New phone map result hides your reviews, address and hours
One SEO says when this version shows up on mobile, the normal three business map box disappears completely.
Google appears to be testing a new AI version of the local pack on phones, and it strips out most of what a customer needs to contact you.
The local pack is the box of three businesses with a map that shows up when you search for something nearby. Joy Hawkins (@joyannehawkins) says she has been seeing a new AI powered version of it over the last few days. In her testing on mobile, every time this version appears, the traditional local pack is gone.
What is missing
The new version still pulls from your Google Business Profile, which is the free listing you manage that feeds your business into Google Maps and search. But Hawkins says it removes a lot of that listing's features, naming reviews, address and hours as examples of what is stripped out.
That is the part that matters. Reviews are usually the thing that makes someone pick one business over the two next to it. Address and hours are how they decide whether to come to you today. If a searcher on a phone sees your name without any of that, the result is doing less selling for you than the old box did.
Hawkins is not a fan of the design either.
This is probably the ugliest version of the AI Overview I've seen in local thusfar.
She added that she is hoping this one reverts soon.
How much to worry
So far this is one SEO reporting it, over a few days, on mobile. Google has not announced it and nobody has said how widely it is rolling out or whether it is a test that will be pulled. Hawkins did not share click or call numbers, so there is no evidence yet about what it does to the number of customers who reach you.
It does fit a pattern we have covered before, where Google keeps changing how much of a result page sends people to a business. We wrote earlier about AI answers appearing on most searches, including brand name searches.
What to do
Search your own main service plus your town on your phone and see which version you get. If you see the AI version with no map box, take a screenshot so you have a record of what customers are seeing.
Then make sure the information that is being stripped out exists somewhere you control. Put your address, your hours and a link to your reviews on your own website, high on the page and in plain text. If Google stops showing those details in the result, the next place a customer looks is your site.
There is nothing to fix in your Google Business Profile itself. The listing is still being used. Keep it accurate and wait to see if this sticks.
This is probably the ugliest version of the AI Overview I've seen in local thusfar.
Be the person who already knew
One email a day. Under three minutes. You will hear about a Google change before it shows up in your traffic.