Google is replacing local knowledge panels with AI Overview listings, Ben Fisher spots on mobile

Google is turning local knowledge panels, the block that shows a business's Google Business Profile, into AI Overview listings on mobile. Ben Fisher posted a screenshot on LinkedIn on 17 September, and Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable replicated the experience on his own device and wrote it up the same day.

What the panel now shows

At the top of the local listing there is now an "AI Overview" label. A "Show more" button expands the summary and drops the user into the AI Mode chat interface, where the follow-up questions run against Google's AI-generated description of the business rather than the business's own profile fields.

Schwartz noted that the AI Overview described his RustyBrick business mostly correctly, though "the niche solutions is a tad old", which he attributed to outdated content on his corporate site rather than an AI error. The rollout is not universal: the AI Overview label does not appear for every query or every listing yet.

Not the first sighting

Schwartz linked three earlier reports on the same pattern, dated back to when Google first started testing Google Business Profile descriptions written by AI, review summaries built into local panels, and an AI writer inside the Business Profile editor. This September sighting is the first where the panel is labelled "AI Overview" outright and hands the visitor into AI Mode when they tap "Show more". It reads as the point where the earlier experiments become the shipping product.

What changes for a business with a Google listing

The local knowledge panel is the piece of the results page a small business or a local service has the most control over. It is the phone number, the hours, the description, the photos, the categories, all taken from the Business Profile and shown to a searcher who typed the brand name. When Google summarises it with an AI Overview, the description on the page is generated by Google from the wider web plus the business's own signals.

Two consequences follow. First, the description Google shows depends on what other pages say about the business as much as on what the profile itself says: reviews, mentions on third-party sites, and the business's own website copy all feed the summary. A stale website, of the kind Schwartz called out on his own domain, will show up in the overview. Second, the "Show more" button pulls the visitor into a chat rather than the profile, so the classical prompts to call, get directions, or open the website compete with follow-up questions the AI answers on the business's behalf.

For teams doing local SEO, the change adds work at the source pages. Keeping the Business Profile fields current still matters, and now so does keeping the About, Services, and FAQ pages on the business's own site current, because the AI Overview reads from them. Reviews and third-party descriptions also become inputs into what the panel says, in addition to being signals into ranking.

Schwartz was blunt about the direction: "I know Google is AIing every experience, so I am not surprised. In any event, I am not sure I want AI describing my business, when I can."

Source

• Google Local Knowledge Panel As An AI Overview, by Barry Schwartz in Search Engine Roundtable, 17 September 2026.
• Original screenshot: Ben Fisher on LinkedIn.