AI Search Visibility: How Customers Find Your Auto Repair Shop [THA 492]

AI Search Visibility: How Customers Find Your Auto Repair Shop [THA 492] Remarkable Results Radio Podcast · Jul 3, 2026

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Term

shop management system

This is the main computer program a car repair shop uses to run its business. It helps them write up your repair bill, order the parts for your car, and schedule when the mechanics will work on it.

Car

The Chevrolet Trax is a small, affordable SUV made by General Motors. It is designed for everyday driving, offering the easy parking of a small car but with a slightly higher seating position and extra cargo space in the back.

Concept

local search

This is when you search for a business near where you are right now, like typing 'car repair near me' into your phone to find a shop down the street.

Term

NAP consistency

This is making sure a business's name, address, and phone number are spelled exactly the same way everywhere on the internet so search engines don't get confused.

Concept

review gating

This is when a business asks you if you liked their service first, and only sends you a link to leave a Google review if you say 'yes.' If you say 'no,' they keep your feedback private so other people can't see it.

Term

black hat techniques

These are sneaky or dishonest tricks people use to try to force their website to the top of Google search results, which can get them banned if they get caught.

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This is the Automotive Repair Podcast Network.

Hey everybody, Carb Capriotto.

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Okay, I've got this very interesting episode for you.

It's another episode on AI.

I get it.

We've done a lot of stuff on AI, but listen.

There's this shifting behavior that's going on

and we want to talk to you, the shop owner

and all the people that work in it.

What we need to do to be visible using AI.

I'd like to introduce two of my great guests

that are here today.

Heather Meyers, the Chief Technology Officer of Kukui.

Hello, Heather.

Hello, Karm.

Hello, everybody.

Thank you for having me.

Glad you are here.

Connor Tracy, Director of Partner Development

at Kukui Corp.

Hey, bud.

I'm doing great, buddy.

How are you?

Good.

Got the Kukui beads on.

Man.

Got my electric shirt on.

One day I got to get a set of those Kukui beads.

I came so close and I'm not sure I knew the password

or something in order to get them.

I just don't remember.

It's a secret handshake, but we'll get it to you.

Yeah, I know.

I know it is.

Look, my curious questions to the industry about AI.

I want you to stick around and listen to this stuff

because this is not going to be the typical AI.

We're not talking about how the technicians are going to use it.

What are we going to use at our counter?

We've done a lot of shows on that.

And that is such an intense and growing portion

of what's going on with AI in our shops.

But you're going to want to learn about this.

I'm going to ask these tough questions to Heather and Connor.

I've got Google, so I'm OK.

What do our guests see from AI?

Should I keep relying on the Google business profile

since AI is God now?

Have the rules of reviews changed?

And are we, as an industry, still learning what AI can do for us?

And these are the questions that I'm going to ask.

So Q1 for you both.

The shift is happening now, but do I

need to pay attention and get on board?

Or can I just hang out and wait in some magical thing

will happen one day and I'm in?

Magic's probably not going to happen.

There should not be waiting.

You know, it's actually similar to what

happened when Google business profile first came out, right?

It was just there.

Everyone started filling it out, but a lot of people just kind

of sat back with, what's this going to do?

I don't know what this means.

You know, fast forward 10 years later,

and it's the single most important thing

you can do from a local search perspective.

This is where we are now with AI.

The good news is part of AI is Gemini, which is Google.

They kind of went all in on Google business profile.

So the good news is if you went all in in Google business profile,

you're already pretty much set up for a big portion of what's

required for Gemini.

So that's really the main focus on a Gemini perspective today.

You know, get ready.

If you haven't jumped on the Google business

profile, Dan Wagon, you really should for a few reasons,

not just AI, because local search, you want to be there too.

And then it keeps building on top of it.

So that's really one of the big today.

The shift isn't totally there.

People are still using organic.

They're still doing local search.

You still have people who don't trust AI.

A lot of people who don't trust AI.

So they'll exit out of it.

But Google business profile is still critical as is some organic.

Business, Connor, just got more complicated because we have

to worry about two things now.

Yes and no.

