How ChatGPT and Google AI Are Changing How People Find Local Fitness Studios
Try this. Open ChatGPT and type "what's a good pilates studio in [your town]." Or ask Google's AI Overview the same thing. Look at what comes back.
You'll get a short, confident answer. A studio or two named directly, sometimes with a line about what makes each one worth considering. No list of ten blue links to scroll through. No second page. Just an answer, and it's already decided who gets mentioned and who doesn't.
That's the shift. And it's already well underway.
A Search Used to Be a List. Now It's an Answer.
For as long as most studio owners have been marketing online, a local search worked the same way. Someone typed a query, Google returned a page of results, and the searcher did the comparing themselves: clicking a few links, checking a few websites, forming their own opinion.
AI search collapses that process. ChatGPT, Google's AI Overview, and voice assistants like Siri now do the comparing for the searcher and hand back a finished answer. The person asking never sees your website. They never see your competitor's website either. They see whatever the AI decided to say, and then they act on it.
For a studio that's used to being found through its own site and its own content, that's a real change in where the actual decision gets made.
Where the AI Gets Its Answer From
An AI tool isn't guessing. It's pulling from what already exists about your studio across the web, then stitching that into a single response. The main sources are the same ones that have always mattered, just read differently now:
- Your Google Business Profile. Category, hours, service area, photos, and especially the specific language in your reviews.
- Your website's actual content. Not just that you offer "fitness classes," but whether your pages spell out what you teach, where, and for whom in plain sentences an AI can quote back.
- What other people say about you. Reviews that mention a specific class name, instructor, or result carry more weight than a generic five-star rating with no detail.
If any one of these is thin, outdated, or missing entirely, the AI has less to work with, and it fills the gap with whichever studio gave it more to go on.
Why This Raises the Stakes for Local Studios
A traditional search results page has room for a dozen studios on the first page alone. An AI answer usually names one, two, maybe three.
That means the studios with the clearest, most complete digital presence are the ones getting named, and everyone else is quietly left out of the conversation entirely. There's no equivalent of being "on page two." You're either part of the answer or you're invisible to it.
This is also why the studios that address it now have an easier path than the ones who wait. Right now, most local fitness studios haven't touched their AEO readiness at all. A studio that gets its Google Business Profile, website copy, and review language in order this year is working against very little competition for those AI recommendations. That gap closes over time, the same way it did with SEO.
What This Looks Like for a Real Studio
Picture two studios in the same town, both offering barre classes, both with decent websites.
One has a homepage that says "Barre. Pilates. Strength." A Google Business Profile with hours and a phone number, nothing more. A handful of five-star reviews with no detail beyond "great studio!"
The other has a homepage that says "We teach barre and low-impact strength classes for women in [town], with beginner-friendly options and no experience required." A complete Google Business Profile with real photos and a filled-out description. Reviews that mention specific instructors and specific results.
Ask an AI tool for a barre studio recommendation in that town, and the second studio has given the AI everything it needs to answer confidently. The first studio might be just as good in person. The AI has no way to know that.
The Simple Way to Test Where You Stand
You don't need a tool or a report to get a first read on this. Ask ChatGPT or Google's AI Overview the exact question a prospective client would ask: a specific class type, in your specific town. See what comes back.
If your studio shows up with accurate, current information, that's a good sign. If it doesn't show up at all, or shows up with something outdated or thin, that's a gap worth closing, and usually a fixable one.
The Bottom Line
This isn't a future trend to prepare for eventually. It's already how a growing share of people are finding a studio to try, and the studios showing up in those answers today are rarely the biggest or the flashiest. They're the ones whose digital presence gives AI tools something clear and specific to work with.
If you want the full list of the most common gaps that keep a studio out of these recommendations, we built a checklist covering exactly that.
Download: 10 Signs Your Studio Website Is Costing You Members →
And if you'd rather have someone map your studio's AEO readiness for you, that's exactly what an audit is for.
A Waveform Digital Presence Audit reviews your website, your Google Business Profile, and your local search and AEO readiness, and delivers a written report with a clear action plan.
Waveform Marketing is a boutique digital agency on the South Shore of Massachusetts, specializing in fitness studios and wellness centers.