Are your customers asking ChatGPT instead of Google?

The younger your customer is, the more likely it is that they use AI tools. Six in ten Swedes now use AI services, up from four in ten a year ago, and among people born in the 2000s the figure is 89 percent, according to Internetstiftelsen's Svenskarna och internet 2026, published on 25 September.

That does not mean Google search in the traditional sense is finished. It means the question "where should we get coffee near Mariatorget?" now has two front doors, and a café that only thinks about one of them is easy to miss in the other.

How many Swedes use AI to find things?

Most Swedes under 40 now use AI tools, and a large minority use them every week. The 2026 report puts usage at 89 percent for people born in the 2000s, 76 percent for those born in the 1990s and 72 percent for those born in the 1980s. Up to four in ten Swedes use AI services at least weekly, and almost two in ten use them daily (Internetstiftelsen, 25 September 2026).

ChatGPT is the clear leader. More than half of Swedes use it, the report says, while about one in eight uses Google's Gemini. Internetstiftelsen's own summary calls the jump from four to six in ten users in a single year a rush (press release, September 2026).

For a café, a lunch place or a new food concept, the point is simple. Your next regulars are in the age bands that adopted AI first.

Is AI replacing Google for finding products and places?

Not yet, but it is taking a slice of the searches, and young people are moving first. In the Swedish data, 14 percent say they google less often than a year ago, and half of that group say they use AI instead (Internetstiftelsen). So roughly one Swede in fourteen has already shifted some searching from Google to an AI service.

A US survey published on 30 September points the same way. Talker Research, commissioned by the payments company Spreedly, asked 2,000 American adults between 3 and 8 September which source they trust most for product research. Among Gen Z, 31 percent chose ChatGPT and 12 percent chose Google Search (Spreedly via PR Newswire, 30 September 2026). The same survey found that 34 percent of Gen Z would drop brand loyalty for a better deal an AI assistant found.

It is a US sample, so treat it as a signal rather than a Swedish fact. But the direction matches what the Swedish numbers show, and Google itself has blurred the line: AI Mode, a chat-style answer inside Google Search, reached Sweden in October 2025 (Mild, 24 October 2025).

How does an AI assistant decide which café to recommend?

It recommends what it can read, check and trust. An assistant cannot taste your cardamom bun. It can only work with what is written about you online: your website, your Google Business Profile, your menu, your reviews and what others say about you.

Google is explicit that there is no secret recipe. "There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode," its guidance for site owners says. What it asks for is the basics done well: pages it is allowed to crawl, important content in text rather than locked inside images, structured data that matches what is visible on the page, and Business Profile information kept up to date (Google Search Central).

ChatGPT works in a similar way for search answers. OpenAI says its OAI-SearchBot crawler is what surfaces websites in ChatGPT's search features, and that sites which block it in robots.txt will not appear in those answers (OpenAI crawler documentation).

Here is what that means in practice. Many small food businesses publish their menu as a photo on Instagram or a PDF, list opening hours in three places that disagree, and leave a website that says little beyond the address. A person can work around that. An AI model, assembling an answer in a second, is more likely to pick the place whose details are clear and consistent.

What should a small food business fix first?

Start with the facts an assistant needs to answer the questions your guests actually ask. Five fixes cover most of it, and none needs a new website:

• Put the menu in text. A web page with dishes, prices and dietary notes beats a photo of a chalkboard.

• Make your details match everywhere. Hours, address and phone should be the same on your site, your Google Business Profile and your booking or delivery apps.

• Add structured data. Google's LocalBusiness markup can carry opening hours, address, the cuisine you serve, a link to your menu and your price range (Google Search Central).

• Check that you are not blocking the crawlers. A robots.txt rule written to keep out one bot can shut out AI search crawlers too. Look at yours, or ask whoever built the site.

• Say what makes you different, in words. "Sourdough baked on site every morning" or "vegan brunch on weekends" gives an assistant something specific to match to a question.

Then test it. Ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Google's AI Mode the questions your guests ask, such as the best brunch in your neighbourhood or a quiet café to work from near your street. Note who gets named and what the answer says about them. Repeat every month.

This is less about technology than about how people decide. A guest choosing where to eat wants confidence before they walk in. The places that give an assistant clear, honest detail make that confidence easy to pass on.