So the reality is that by and large, a lot of the methodology

that has been preached and should be adopted, in our industry,

we have this thing where things are not a problem

until they're a problem.

Things like Heather mentioned, updating and maintaining

the Google business profile.

Another huge aspect when it comes to local search,

when it comes to AI visibility, and not just talking

about Gemini or JetGPT, it's pretty universal,

is having clean and updated business listings.

There's over 200 listing agencies that list your name,

address, and phone number information.

Now that's always been really mission critical when it comes

to increasing map visibility when it came to, for instance,

Google Maps and other map programs as well.

But now with AI, when we do a little thought exercise with it,

you don't have a Google business profile on Apple intelligence.

You don't have that in all these other platforms, right?

So how do these platforms, and I'll use my wife example

because she uses her favorite little AI platform

and it's now turned into one of her best friends in the world,

but she'll search up recipes and what a lot of folks are doing

is, hey, my vehicle's doing this.

Hey, it's shaking on the highway, right?

Hey, great, it could be a tire out of bounds,

you could have loose front end parts.

Next question is, what's the shop near me

that could help me fix that problem?

How do these software platforms understand geographically

where you're at?

And the reality is, is they're using those same listings

that Google has always used to gain that NAP,

which is name, address, and phone number consistency.

They are using those to an even greater level

because you don't not have a business profile

to tell them where you're at.

So it's really a lot of the same methodology

that we use to leverage Google visibility.

It's now just expanded out.

You know what I'm loving about what I'm hearing

from both of you?

We're going under the covers on this stuff.

I think this discussion is not gonna be superficial.

You must do this and here's why.

You're really helping us understand

what it is that the consumer's doing

because we still gotta capture those opportunities

and as a marketing company,

that's what you guys are passionate about.

You've got to look at it from all these angles.

When you work with clients on this stuff,

are you getting pushed back?

Are they buying in?

Are they saying, it's too soon?

So here's a good thing about Heather

that I'll share with you is generally,

not a lot of asking when it's the best thing for them

in putting that in a polite way,

but a lot of it is stuff.

I mean, I'll use as a really good example of that

and I'm being a little cheeky here,

but like when we found out,

and this was going into last year

that there was a search volume shift,

there are some strategic differences

with the coding of a website that is required

to be visible on AI platforms

that is different from search engines.

And I got to give our development team a ton of credit.

Heather and her teams were able to do that

across all of our sites.

So there's a lot of stuff that may or may not be happening

on the background that you're not aware of.

If you're a Kaku user,

we're already helping you get there,

but also then there's other things

that have had limited importance,

like social media posting,

that now has gained in importance, right?

Social media has been a relevance tool.

You can't rev up Facebook or Instagram

and search auto repair near me.

And that still is the case,

but now these platforms are using the data

from your social media feeds to understand who you are.

It's actually easier for them to crawl data

from a social media platform because it's uniform, right?

Every Facebook post from a software standpoint

is posted using the same kind of coding, right?

Every website is essentially a little nuanced and different

so it can find data from social media platforms

about who you are, what you do,

the information about your business easier.

Well, I mean, let's also call it what it is.

Who owns these AI platforms?

It's the social media platforms, right?

Social media is a shift.

So credit again to our teams here at Kikui,

but posting on social media,

we've made that extremely easy for our users.

We've got some new tools that we put in place,

but posting on social media is incredibly important.

Helping have clean business listings

and all these things are all fundamentally

more important before, but just more important now.

I got a question.

Percentage of people that use AI,

now I know you can go into Google search, I get that.

And they're using Gemini to support that.

Are other people going to like chat

in order to do the same research, auto repair near me?

Are people sophisticated enough

to wanna get there and do that?

Is that on their phone or is it more desktop-y?

Unfortunately, yes.

And I'm saying unfortunate because depending on the license,

for instance, chat GBT, depending on which level you have,

it doesn't necessarily have web search.

There are different things that you have access to

based on which AI tool you're using.

And the problem is the best way to think of these AI chats

are as people-pleaser.

When they respond, their responses

are what they think you want to hear,

not necessarily what is actually true.

So if you're asking for a certain,

maybe it is auto repair near me,

it may not even totally know where you are.

