Last week Google started inviting more businesses into AI messaging on Google Business Profile.
Here's the short version. A customer finds you on Search or Maps. They tap message. An AI agent answers the routine stuff. Hours. What's available. Can I book Saturday. If it gets stuck, it hands the chat to you.
It's free. It sits inside the tools a lot of owners already use. And it talks to people who are already looking at your business.
I like that. I also won't turn it on until one boring job is done.
What actually changed
This isn't a brand-new idea. Google has been piloting it. What's new is the wider invite.
Search Engine Roundtable covered the expansion on October 29. Owners started seeing the offer in their profile. Google's own notes describe an agent that answers common questions at no cost, then passes the hard ones to you. You can jump in any time. The messages stay in your Business Profile.
One catch: the AI side of it works when the customer's phone and network support RCS messaging. Everyone else still texts you the normal way. So this does not replace a human inbox. It sits on top of it.
Why this matters for an owner
Most of us lose small leads in the gaps.
Someone asks a simple question after hours. Nobody answers for half a day. They message the next place. Or they ask if you're open Saturday, get silence, and move on.
An AI that answers the easy questions fast can catch some of that. Not because it's clever. Because it's awake when you're not.
That's the upside. Real, and worth looking at.
The part people skip
The agent only knows what your profile and website say.
Wrong hours become wrong answers. An old service list becomes a promise you never meant to make. A price you forgot to update becomes a fight later.
And it goes out under your name. The customer doesn't care that "an AI said it." They care that your business said it.
So the first job is not flipping the switch. The first job is cleaning the facts the AI will read.
What I'd do before I turn it on
Fix the boring fields. Hours. Address. Phone. Services. Booking link if you have one. Holiday hours if you're about to close. If a stranger asked you those questions tomorrow, would your profile give the right answer today.
Check the website pages the profile points to. If the site says one thing and the profile says another, the agent can pick the wrong one. Make them match.
Name who owns the handoffs. When the AI can't answer, someone on your team still has to reply. During business hours, treat that like a ringing phone. If nobody answers the handoff, the lead cools off the same way it always did.
Decide what always needs a person. Quotes. Complaints. Anything that sounds like a special request. Anything involving money. Let the AI handle the easy facts. Keep the judgment with you.
Start with watch mode, not autopilot. If your tools let you review early chats, do that. Read what it said. Fix what it got wrong. Then decide if it stays on.
What this is not
This is not a full customer service team.
It will not know the story behind a regular customer. It will not handle a messy complaint with care. It will not invent a booking slot that doesn't exist, or at least it shouldn't, and you should not trust it blindly if it tries.
It is a front door for simple questions. That's useful. It is not the whole shop.
My honest take
I run a business. I want fewer missed messages. I want the boring questions answered without me typing the same reply again.
I do not want an AI guessing about my business in public.
So my rule is simple. The profile has to be true before the AI gets to speak. If the facts are messy, the AI will scale the mess. If the facts are clean, the AI can save you some real time.
That's the order. Clean first. Then connect.
Google is putting this in front of more owners right now. Some will flip it on the same day. Some will ignore it for months.
I'd sit in the middle. Spend an hour on the profile. Then try it. Then watch the first week of chats like a hawk.
If it helps, keep it. If it embarrasses you once, fix the facts or shut it off.
Would you let an AI answer a customer's first text tomorrow, or do you still want every first reply to come from a person?
— Nathan Brumand, founder of Loppee.com