If you still judge your Google Business Profile by how many calls it generates, you're already behind. A growing share of customers never leave Google Maps at all.
TL;DR: Calls and website clicks from Google Business Profiles keep falling while direction requests keep climbing, because Gemini now answers questions inside Maps using structured review data instead of sending people to a site or a phone. The shift looks different in the US, EU, and UK, so a single reporting template doesn't tell the whole story anymore.
📉 The Story Got Less Dramatic, Not Less Real
Back in April, early Q1 numbers suggested calls and clicks had fallen by roughly half across the US. That reading was severe enough that some agencies told clients to shift budget into paid search.
A full recheck told a calmer story. Corrected Q1 data showed US website clicks and calls each down 15.8% year over year, while direction requests were up 31.3%. Q2 confirmed the pattern kept going, just slower: calls down 11.9%, clicks down 12.5%, directions up 21.1%.
The standout number is desktop Maps impressions. They fell 17.9% in Q1, then reversed to positive 3.2% in Q2 — a sign this isn't just a mobile habit. Mobile Maps impressions were up 30.4% over the same stretch.
Two Ranking Systems, One Profile
Your Google Business Profile now feeds two separate systems. Traditional Maps ranking still runs on proximity, relevance, and engagement, the same signals SEOs have tracked for years. The newer layer, used by Gemini and AI Mode, adds web context, brand authority, and review sentiment on top.
AI powered local packs were studied when SterlingSky and Jepto looked at more than 170 Google Business Profiles recently.
That second system isn't deciding whether you show up. It's deciding whether Google trusts your profile enough to answer a customer's question directly, without sending them anywhere else. Google is pushing reviewers toward structured tags like atmosphere and price instead of free text, because that's the data an AI model can actually reason over.
EU: Slower And More Cautious
Desktop Maps impressions fell faster in Q2 (-34.7%) than in Q1 (-16.5%)
Direction requests kept growing, but slowed to +13.1% from +21.7%
UK: The Opposite Reversal
Mobile Maps impressions flipped from +22.4% in Q1 to -70.8% in Q2
Direction requests and website clicks kept rising anyway
These markets aren't just trailing the US on the same path. They're moving on their own terms, which means one global reporting template doesn't tell the real story anymore.
Hit reply
Does your local SEO reporting still lean mainly on call volume, or have you already started weighing direction requests the same way?
🧭 What To Do About It
Audit Your Review Structure
Check how many of your reviews use Google's structured tags versus plain text. If most are generic and unprompted, start asking recent customers specific questions about atmosphere, price, or service speed when you request reviews.
Track Direction Requests Like You Track Calls
Add direction requests as an equal line item next to calls and website clicks in your monthly reporting. If you're only flagging drops in calls, you're missing the real customer journey.
Keep Your Profile Complete, Not Just Verified
Gemini pulls directly from Google Business Profile data and was measured at 100% recommendation accuracy in a recent industry report, compared to 68% for tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity that work from less complete data. Fill every field, not just the required ones.
⚡ Quick Hits
AI is selective: ChatGPT recommends a business in only 1.2% of relevant local queries, Perplexity in 7.4%, versus 35.9% for Google's traditional 3-pack, per SOCi's 2026 Local Visibility Index.
Star ratings act as a gate: locations recommended by ChatGPT averaged 4.3 stars and Perplexity 4.2 — falling short there may keep you out of consideration entirely.
Did You Know? Gemini, which pulls straight from Google Maps, recommended businesses with verified profile data 100% of the time in SOCi's 2026 index, compared to just 1.2% for ChatGPT.
One thing I'm thinking about...
Local SEO used to be the simpler cousin of regular SEO: get your name, address, and phone number right, collect some reviews, and rankings would follow. That's clearly not enough anymore.
The businesses winning the direction requests and the AI answers are the ones treating their Google Business Profile like a living, structured dataset instead of a static listing. That's a real shift in the work, not just a new metric to watch.
Till next time,
