---
title: "How AI agents find a local business"
url: https://foundbyagents.io/how-agents-find-you
---

# How AI agents find a local business

Customers used to search. Now they ask, and increasingly they hand the job to an AI agent that compares, picks and books. Agents don't look at photos. They read facts.

## The five steps

1. **Ask.** "Find me someone to fix the AC this week," said to ChatGPT, Google, or a personal agent like Meta's Muse (Meta Muse US launch, Sep 8, 2026, via Relevant Audience).
2. **Search.** The agent pulls candidates from Google Business Profile, Yelp, Bing, Apple Maps, review sites and websites. Google profiles are about 28.5% of local AI citations in one study (BrightLocal AI directory sources study, ~1.97M AI citations, Aug 2026).
3. **Read.** It reads services, towns, hours, licenses and answers. Major AI crawlers don't run JavaScript (Vercel and MERJ, "The rise of the AI crawler": none of the major AI crawlers rendered JavaScript, Dec 2024), so page-builder sites can look empty.
4. **Cross-check.** It compares hours, phone, service area, license and reviews across sources. Conflicts make it unsure.
5. **Choose.** It names two or three businesses it can trust.

## The old way vs agent-ready

| | The old way | Agent-ready |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | People looking at a screen | People and the agents choosing for them |
| Your facts | Scattered across 10 sites | One approved set feeding site and profiles |
| Pages | One "Services" page | A page per service and town |
| Machine-readable | Whatever a plugin added | Schema for business, services, area, hours, licenses |
| Code | Heavy scripts, blank to many crawlers | Fast static pages that work with JavaScript off |
| Updates | When you call the agency | When your facts change, approved by text |
| Ownership | The agency holds the keys | Yours, leave anytime |

## Where we draw the line

We make every fact readable, consistent and verifiable, and send agents to your phone and booking flow. We don't promise an agent will book you jobs, and nobody can guarantee an AI will name you.

Get a free AI visibility check: https://foundbyagents.io/check