For instance, maybe your geolocation didn't update.

It may make some assumptions about what you're looking for

based on pre-context from your previous search.

It may not necessarily recommend a shop

that is aligned better.

It may not even have access to everything.

So it's a combination of factors

that yes, people are starting to do it.

It is somewhat generational, right, based on adoption,

but people are certainly starting to use these tools.

Definitely hasn't been a full shift, right?

The shift's just really starting with it.

But there has to be that being careful

because unfortunately they are using it

and don't necessarily know they're not getting everything.

And the other thing to call it too is the integration.

There's two names that I won't say very loudly

because a lot of people might be having their cell phone

in reach and we don't want it to rev up a new search,

but Apple has one that's named

and Android has one that's named as well

and those are AI platforms.

And the reason why these companies have invested so heavily

is those are being integrated into those platforms.

Apple just did a huge software announcement on Tuesday

and it talked about how much more deeply

within Apple's infrastructure

that Apple's AI is going to be integrated.

So those tools when we've asked old Lexi

and old not Sarah for years, these questions,

what you're doing is you're adding

to your own internal algorithm, right?

So people may not even know that they're searching

using AI when they are, in the past

it would use much different data.

Now it's using these AI algorithms to push this out.

And really the advent of the newest versions

of these AI tools has become so much more natural language.

People are feeling more comfortable.

Like I said, I'll use my wife as an example.

She has chat GPT in her phone

and she will have a full on conversation

doing problem solving or learning about something

using chat GPT.

And we did an exercise with her.

I said, hey, tell it that the car is doing this

and see if it can help you figure out

potentially what's wrong with your car

and see if it then can help recommend

who can help you fix it.

And it had a whole conversation.

Hey, we think that the Audi might have these potential

symptoms based on information that we have.

And she's like, cool, is there a shop

that can help me fix it?

And the results kind of vary,

but that is the reality of what folks are doing.

And they may not even realize that they're using AI

because they may not be wholesale using like a chat GPT app

or a Gemini app or you name it, your AI tool.

But our social media devices in our pocket, our cell phones,

they have those embedded in them more deeply

than they ever have.

And even in the last few weeks,

both Android as well as Apple have announced

those are even tighter.

So you mean overnight when I get a little sign on my phone

that says there has just been an update?

And if I refuse to find out what it was all about,

buyer beware.

Oh, if you're lucky, not every app alerts you.

That's just for your operating system on your phone.

If you think about every website that you go to,

they don't always tell you something's been updated.

And with AI and the rapid coding now,

odds are everything's getting updated

lots faster than it used to be.

And you're not always told sometimes you just stumble over it

and go, okay, what just happened?

That's new.

Let's see how to use this.

That's another thing you're seeing.

And they don't, I mean, if you think about Google SEO,

they never released that.

They never announced, hey, this is all the things

in our latest update.

You might know there's an update.

Most of the time you didn't know there was an update

until after your site stopped ranking

and the ranking factors changed.

Same thing's happening with every LLM

and all the various tools as they're doing crawls,

they're changing the ranking factors rapidly.

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This is mind blowing to me

that I wake up tomorrow, it's a different world.

The next two days later, it's a different world of me

having how I run my business, how I do search,

how I do marketing.

It's like, are you kidding me?

Why should business be so hard?

So Heather, I know you were telling me,

you guys are doing testing on this kind of stuff.

Walk us through why and how.

I'm constantly changing, right?

We're testing a lot, we're monitoring sites,

we're making changes.

And then we're testing and checking again, right?

Because there's new things that come out rapidly.

But the good news is it seems daunting, right?

It seems scary and almost,

how do I even keep up with this I give up?

The core is still the same.

And this hasn't changed months and months of those.

You still have quality content, right?

It's always been the thing with your sites.

Having a website, even Google business profile,

have quality content.

Some people are trying to mass produce

hundreds of pages of content because,

ooh, AI writes it and they write it good or good enough.

But it's still not quality, right?

It's gotta be written for the end user,

not for AI, not for Google,

write it for who's going to the website.

And you get that, that's your core, that's your base.

And the text does matter.

