Local SEO is dead. Long live AEO: getting found by AI shoppers.
When the next generation of customers asks ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini for a recommendation in your neighborhood, what does the AI say? The Discovery Agent decides that for you.
The shopping query has moved. It used to be "best bakery near me" in Google. Increasingly, it is "what is a good independent bakery in East Austin that does dairy-free birthday cakes" — typed into an AI assistant.
The mechanics of that recommendation are completely different. Google ranked pages. AI assistants assemble answers, and they assemble them from structured, machine-readable information about your business: what you sell, what is in stock, what your hours are, what people say about you.
What the Discovery Agent does
The Discovery Agent writes and maintains the AI-readable surface area of your business: your local profiles, your structured product data, your FAQ schemas, your menus, your hours. It updates them whenever your real catalog changes — which it knows because it lives inside your POS.
It is the unsexy infrastructure that decides whether you are the answer or invisible.
Why this is a human-connection story
The shopper that comes through the door because an AI recommended you is already pre-qualified, already interested, already arriving with intent. They are the easiest customer your team will serve today.
Pair with Listing Enrichment for the content side and Review Booster for the social proof.