Published 2026-09-05 · Last updated 2026-09-05
ChatGPT now shows Yelp reviews, ratings, photos, and business details inside its local answers, with Yelp branding and links back to the listing. Yelp and OpenAI made the deal public in July 2026, and Yelp confirmed in August 2026 that its ratings and reviews had started powering ChatGPT's local results in relevant categories. For a local business, that means the Yelp page you may have ignored for years is now part of what an AI assistant reads before it recommends anyone.
What did Yelp and OpenAI actually agree to?
Yelp first mentioned the agreement on its fourth-quarter 2025 earnings call in February 2026. CEO Jeremy Stoppelman described the licensed data as 330 million reviews, nearly 500 million photos, and more than 8 million business listings. He also said the conversations were continuing and that this was not the last deal of its kind Yelp expected to do.
The details came out on July 23, 2026, first reported by Axios and picked up by Search Engine Land. ChatGPT surfaces Yelp reviews, ratings, photos, and business information in local answers, with Yelp branding and links. A Request a Quote integration is included for service businesses. OpenAI controls how the content is presented, and the financial terms were not disclosed.
The arrangement is not exclusive. Stoppelman said it does not stop Yelp from licensing the same data to competing AI systems, and Yelp already sends its data to Yahoo and Apple Maps. In plain terms, one Yelp page can now show up in several different assistants.
Is it live, or still an announcement?
It is live in part. On the second-quarter 2026 earnings call in August 2026, Stoppelman said Yelp ratings and reviews had begun powering ChatGPT's local experience in relevant categories, and that the Request a Quote integration with ChatGPT was coming soon, building on what Yelp already runs with Apple Maps and Yahoo.
The money side backs that up. On the same call, CFO David Schwarzbach reported that Yelp's Other revenue, which includes data licensing, was up 98% year over year to $33 million, on what he called robust demand for its licensing products.
On August 10, 2026, Yelp also announced reservations and waitlists inside ChatGPT. A user can book a table or join a waitlist without leaving the chat, across thousands of restaurants in the US and Canada. The same announcement listed Yelp's other AI distribution: Apple Maps, Amazon Alexa+, Microsoft Bing, and DuckDuckGo.
Why does Yelp show up in AI answers so often?
Because AI assistants were already citing it more than any other local platform before this deal existed. Foundation Marketing and AirOps analyzed more than 28 million AI responses to local business questions across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Mode between September and November 2025. Yelp earned 512,680 citations, 3.4 times the next local platform.
| Platform | AI citations, Sep to Nov 2025 |
|---|---|
| Yelp | 512,680 |
| Better Business Bureau | 149,700 |
| Angi | 145,600 |
| Thumbtack | 56,000 |
| HomeAdvisor | 33,600 |
| Nextdoor | 10,300 |
The same study found Yelp took 72.5% of competitive local citations on Google AI Mode and 62.1% on Perplexity. For trades, the numbers are direct: home services 'near me' answers cited Yelp more than 66,000 times in that quarter, and 24 different 'plumber near me' prompts on Perplexity produced 1,168 Yelp-cited answers.
How many customers are asking an AI in the first place?
Enough to matter. The Pew Research Center surveyed 5,119 US adults in February 2026 and found that 44% use ChatGPT, about 40% use a chatbot to find information, about half use AI chatbots at all, and one in four use one daily.
A Yelp-commissioned Morning Consult survey of 2,202 US adults in February 2026 put the local angle on it. 57% use AI tools at least monthly to find local businesses, and 65% had used AI-powered search in the past six months. Trust is thinner than use: only 15% trust it a lot, 63% double-check AI results against other sources, and 72% want the AI to show where its information came from. Keep in mind that Yelp paid for that survey, so it has a reason to highlight the trust gap its reviews are meant to fill.
The double-checking habit is the part that matters for you. When an assistant names your company and shows a Yelp rating with a link, the customer is likely to click through and read. What they find on that page is the second half of the recommendation.
What three parts of your Yelp page does ChatGPT read?
The deal covers three kinds of content: reviews and ratings, photos, and business information. Each one is something an assistant can quote, and each one is something you control at least in part.
- Reviews and rating. The count, the star average, and what recent reviews say about the work. Ask happy customers to review, and reply to the ones you get.
- Photos. Nearly 500 million of them are in the licensed set. Real job photos and a clear shot of the storefront or truck give the assistant something specific to show.
- Business information. Category, services, hours, phone, and service area. If the category is wrong or the hours are stale, the assistant repeats the mistake.
Then there is Request a Quote. Yelp said the integration with ChatGPT is coming soon. When it lands, a customer will be able to ask for a quote from inside the chat, so the request has to reach someone who answers it. That is where a response system matters more than the listing itself.
One honest caution. OpenAI controls how the content is presented, and no business can buy or guarantee placement in a ChatGPT answer. What you can do is make sure the page it reads is complete, current, and backed by recent reviews.
Common questions
Does this replace my Google Business Profile?
No. Yelp's data feeds ChatGPT, Apple Maps, Yahoo, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Alexa+, according to Yelp's August 2026 announcement. Google runs its own AI features from its own data. Keep both current.
Is ChatGPT the only assistant reading Yelp?
No. The deal is non-exclusive. Yelp already licenses to Yahoo and Apple Maps, and it listed Amazon Alexa+, Microsoft Bing, and DuckDuckGo in its August 2026 announcement.
How fast will this change my leads?
Nobody outside OpenAI can promise that. The pieces that are live are ratings and reviews in relevant categories. Request a Quote was still listed as coming soon in August 2026. Treat it as a reason to fix the page now, before the quote button arrives.