And then what's increasingly more and more is reviews.

Reviews have always been important.

But now, and there was actually just a release from Google

and update on how they're reviewing reviews

on Google business profile.

And that was just done in April.

They're now using AI in order to eliminate

what they suspect are false reviews or spam reviews.

Or they remove something like 292 million reviews

last year alone, and they're ramping that up.

They've also gone back to enforcing review gating,

which is a huge, huge thing,

just while we're on the topic of reviews.

Karm, you and I have talked about that before

where you might be using a platform

that sends out a notice and says,

hey, give us a thumbs up or thumbs down.

And the thing if you have thumbs up,

then it's like, hey, leave us a review.

The reality is that really since reviews have come around,

Google's had in their terms of service, no bueno.

You can't incentivize to leave a review

and you cannot gait these reviews as they come in in any way.

Honestly, it hasn't really been enforced

probably since just before COVID.

Now we did see some people get enforced just before COVID

and oh boy, it was bad.

Like we had clients of ours that actually had like

a year's worth of reviews get taken away.

We had one that had their Google business profile

actually shut down for a period of time.

But why a year?

How come a whole year?

It's whatever Google decides and you have no appeal.

They just, hey, this is what we're doing.

But what if they were all absolutely 100% legitimate?

Yeah.

I mean, there is an appeal process that they've released.

If you find your Google business profile

has been put into Google jail,

there is an appeal process that you can go through

to actually appeal it.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it's an AI bot

that's actually reviewing your appeal

and doesn't like being told, they can't.

Are they making a technology mistake, not a human mistake?

I mean, that something is just trashing this stuff

for no reason?

In this instance that I'm speaking about,

it's specifically doing any sort of filtering

prior to the review coming in.

So a couple really important things for the views,

you can never incentivize anybody to leave your review.

So if you have a card on your account

and literally, you remember right after COVID,

everybody, it was like a big thing

where people got those 360 camera views

inside of their shops.

It was like a big thing.

We actually heard from a couple of shops

that they had had a countercard that said,

hey, leave us a review and you get $10 off your next one.

It seems extremely innocuous, right?

Seems like a nothing burger.

Well, they got this 360 view,

they posted it to their Google business profile

and now Google knows that you're giving people $10

for leaving me a good review.

Whoa, I see.

It's enforced, but it is in there.

So just a couple of things with the reviews

that are just really, really critically important,

cannot incentivize them.

We can ask to leave a review,

we cannot give you a benefit for leaving it, full stop.

And there shouldn't be anything

that keeps the consumer from going to the review.

Basically, they need to have the opportunity

to leave the review without any sort of gating,

filtering prior to that happening.

That's in their terms of service.

They have been very lax about enforcing that.

So there's many platforms out there,

there's many businesses out there that have said,

hey, based on that, hey, we're gonna do this.

But also a couple of things, consumers know

that you have a five star review rating, it's BS.

They know that.

And now Heather can speak to that a little bit more,

but Google is actually viewing that and like,

hey, big problem if that's who you are.

Yes, and tying that in,

you know, they're using an, you know,

when we're not going totally down the fear of monger,

you know, they're not gonna catch every possible one

that's doing it.

There might be some false flags.

There is an appeal process,

but ultimately as Tonya was saying, you know,

don't incentivize, don't try to direct them to one page

to submit if it's a good review, which is Google,

you know, the complaint department,

if it's not a four or five star,

don't send them straight to the complaint department,

because if they do find the gating,

your Google business profile could end up in Google jail.

And what that means is it's anywhere from

your site's not ranked, meaning you don't appear in results

or just suspending the profile entirely.

I appreciate this.

This is a great, you know, piece of content right here

to appreciate and understand how reviews work

for both Google and AI.

Let's go back to the whole AI premise.

Is there anything in AI like Google

that I can get on the top of the list?

Anything right now that we know of?

No, I mean, but the same question,

there really isn't anything in Google

that can guarantee top of the list either, right?

Unless you pay for it.

Even then, you're bidding, right?

When it's at, you're bidding to get up there.

And then they introduced local service ads,

which then you go through a background process

and then you also have to pay per lead.

