Leading local businesses through the transition from search to AI agents.
I spent years leading local businesses to win in Google search. Now I'm leading them through the next transition—from search to AI agents. Every small business will have an agent. The ones configured well will dominate their market, and the ones left on defaults will lose quietly. I'm writing down what I'm learning and building the methodology for the people who'll do this work.
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A thesis on what the Apple–Google Gemini deal means for the next decade of local commerce, and the new profession forming around it.
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I'm the founder of Catalyst Digital Services, the parent company of Brawn Media and LocalCatalyst.ai. My work for the last decade has been in local SEO—the unglamorous, operational craft of getting plumbers, dentists, and regional service companies found by the people who need them.
That channel is fragmenting. The ten blue links are giving way to conversational agents answering on behalf of the user. The work now is configuring a business so an agent can represent it accurately, negotiate on its behalf, and close the loop. I'm building a methodology for the practitioners who will do this work—agent architects—and writing publicly as I figure it out.
This site is operated with Boswell, a personal brand agent I'm building in public.