Ad formats inside AI assistants are arriving, the platforms have said as much and the 2026 trade press tracks every experiment, but nobody, including the platforms, knows the final shape or small-business economics yet. Treat current certainty-sellers accordingly.
What's already true without any ad product: assistants RECOMMEND businesses today, drawing on your profile, reviews, site content, and citations. The organic layer is live now and rewards exactly the fundamentals in our AI-search guide. That's the preparation that also positions you for whatever paid layer emerges.
The watchful-waiting posture: strengthen the sources assistants read, keep your measurement stamped (so any new referral source shows up labeled), and let the first-mover ad budgets belong to businesses with money to burn on experiments. Fast-follow beats pioneer here.