You know, I would be very surprised as a business person

if there is not a way to monetize ads

within the AI results very, very soon.

In fact, well, there's already beta stuff happening with that.

So of course that's gonna happen.

But the best way to compare it is with organic, right?

So when you think organic results,

it's similar as in you can't control the ranking factors.

And if you try to beat the system,

you might get away with it short-term,

but the long-term game,

you're not gonna stay on top of organic any more than you'll,

and you're not gonna stay on top of the AI search results.

In fact, it's even less likely

because now there are AI bots specifically looking

for black hat techniques that you're trying to circumvent

to get ahead.

What is consistently working

is really the same things that work for organic

in local search.

And as long as those are being followed consistently,

that's the long game that will actually show results.

And then once ads are supported and released at scale,

it's gonna be also pay your way at the top,

which is always true.

Pay your way to the top.

So the methodology there though is making sure

that you're consistently sharing unique content.

That's always been important to organic,

talking about some of those shifts

and what is a little bit different.

I talked about the importance

of these different social media platforms.

So in past where maybe you had a blog post on your website,

now you also wanna share that content

across social media platforms.

So make sure you post it to your Google Business profile.

Put it on Facebook.

We've built a platform that allows you

to do these wholesale one posts

and it'll post it across multiple platforms,

creating efficiency, but post it on Facebook,

post it on LinkedIn, Instagram,

post it wherever you can

because you're increasing the odds

that whatever data you're putting out there

can get found by the software

and then in turn hopefully present that as a search result.

The methodology is the same.

It's just how far you need to cast that net

is just a little bit further to be honest with you.

But the methodology is the same.

Share unique content that separates your business

from your competitors.

Make sure that as much of that

is human written as possible

and that content being shared now

across multiple platforms

where before it was like,

make sure it's organic on your website,

post your Google Business profile.

Social media was just kind of there to be relevant.

Well now, yes it is still there for that relevance

but then it's gonna get crawled

and could potentially result in a search result for you.

I can't tell you how much I keep thinking

of Big Brother here.

I don't know why.

I'm not saying Big Brother as the government.

I'm saying Big Brother as-

The red eye of how?

Yeah.

And I keep thinking about

how does the humans staying control?

I do believe that we gotta pay attention.

We gotta go to class.

We have to be learned.

We have to offer responsibility

to people inside of our business.

Even if it's maybe not you

and you're not good at this stuff

but you can't ignore everything

you've talked about here today.

It's, some people it's scary for some people

it's a piece of cake for some people saying

something else I gotta do.

So how does the humans staying control

with this nebulous moving thing called AI,

the internet, search and SEO?

Both of your jobs five years ago,

I bet you are 100% different today.

Carm, the real thing that I'll share with shop owners

is in the effort to keep it simple.

It's have an eye on your revenue.

You know, that's core to what we do

but if you see changes in your revenue stream

have the ability to then deep dive where that's changing.

You know, that's a core tenant to our platform.

You know, some of the value we bring

is tying these marketing efforts to your ROs, right?

If I see that new customer search volume is going down

what does that mean?

Does it have an effect on my revenue?

And being able to look at short and long-term trends.

So having a platform, whatever platform that may be

where I can see, okay, here's what my impact was last month.

Here's where I'm looking at over as a series of months.

So I have this data in front of me

to understand where I'm trending

because when you can see where you're trending

now you've got a baseline to understand

either I'm trending the way I wanna be

or I'm not trending the way I wanna be.

And if I'm not, now, okay, do I have the partners in place

where I can then correct that?

Is it an organic search thing?

If I'm not generating new customers

that's gonna be that I don't have new people

finding me digitally to come into my business.

Okay, what do I need to do to get visible

and where do I need to get visible?

Or what aspect of the marketing that I'm doing

is not performing from a revenue standpoint the way it is.

It has to be revenue.

Clicks and impressions are vanity metrics.

And frankly, they can be extremely dubious.

We talked about this before

like when we talked about Google ads a few months ago.

I can get a click, I can get an impression

but if it's from two states away

that cannot be a success metric.

