Research Study: The Disappearance of Small Business on Google and ChatGPT

Conclusion

Between April 2024 and March 2026, a sharp decline in small-business visibility occured during early online discovery.

On Google, small-business visibility fell 74.8%, while LLMs including ChatGPT only mentioned small businesses by name in the single-digits percentages across both study windows.

Together, these findings indicate that as AI-driven discovery has matured, small businesses are being surfaced far less often at the moment visibility mattered most.

Study Frame

This report measured first-surface discovery exposure under standardized test conditions. It does not estimate platform market share or isolated causal effects.

• Primary Google finding: Under matched conditions, the share of business-discovery captures on Google that surfaced at least one qualifying small business in the first visible layer fell from 42.1% to 10.6% across matched 12-month windows.
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• Supporting ChatGPT finding: The rate of naming at least one qualifying small business in the initial visible answer or citation area stayed low in both windows, moving from 8.4% to 7.2%.
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• Interpretive context: Google surfaced fewer small businesses in the later window, and ChatGPT also named small businesses infrequently.

Selected References

[1] Google. "Generative AI in Search: Let Google do the searching for you." May 14, 2024.

[2] Google. "AI Overviews in Search are coming to more places around the world." Oct. 28, 2024.

[3] Google. "Expanding AI Overviews and introducing AI Mode." Mar. 5, 2025.

[4] Google. "AI in Search: Going beyond information to intelligence." May 20, 2025.

[5] OpenAI. "Introducing ChatGPT search." Oct. 31, 2024. Includes updates dated Dec. 16, 2024 and Feb. 5, 2025.

[6] StatCounter Global Stats. U.S. search-engine market share, March 2026.

[7] OpenAI. "OpenAI's new economic analysis." Jul. 22, 2025. Notes that over half a billion people actively use OpenAI's AI tools globally.

[8] Pew Research Center. "34% of U.S. adults have used ChatGPT, about double the share in 2023." Jun. 25, 2025.

Report Download

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