors are miscounting these leads today. Six, once a month ask the assistants the questions your customers ask. Best water damage company in your city. Who fixes garage doors near me? Write down who they name. If it is not you, you now know exactly what to fix.

5:18 How to Check If AI Mentions You
The customer is still out there. The question is who the assistant names when they ask. If you want to see whether ChatGPT and Google’s AI mention your business today, go to SEO .PushLeads .com slash audit and run the free check. It takes about a minute.