So the success metric in our business

is did it develop a car showing up in my business

that I was able to diagnose, I was able to repair

and send somebody happily down the road safely.

At the end of the day that is the success metric.

When we look at that and work it backwards

then that's where we can understand it simply.

And do I have the ability at my counter

to convert those opportunities into revenue?

And so I get what you're saying, Heather.

It's there's this nebulous big brother, SEO, AI,

you know, Google my business ads

and then there's the real human factor

in being able to do something with all of that

and make revenue happen when the opportunity comes in.

It's to everyone's point,

you got to pay deeper attention to your entire business

than you ever have before.

Correct.

Yeah, and it's trust but verify too, right?

Not just, I mean, it involves everything.

If you're asking AI, trust but verify, ask the resource

because the hallucinations can be funny at first

and then they get to frustrating real quick

much like parenting a pre-teen of sorts.

Trust but verify.

And it's never a replacement for the human.

It should be, it's your researcher, it's a tool.

It helps the job go faster,

but it's not gonna replace human decisions

and shouldn't, it shouldn't.

I am in love with what you just said.

In fact, this could be the title of our episode.

It could say AI colon, trust but verify.

Yeah.

I mean, that's powerful.

Because this is not generating unique information.

Full stop, we have to call this out.

Nothing that AI is gonna tell you,

it is creating on its own, okay?

It's taking information and it is restating it to you,

but at the stage where it's at,

we have to understand that this is not a noble laureate

that's speaking to you.

It's somewhere with like a middle schooler.

So we'll use examples, a few months ago,

we had some folks and there was some information

that was shared and they were given some chat prompts

and like, hey, use this to analyze your website.

And that's all they were given.

They weren't given any understanding

of how these tools can give you misinformation

and what these tools will never do is go,

you know, Karm, I don't know.

I'm not a good source of information here.

They'll never do that.

Why?

Because then you're never going back.

So what it'll do is it'll spit out a result.

We actually did an exercise.

We're like, hey, can you analyze this site?

Yeah.

And then we had to ask it a follow up question.

So it's these extra follow up questions.

We said, hey, did you actually access this URL

to get this answer?

And it went, no, we just grabbed some information

that we found commonly online

and that's how we came up with this.

So that's the type of verification we're talking about

is just like you would do when talking to a middle schooler

and they're giving you something that's a matter of fact

is, hey, is that really the case?

It very well maybe.

And that's one thing we don't want you to assume

that it is just lying because it's generally not.

Now, is it filling in spots where it doesn't have information

darn near every time?

And it's how much is filled in is what you need to ask

those follow up questions to understand.

Did you access my URL to get this data?

Where did you find this information?

It's the same reason why papers have to have citation.

It's understanding exactly where the data is coming from

because that's all it's telling you

is data that it's found other places.

Everything I just heard from Connor

was all about this middle school grilling.

Not grilling, but asking questions of a middle schooler.

It's a dad of six talking here.

And wonder if you're getting the right answer.

I know.

Wow.

That summarizes how much we have to pay attention

and every time we get something back

it may not necessarily from AI,

it may not necessarily be the whole,

yes, your honor, I perfect to tell the truth,

the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

You can't ask AI to put their hand on the Bible.

The great analogy is like I was on vacation

and my son was supposed to mow the lawn.

And this is a perfect analogy.

Called up my son and said,

hey dude, did you mow the lawn?

Yeah, dad, I mow the lawn.

He knows that I looked at the doorbell camera

and I could see that the front lawn was mowed.

Got home from vacation and I'm gonna need

a machete and a pack mule to get through my backyard.

Now, technically, was my son correct?

He did mow the lawn.

I didn't ask, did you mow all of the lawn?

It's the same thing here, right?

Like it's going to give you an answer

that may be based in factual correctness

but is it a complete answer

and what information was filled in or extrapolated?

So great analogy then.

Yes, and that actually that's one

as you were describing that.

That's where the prompt matters, right?

So if you had said, did you mow the front and the back lawn?

Then the answer could be different.

It's the same when you're asking any of these AI chats.

In fact, pretty much all of my conversations

when I start is do not fabricate,

do not try to please me, be blunt,

tell me if something is inaccurate,

tell me if there's data missing.

