Google Business Profile messaging is coming back, and this time an AI agent will be the one answering. Search Engine Roundtable reported on October 29, 2026 that Google is opening an early-access pilot for AI-powered Google Business Profile messaging to more businesses. Customers tap a button in Search or Maps and chat from their phone's own messaging app, with an AI agent handling the conversation. It is a return for a feature Google shut off in the summer of 2024, rebuilt around AI.
The setup is deliberately simple from the customer's side. A person finds a business in Search or Maps, taps a button, and starts chatting from their phone's own messaging app, without downloading anything new or creating an account. The conversation is handled by an AI agent, which means the business does not need a member of staff watching an inbox. For the customer, the experience is just a chat; for the business, it is a conversation that happens without anyone on the team having to be present.
Access is narrow for now. The pilot is invite-only and free for now, and Google has not shared a rollout date, so most businesses cannot join yet and nobody knows when they will be able to. It works only for customers on RCS-capable phones and carriers, which limits who can use it. Google has not posted a public announcement yet, so the details are early reports, not final rules, and anything about how the pilot works could still change before it reaches a wider audience.
This is not Google's first attempt at Business Profile messaging, and the history matters. Google shut off native Business Profile chat in the summer of 2024: new chats stopped on July 15, 2024, and the feature was fully gone by July 31, 2024. Businesses that had come to rely on the chat button lost a direct line to customers almost overnight, and local SEOs had to remove a call to action they had spent years recommending. The shutdown was abrupt, and it left a gap that nothing replaced.
The AI agent is the answer to the problem that killed the original feature. A chat button is only useful if someone answers, and many small businesses could not staff an inbox all day. Messages went unanswered, customers were left waiting, and the feature became a source of frustration rather than of bookings. An AI agent that answers instantly removes the staffing problem entirely, which is presumably why Google is willing to try again. The technology changed, so the economics of the feature changed with it.
The first step is to watch for the invite, because there is no way to apply through a public form while the pilot is invite-only. Businesses that receive one should think carefully about what the AI agent will say on their behalf, since it will be speaking to customers as the business. The questions customers ask a local business are usually predictable — hours, prices, availability, directions — and a business that prepares good answers for those questions will get far more from the pilot than one that lets the agent improvise.
Local SEOs should treat this as a channel to prepare for, not a ranking factor to chase. Being reachable matters to customers, and a business that answers instantly will win enquiries that a slower competitor loses, whether or not messaging affects visibility directly. The sensible preparation is unglamorous: keep the profile complete and accurate, list the services and answers customers actually ask about, and monitor the chats once the pilot opens. If the AI agent says something wrong, the business needs to know quickly, because it is the business's name on the answer.
Sources: Search Engine Roundtable, October 29, 2026.
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