Here’s the short answer. Falling Google Business Profile impressions are showing up almost everywhere, and on their own they say very little about your practice. What they do reveal is that Google has changed how it decides who gets seen, and that change matters far more than the number.
Birdeye recently published its State of Google Business Profile 2026 report, built on 2025 data from more than 266,000 business locations. Birdeye describes the findings as directional benchmarks, and the direction is clear.
PULL QUOTE: Patients aren’t searching for you. They’re searching for an answer, and Google and ChatGPT are deciding which practice that answer is.
Why Are My Google Business Profile Impressions Down?
Birdeye found that search impressions per location fell 53.8% from 2023 to 2025. Over the same stretch, customer actions (calls, direction requests and website clicks) fell only about 5%.
Chart: impressions vs. customer actions
Birdeye ties the gap to AI Overviews and zero-click search. Google now answers questions about hours, directions and reviews right on the results page, so fewer people ever open a full profile. The people who do are already close to a decision.
None of this means Google is fading. It’s still a primary starting point for families looking for an orthodontist, and Maps is still one of the shortest paths to a phone call. What’s changed is how much Google decides on the patient’s behalf before they ever see a list.
Should You Watch Impressions or Actions?
Watch actions. Impressions measure exposure. Calls, direction requests and website clicks measure intent.
A profile that’s shown half as often but still produces nearly the same calls is doing its job. A profile with steady impressions and falling calls is the one that needs attention.
Marketing takeaway: when your monthly report arrives, start with calls, direction requests and website clicks. Treat impressions as context, not the scorecard.
Who Is Actually Finding Your Profile?
According to Birdeye, 86% of profile impressions come from category searches like “orthodontist near me,” not from people typing in a business name.
Think about what that means. Most of the people who could become new patients don’t know your practice exists yet. They’re asking a question, and Google is choosing which practices to show.
AI assistants work the same way, only narrower. When a parent asks ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini to recommend an orthodontist, they typically get three to five named practices, not a page of links. Near-me searches and “who’s the best” searches run through different systems, and your practice needs to show up in both.
Being findable by name isn’t enough anymore. You have to be the answer.
What Is Google’s AI Reading From Your Profile?
One quiet change in Birdeye’s report deserves more attention. In November 2025, Google deprecated the Q&A API for Business Profiles, and Birdeye describes a shift toward AI-generated answers built from structured profile data.
In plain terms, Google’s AI increasingly answers patient questions from the facts you’ve published. If those facts are thin, outdated or inconsistent, it has less to work with, and a competitor’s profile may fill the gap.
Photos are a good example. Birdeye found the average verified profile has fewer than one photo, and healthcare is one of the sectors pulling that average down.
Here’s what a strong profile looks like:
- Every field that fits your practice is complete and accurate: categories, services, hours, address and phone.
- Real photos of your office, team and technology, refreshed through the year.
- The same facts on your website. Your profile description and services should also appear on the matching page of your site, so AI tools see one consistent story.
- Your name, address and phone number identical everywhere your practice is listed.
What not to do: don’t fill fields just to fill them. A field built for restaurants or businesses that travel to customers adds noise, not trust. Complete what genuinely fits an orthodontic office.
The website point is the one most practices miss, and it connects to a bigger pattern. In our 2026 Citation Gap Report, not one of the 120+ orthodontic websites we studied scored AI Ready.
Why Do Reviews Matter More Now That There Are Fewer of Them?
Google’s 2024 review cleanup removed inauthentic reviews and cut overall review volume by 36.7%, according to Birdeye. Volume recovered only 0.9% in 2025.
Fewer reviews means each one carries more weight. A steady stream of recent reviews tells Google and AI tools far more than a large total that stopped growing a year ago.
Bottom line: review velocity is a visibility signal. Ask consistently, respond to every review and keep the flow going.
What Happens After a Patient Finds You?
Healthcare stood out in Birdeye’s data for one reason: the phone. Calls made up 36% of healthcare profile actions, the highest share of any industry in the report. Across all industries, calls were just 15%.
Chart: healthcare vs. all industries, profile actions
Birdeye attributes it to the need for reassurance before choosing a provider. Parents want to ask a real person about cost, timing and whether their child is ready.
Visibility earns the call. Your front desk earns the consultation. If calls roll to voicemail at lunch or right after school lets out, that’s where interest quietly leaks away.
What Does This Mean for Your Practice?
Falling impressions feel like a loss, but mostly they’re a filter. Google is showing fewer profiles to people who are closer to a decision, and it’s leaning on AI to decide which practices make the cut.
The practices that get named are the ones whose profiles, websites and reviews give Google and AI tools a clear, consistent, trustworthy story to tell.
At KaleidoscopeAI™, that’s the work behind the KAL AI Growth System™: SEO, AEO and GEO working together. SEO keeps you ranking on Google. AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) help AI tools find, trust and recommend your practice. Your Google foundation stays; the AI layer gets built on top of it.
Not sure where your practice stands? The free KAL™ AI Visibility Audit gives you an AI Visibility Score out of 100 and shows exactly which gaps are holding you back. The average orthodontic practice scores below 40/100.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why are my Google Business Profile impressions going down?
Google is answering more local questions directly on the results page through AI Overviews, so profiles get shown less often. Birdeye’s State of Google Business Profile 2026 report found impressions per location fell 53.8% from 2023 to 2025, while calls, direction requests and website clicks fell only about 5%. Fewer people see the profile, but the ones who do are closer to a decision.
Is Google still important if AI is answering more searches?
Yes. Google remains a primary starting point for families looking for an orthodontist, and Google Maps is still one of the most direct paths to a phone call. AI search adds a new layer on top of Google; it doesn’t replace it. That’s why KaleidoscopeAI™ treats SEO, AEO and GEO as one connected system.
What should an orthodontic practice put on its Google Business Profile so AI can use it?
Complete every field that genuinely fits your practice: accurate categories, services, hours, address and phone, plus real photos of your office and team. Then make sure the same facts appear on the matching page of your website. AI tools trust information that’s consistent across your profile, your site and the directories that list you.
My practice already shows up on Google and in ChatGPT. Is the AI Visibility Audit still worth doing?
Showing up today is good news. In many markets, though, practices appear by default because no local competitor has optimized for AI yet. When one does, it doesn’t appear alongside you; it can replace you, and no ranking report will warn you it happened. We call that the false security gap. The KAL™ AI Visibility Audit shows whether your position is defensible or just temporarily lucky.