And I actually preload my conversations with this.

For instance, in Claude,

you can actually have an MD file that it reads in

that has all these parameters, which it's long.

But in a sense, it's starting, all right,

no eyes, don't fabricate anything

and don't try to please me, tell me the blunt truth.

And if you don't have access, don't try.

So you dump that in every time?

Yeah. Okay.

Everything except for you have to make eye contact.

Again, it's like talking to your kids.

Exactly.

I have another thought about the lawn.

Son, did you just cut the lawn in front

of the doorbell camera?

Yeah. I mean, that's damn near.

Like the reality is though,

is it really is the same thing though?

It's the more data you give it.

I'll use another example.

So I was kind of tinkering with this.

I create some of the artwork for our social media

and for some of our visual stuff that I do here at Kukui.

And we were going to super conference

and I basically, I was making a poster

of a guy golfing and we were in Florida.

So it was like, hey, will you create a visual

of somebody on a putting green with crocs,

meaning crocodiles and flamingos?

It spits out a picture of a guy on a putting green

with flamingos wearing croc shoes.

And I literally, I sat back and laughed,

but I can't be mad at the tool

because I didn't say the animal a crocodile.

It did what I asked it to do.

And it goes to this people pleasing, right?

So we need to tell it, hey, don't please me.

I want you to be blunt.

I want you to treat me like Heather treats me

whenever I ask her about software development.

I can't do that cause it doesn't quite understand,

but it gets close when I do that.

Oh my God, I gotta tell this to Tracy

because she's out there with Sarah

teaching this class on communication.

And when you stop to think about the power of ask AI,

the interpretation, you said this, they heard that.

You said this to AI, AI took it literally.

Oh wow, this has been a very fun,

but yet very powerful episode.

I know what we intended to talk about,

but like always in all my shows,

it goes into a million different directions.

Final words and us trying to stay in control,

what works that AI because it's like,

I'm at this point in all the episodes

that we've done on AI in different areas of the business,

that it's here, it's real, it's gonna stay,

but we have to almost bring it on

as an individual who works for us that is brand new.

Even though it may be really smart,

we have to teach it us.

And we can't ignore this, we have to be inside,

we gotta be on it.

And you'll get distracted by the convenient widgets.

There's a lot of stuff out there.

This has really replaced SEO as the kind of new by word

and it's here to get your attention.

Like really focus on the stuff

that has traditionally been important,

getting visible online, handling the phones well, you know?

Yeah, there's gonna be AI widgets

that do this and that and you know,

like AI is gonna answer your phone.

I'm sorry, but if somebody is gonna bypass

every digital means in the world,

they are making a human effort to talk to a human.

Don't have a robot answer in the phone.

Look through all of that noise, okay?

And just focus on the things that are core reports.

Am I building revenue?

Am I aware that these tools are impacting my business

and how are they impacting my business?

And what can I do to leverage the power of them

because that power is absolutely there?

That's the biggest things that I would say

that they've been the most right now.

Thank you, Connor.

Heather, final word.

Not just auto repair shops, right?

It's the small businesses.

The businesses that come out ahead

and aren't gonna be the ones that find a hack, right?

Find that easy way to get to the top

of no matter which search tool there is out.

It's the ones that have been doing it all along.

They've got that strong online presence.

It works everywhere, right?

Traditional search, AI search, whatever comes next

because it's gonna keep evolving.

As long as those fundamentals

and the structure and foundation is there,

it will continue to function and be built upon

and ultimately keep the human in the loop.

And then of course, as we said,

trust but verify, be skeptical

of anybody selling that Magic E. Lakes or...

Trust but verify.

I mean, I took so many, incredible,

major talking points out of this episode.

That middle schooler thing was just very impactful to me.

I love it.

Thanks.

It's been great to have you guys on the podcast.

We appreciate your support as a sponsor and...

Wow.

We were here talking about the shifting AI behavior

and I think exactly what it is

that you need to know and learn about.

Heather Meyers, CTO, Chief Technology Officer of Kukui

and Connor Tracy,

the Director of Partner Development at Kukui.

