Google Just Changed How It Answers Questions About Your Business
Google searches work completely different now and AI is behind it. Most local business owners don't know this yet. But the ones who figure it out first are going to have a real advantage.
The Feature Google Quietly Shut Off
For years, your Google Business Profile had a Questions & Answers section. Customers could post a question — "do you work weekends?", "do you take insurance?" — and you, or anyone else, could answer it. Most owners never touched it. A lot never knew it was there.
Google turned it off. The API went dark on November 3, 2025, and the public section started disappearing from profiles a month later. If you still see old Q&A content on your profile, it's frozen — you can't add to it, and newer profiles don't have it at all.
Here's the part that matters. Google didn't remove the questions. People are still asking them. Google just stopped letting you answer them.
Now it answers for you. When someone asks a question about your business, Google's AI assembles a response out of whatever it can find — your website, your profile, your reviews, whatever directory listed you in 2019. You don't get to write that answer. You don't get to approve it. You only get to influence what it's built from.
That's the shift. The one place you had direct control over what Google said about your business is gone, and what replaced it reads from everything else you've published. Which makes everything else you've published a lot more important than it was.
How Google Answers Questions Now
When someone types a question into Google Maps or Search — "Does this place offer free estimates?" "Do they work with insurance?" "Are they open on Saturdays?" — Google's AI scans your entire online presence to construct an answer.
Your website. Your GBP. Your reviews. Any directory listing or article that mentions you. Google pulls all of it together and assembles a response automatically.
Your website is no longer just a destination for people who already found you. It's a source document that Google reads to decide what to say about you to people who are still deciding.
If what Google finds is vague, inconsistent, or incomplete — that's the answer it gives.
The Problem with Most Local Business Websites
Most local service business websites are built to impress visitors, not to inform AI. The way most websites are written — general descriptions, marketing language, broad claims about quality and experience — doesn't give Google the specific information it needs to answer real questions accurately.
A landscaping company whose website says "we provide comprehensive landscaping services for residential and commercial clients" hasn't told Google anything a potential customer actually wants to know. Do they handle irrigation? Will they give an estimate before starting work? Do they serve the north side of town?
If those answers aren't on the website in a form Google can find and trust, Google either guesses — or sends the searcher somewhere else.
What the Businesses Pulling Ahead Are Doing.
The businesses pulling ahead right now have websites structured to answer questions directly, in a format that AI can extract and verify. When done right, Google can surface those answers directly in search results and in Maps — without the customer ever visiting the website. The business effectively shows up not just as a listing, but as the answer.
Most local businesses don't have this yet. The ones that get it in place now are building a visibility advantage that's going to be very hard to close later.
What This Means for Your Business
If you have a website and a Google Business Profile, you already have the foundation. The question is whether it's giving Google what it needs to speak accurately and confidently about your business.
Ask yourself this: if someone asked Google what makes your business different from the three competitors in your area, what would it find on your site? If someone asked what the process looks like to hire you, is the answer clear and specific? If someone asked whether you serve their part of town, is it unambiguous?
Those are the actual questions Google is trying to answer on your behalf right now.
Want to see how your current site and GBP hold up — and what it would take to close the gap? Let's take a look what the Free Online Presence Assessment says →
