A recent study in the United States has found that a vast majority of coffee shops are not appearing in Google's AI Overview search results. The research revealed that 77.2% of coffee shops, cafés, and roasteries were absent from the AI-generated answers, highlighting a significant new challenge in digital visibility for coffee retailers.
The analysis, which examined 926 coffee-related businesses, showed a major discrepancy between visibility on new AI platforms versus traditional ones. For comparison, only 13.2% of the same businesses were reported to be missing from Google Maps. The data also indicated that chain coffee shops are more heavily impacted, failing to appear in AI results 95.7% of the time, while independent shops were omitted in 68.2% of cases.
According to the findings, a high volume of reviews did not improve a business's chances of being featured. In fact, venues with over 1,000 reviews had a higher chance of being excluded than those with fewer than 50. However, a higher average star rating did correlate with better visibility. Businesses rated 4.5 stars or higher were missed 61.6% of the time, compared to an 87.6% omission rate for those rated between 4.0 and 4.4. This trend signals a fundamental shift in how consumers may discover coffee businesses, impacting marketing strategies for roasters and the cafés they supply.