Launched June 10. Updated for multi-location owners in August. Free on every Gemini account.
If you run a local business, your Google Business Profile is the real front door. It is what people see when they search for you, what Google's AI reads when it answers questions about you, and, as we covered in Issue #39, what Google's AI uses before it ever phones you for a price.
It is also the thing most owners neglect. Reviews pile up unanswered. Holiday hours stay wrong. Nobody checks the numbers.
Google's answer is to put Gemini to work. Here is what it does and how to use it without getting burned.
🔧 Tool of the Week: Gemini for Google Business Profile
You connect your profile to Gemini, then tag @Google Business Profile in a chat so Gemini works from your actual business data. Based on Google's announcement and coverage from several trade sites, here is what it can do:
Answer questions about performance. Ask how your business did this month and get an answer drawn from search impressions, direction requests, calls, and customer engagement. Some coverage also lists website clicks, bookings, and the search terms people used to find you.
Draft replies to reviews. Gemini writes responses in a tone that matches your brand and addresses what the reviewer actually said.
Update your profile. It can help with hours, contact details, menus, and seasonal announcements, and it can create Google Posts.
Summarize feedback. Instead of reading 60 reviews, ask what customers keep praising and what keeps coming up as a complaint.
Business notebooks. A workspace in the Gemini app that pulls together your profile, your website, and your own documents. Google says it can surface alerts like unanswered customer questions or missing holiday hours, and suggest promotion ideas.
Two important limits. First, Gemini produces drafts, and nothing publishes without your review and sign-off. Second, it is not available in the European Economic Area or the UK.
The verdict: This is the most useful free tool for local businesses I have seen this year. It will not replace a marketing strategy, but it removes the excuses for ignoring your profile.
🧪 Real Business Example
Take a family-run dental office in Tampa, Florida. They have a Google Business Profile with 140 reviews. About 30 of them have no reply, including two three-star reviews that mention long wait times. The office manager has been meaning to deal with it for months.
She connects the profile to Gemini and works through it in one lunch break.
She asks Gemini to summarize the themes across the last 50 reviews.
The answer is clear: patients love the hygienists and dislike waiting past their appointment time.
She asks for draft replies to the unanswered reviews, edits each one so it sounds like her, and publishes them.
For the two three-star reviews, she writes most of the reply herself and uses Gemini only to tidy it.
Then she asks Gemini to check the profile for missing details. It flags that the Thanksgiving week hours are not set. She fixes that the same day.
This is an illustrative example, not a case study. The order is worth copying: themes first, replies second, profile gaps third.
📋 Step-by-Step: Set It Up Today
Make sure you are an owner or manager of a verified Google Business Profile.
Sign in to Gemini (gemini.google.com or the app) with the Google account that manages the profile. Reports say the integration currently works with personal @gmail.com accounts, and Workspace support is still in progress, so test it before you plan around it.
In Gemini, tag @Google Business Profile and connect your business. The integration is opt-in, so you choose when to connect.
Start with a read-only question: "How did my business do this month? What changed from last month?"
Ask for a themes summary: "What do customers praise most and complain about most in my recent reviews?"
Ask for draft replies to your oldest unanswered reviews. Read every one. Edit the tone. Publish only what you would be happy to sign.
Ask Gemini to check your profile for missing or outdated details like holiday hours, services, and links.
Put a 10-minute weekly reminder on your calendar to repeat steps 4 to 7.
Multi-location owners: tagging now works on your account, but setting up a business notebook still needs a single listing.
❓ The Dumb Question
"Can Gemini post things on my Google listing without asking me?"
No. According to Google's own newsletter, Gemini produces drafts, and nothing publishes without the owner's review and sign-off.
Once you publish a drafted reply, though, it is public and carries your name, so read it first.
💰 What It'll Cost You
What | Cost |
|---|---|
Google Business Profile | Free |
Gemini integration for Business Profile | Free, no paid tier required |
Your time to set up | About 30 minutes |
Weekly upkeep | About 10 minutes |
Local SEO agency (comparison) | Often several hundred dollars a month |
The agency range is a general market comparison, so check real quotes. The point is that routine work like replying to reviews and updating your profile is now free to do yourself.
⚡ The Practical Play
Do this today: connect your profile and ask Gemini one question: "Summarize what customers say about us in the last 30 reviews and give me three things to fix."
Then reply to your five oldest unanswered reviews. Google's own AI reads those reviews when it describes you to potential customers.
📰 News That Matters
Google launched its integration on June 10 for single-listing businesses. In an August update, Google said it was available worldwide on desktop and mobile, and that tagging now works for accounts that manage several businesses.
There was also a quieter change.
Business Profile Q&A was retired in December 2025 and replaced with an AI-generated Ask button.
That means the answers customers see about you are now generated from your profile and reviews. Keeping your profile complete shapes those answers.
🚫 Skip This
Skip pasting Gemini's review replies without reading them.
A generic "Thank you for your feedback, we value every customer" on a three-star review is worse than no reply.
Customers read replies to judge how you handle problems. For negative reviews, write the reply yourself or rewrite the draft heavily. Use Gemini for the easy five-star replies and for pulling out themes, and keep your own voice for the hard ones.
Until next issue, Kris
The Layman's AI: The only AI updates your business actually needs.