Thank you both for being here.

Yeah, I appreciate it.

If anybody wants any further education too,

just another kind of give some kudos to our team.

Heather and her team has put together

an amazing blog series and white paper.

It's completely free to the industry.

Kukui.com, click on blogs.

They're all in there for you.

There's no cost.

They're not Kukui commercials.

They actually even don't talk about product at all,

but it's everything from how to understand

if they're hallucinating to just put on one

with all these changes and reviews,

it's free education for you.

So please leverage it.

Great stuff.

You can't learn enough, get the resource.

Appreciate it, Connor.

Thanks, guys.

Thanks for being on board to listen and learn

from the Premier Automotive Repair Business Podcast,

Remarkable Results Radio.

Get your episodic education on the ARPN listening app

at automotiverepairpodcastnetwork.com.

Also enjoy the podcast on our

Carm Capriato YouTube channel.

Carm is all for advancing the professional

automotive service industry.

Until next time.

About this episode

Auto repair shops must adapt to a massive shift in how customers find them as AI-driven search engines like Gemini and ChatGPT take over. Guests Heather Meyers and Connor Tracy from Kukui join host Karm Capriotto to break down the technical realities of AI visibility. They discuss why maintaining a Google Business Profile is more critical than ever, how AI platforms crawl social media for uniform data, and the importance of clean business listings across the web. Shop owners will learn actionable strategies to ensure their business remains visible as consumers transition from traditional search to AI assistants.

black hat techniques local search NAP consistency review gating shop management system

Chevrolet Trax

Original notes

Thanks to our Partners, NAPA TRACS, Today's Class, KUKUI, and Pit Crew Loyalty Watch Full Video Episode

Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing how consumers search for auto repair services, and shop owners who don't adapt risk becoming invisible online.

Carm Capriotto welcomes Heather Myers, Chief Technology Officer at KUKUI, and Connor Tracy, Director of Partner Development at KUKUI, to explain how AI-powered search is transforming local marketing. They separate fact from fiction, share practical strategies for improving AI visibility, and explain why strong marketing fundamentals remain the key to long-term success.

What You'll Learn

Why optimizing your Google Business Profile remains the most important step for local AI search visibility.
How AI platforms like ChatGPT and Google's Gemini use consistent business listings to recommend local repair shops.
Why maintaining accurate Name, Address, and Phone (NAP) information across online directories is more critical than ever.
How AI now crawls social media platforms for business information and why authentic, human-created content improves discoverability.
What "Google jail" is, how AI is filtering reviews, and why violating Google's review policies can seriously damage your online presence.
Why review gating and incentivized reviews can put your business at risk.
How to use AI effectively by following the principle of "trust but verify."
Why better prompting leads to better AI-generated results and how to avoid incomplete or misleading responses.

AI is changing the way customers find and evaluate repair shops, but success still depends on the fundamentals. Accurate business listings, a well-maintained Google Business Profile, authentic content, ethical review practices, and thoughtful use of AI tools will position your shop to earn trust, improve visibility, and convert online searches into paying customers. Heather Myers, Chief Technology Officer at KUKUI Connor Tracy, Director of Partner Development at KUKUI, Listen to Connor's other episodes HERE

Thanks to our Partner, NAPA TRACS

NAPA TRACS will move your shop into the SMS fast lane with onsite training and six days a week of support and local representation. Find NAPA TRACS on the Web at http://napatracs.com/ Thanks to our Partner, Today's Class Optimize training with Today's Class: In just 5 minutes daily, boost knowledge retention and improve team performance. Find Today's Class on the web at https://www.todaysclass.com/ Thanks to our Partner, KUKUI Stop juggling multiple marketing tools. KUKUI’s integrated platform delivers 4x better website conversions, automated follow-up, and real-time ROI tracking. Get industry-leading customer support with KUKUI at https://www.kukui.com/ Thanks to our Partner, Pit Crew Loyalty You’re probably tired of chasing new customers who never return. We understand. Pit Crew Loyalty ends the one-and-done cycle, turning first visits into lasting, reliable revenue at https://www.pitcrewloyalty.com/ Connect with the Podcast:

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