Google Retired Q&A. Here’s What It Means for Your Local Visibility in the AI Era

Google Retired Q&A. Here’s What It Means for Your Local Visibility in the AI Era.

Google Q&A Is Already Gone

On November 3, 2025, Google officially discontinued the My Business Q&A APIs. From that date forward, businesses can no longer post or answer questions using the APIs, and the associated notification types for new and updated questions/answers have also been deprecated.

Google notes that this is part of “updating the Q&A functionality and user experience,” but the key reality for local businesses is simple: The familiar Google Q&A layer is gone, and it’s a signal of how Google is shifting local search toward the AI era.

From Google Q&A to AI-First Local Search

For years, Google Q&A gave customers a public place to ask questions directly about your business, and get answers from the business owner or other users. It acted as a fast, high-intent information layer for decisions like:

• “Do you accept walk-ins?”
  
• “Is parking available?”
  
• “Do you offer gluten-free or vegan options?”
  

Those real questions from real people, paired with direct answers from the business, also added another stream of fresh, user-facing content to your profile. That combination was especially powerful for high-intent local search, removing friction at the exact moment customers were close to choosing you.

With the Q&A now gone and the UI evolving, local businesses have to rethink where those answers live and how AI systems will find them. Google’s deprecation of the Q&A isn’t just housekeeping; it’s part of a broader shift:

• Search is moving from static boxes to AI-generated answers
  
• Customers are increasingly asking questions inside AI experiences (AI Overviews, conversational search, Gemini, etc.)
  
• Instead of pointing people to a Q&A section, Google wants to generate an answer on the fly, pulling from:
  
  • Your website
    
  • Your content and backlinks
    
  • Your reviews and reputation signals
    
  • Your profiles and listings
    
  • Other AI-readable content and local sources

What Local Businesses Need to Do Now

With Google Q&A closing, the responsibility for providing answers has shifted. AI systems now generate responses based on the information they can find, interpret, and trust across the web.

To show up in those AI-generated answers, local businesses now need to:

• Publish consistent, real, localized content (Content tied to your city, neighborhood, services, and expertise.)
• Provide structured, AI-readable content that can be cited and trusted (Content organized in ways AI systems can interpret, including clear authorship, location signals, and question-and-answer formats.)

This is the shift taking place:

AI pulls from the open web, not a closed Q&A box.

Businesses who publish meaningful, structured, localized expertise will be the ones AI selects and cites.

And this is exactly the moment we’ve been building for.

How Experience.com Is Responding

We’re evolving how we support content and local engagement on the Experience.com Search Rank Platform.

Instead of trying to recreate the old experience one-for-one, we’re building for the future of search. 

The next era of search has arrived. 

We are introducing a  new platform designed to help every professional and organization win in AI search.

And one of the first things we built in was the ability to host and manage Q&A. Plus an AI agent to assist with automating Q&A volume and personalized responses. 

We call it VOCE. 

VOCE is designed specifically for this AI-first local search era. Powered by Gemini, VOCE helps you:

• Research, write, and refine expert content in minutes
  
• Localize every piece to your city, neighborhood, and service area
  
• Structure your content and Q&A-style sections in ways that are easier for AI systems to interpret, understand, and cite
  
• Link your content to your reputation, so your reviews, your articles, and your answers work together to build local authority
  

Google Q&A is gone. But your expertise isn’t.
VOCE: a new way to be found, recognized, and trusted in the AI era.