AI search
There is a real gap between where independent agencies show up and where people are starting to ask questions. It is smaller than the pitch you are getting, it sits somewhere you would not guess, and most of it is a one-time fix rather than a monthly fee.
What you are being sold
Every one of these is contradicted by the search engines' own published documentation. We are not being contrarian — we are reading the manual, which is free and which almost nobody selling this has done.
“Add an llms.txt file so AI can read your site”
No major answer engine documents reading it. Google names it directly as something its Search systems do not use. It is a proposal, not a standard, and it is the most commonly upsold non-deliverable in this category.
“You need special schema markup to get cited by AI”
Structured data earns rich results and helps engines tell one business from another. Google states plainly that it is not required for its generative features. Markup is worth doing correctly and worth nothing as a citation lever.
“AI Overviews are a separate channel needing separate work”
Google's own guidance is that its generative features run on the core Search ranking systems, and that a page needs no optimization beyond being indexed and snippet-eligible. Anyone selling a distinct AI Overviews retainer is selling your SEO back to you twice.
“A tool can track your AI rankings”
Google says no third party has access to its ranking or AI systems. Search Console reports impressions in generative features for some properties, with no clicks and no query breakdown. Anyone promising an AI rank tracker is charging for a guess.
What is actually there
Its answers about local businesses draw on a different places database than Google's. An agency can have an immaculate Business Profile and still not exist inside ChatGPT. Claiming and completing the listings those assistants actually read is an afternoon of work that almost no independent agency has done.
Search inclusion is controlled by OpenAI's search crawler, which is distinct from the one used for model training. Agencies that blocked AI crawlers on principle, or whose host does it for them at the CDN, have quietly removed themselves from answers. The check takes minutes and the failure is invisible without it.
A page that cannot show a snippet cannot appear in an AI Overview. Meta directives set years ago for unrelated reasons still disqualify pages today. Google has also begun rolling out a per-property control that governs generative inclusion, and it inherits down from parent properties — which is a genuinely easy way to be excluded without knowing.
Assistants lean on sources they can corroborate. For a P&C agency that means carrier find-an-agent locators for every carrier you are appointed with, independent-agent directories, your state licensing lookup, and the local chamber. Unglamorous, verifiable, and mostly unclaimed.
Google documents its own local surfaces as leaning on Business Profile data, and for someone typing “insurance agent near me” the map pack still answers the question before any AI does. Local AI visibility and local SEO are largely the same project.
The short version
We do this work as part of the local SEO plan, not as an upsell. If a competitor has quoted you separately for it, ask them which engine documentation they are working from.
Questions
Not yet, and not evenly. For someone searching for an agent in their town, Google still answers with the local pack, and that is where the clicks are. Where assistants do get used is the research stage — what flood coverage costs, whether an umbrella policy is worth it — and that is a different, earlier moment in the buying process. Both matter. Only one of them is urgent.
The listings and crawler work, yes — it is a few hours, it is durable, and your competitors have not done it. A recurring fee for AI optimization on top of SEO, no. We fold this into the local SEO work rather than pricing it as a separate line, because pricing it separately would imply it is a separate job.
Honestly, imperfectly. Search Console reports impressions from generative features for some sites, with no clicks and no queries attached. Beyond that, the practical test is asking the assistants a question your agency should answer and seeing whether you are there. We check that on a schedule and show you the result, rather than inventing a metric.
It is a real shift and it is worth watching. The response is not a trick — it is being the source worth citing, which is the same work as being the page worth ranking: real answers, on your own domain, with your name and licensing attached. The agencies that get hurt are the ones whose site says nothing a machine could quote.
The free audit covers search, trust, mobile, and conversion — and we will tell you plainly whether AI search is worth your attention yet or whether your Business Profile is the better hour.