The platforms people use to find dentists, lawyers, and doctors are expanding, and the window to get in early is already opening. Two of the most widely used consumer products in the world are now entering the advertising space, and for your business, the implications could be significant.
At Market My Market, our job is to track these shifts before they become common knowledge and to ensure the practices we work with are positioned to benefit from them. Whether you are looking for legal marketing, dental marketing, or support across another vertical, we make it our business to know where patient and client discovery is headed before your competitors do. Right now, two significant developments are worth your attention: Apple Maps is launching ads this summer, and OpenAI has begun testing a similar program inside ChatGPT.
Apple Maps Ads: A New Channel for Local Discovery
Apple officially confirmed that ads are coming to Apple Maps this summer in the U.S. and Canada, marking the first time the platform has ever been open to paid advertising.
How the Ad System Works
Apple Maps ads will operate on an auction-based model, similar to what advertisers already know from Google Maps. Businesses bid on search queries, and the most relevant bidder’s listing appears as a sponsored result at the top of the search results. Ads will also appear at the top of a new “Suggested Places” section, which surfaces nearby businesses based on trending locations, recent searches, and what the user is viewing on the map.
Critically, advertisers pay only when someone views or taps their ad, so you aren’t spending money on impressions that go nowhere. Apple has also confirmed it will show only one ad per search, and will not allow competitor targeting, meaning a rival practice cannot bid on your business name to appear above you. That is a meaningful structural difference from Google.
Apple’s Privacy Approach and Why It Matters for Your Practice
Apple has been unambiguous about how user data will be handled. Ad interactions in Maps are not linked to a user’s Apple Account, precise location history is not collected or stored, and no data is shared with third parties or advertisers. The targeting is based on approximate location and current search context, nothing more.
For practices in healthcare and legal services, this matters beyond just optics. Patients and clients in these verticals are often sensitive about their privacy and skeptical of platforms that track their behavior. Apple’s approach removes that friction. A patient searching for a dentist or a prospective client seeking a personal injury attorney can engage with an ad without concern that their search is being logged against their identity.
The Early Mover Advantage
Apple Maps is used by roughly 31% of U.S. consumers when looking up local business information. That is a substantial audience that has never been reachable through paid advertising until now, and iPhone users tend to skew toward higher-income demographics, which is particularly relevant in legal, dental, and medical verticals where a single new client or patient represents significant revenue.
Because this platform is entirely new, early competition will be low, and costs are expected to be favorable compared to the mature, crowded Google Ads ecosystem. This mirrors the dynamic that made early Google Ads so valuable for practices that moved quickly before the market became saturated. Our vertical strategies are already built around this kind of proactive positioning, and Apple Maps will be no different.
It is also worth keeping perspective: Apple Maps ads are not a replacement for Google Ads, which remains the dominant channel for high-intent local lead generation. Think of this as a new complementary channel, one that reaches a valuable audience Google does not, rather than a reason to shift your existing strategy.
What You Need to Do Now
The single most important step you can take today is to claim your free Apple Business profile at business.apple.com. Apple Business is the new unified platform for managing a business’s presence across Apple Maps, Siri, Wallet, and more. A complete, verified profile is a prerequisite for running ads when the platform opens up. Businesses that are not verified will not be able to compete from day one.
Getting set up is straightforward. Here is how to do it:
- Go to business.apple.com and sign in with an Apple ID, or create one if needed
- Search for your business name and location to see if a listing already exists
- Claim your listing if it appears, or add a new location if it does not
- Complete verification, typically via phone call or document submission
- Build out your profile with accurate business details, consistent hours, quality photos, your website, and a full list of services
The completeness of your listing is likely to influence how your ad performs in the auction, just as it does in Google’s local ecosystem. Our team will be following up with more detailed guidance, so stay tuned.
ChatGPT Ads: A Different Kind of Advertising
OpenAI has begun testing ads inside ChatGPT for free-tier users in the U.S., and while the platform is still in an early pilot phase, the trajectory is clear.
How ChatGPT Advertising Differs From Everything You Know
ChatGPT ads do not work like Google Ads. There is no keyword-level bidding, no search query match type, and no cost-per-click auction tied to a specific phrase someone typed. Instead, ads are surfaced based on the context of a conversation, the topic being discussed, the user’s general location, and, if they have opted in, their past chat interactions. A user asking ChatGPT how to find a good family law attorney, for example, may see a relevant ad appear below the response, clearly labeled and visually separated from the answer itself.
OpenAI has stated clearly that ads do not influence the responses ChatGPT provides. The answer comes first, and the ad follows separately. It is also worth noting that ads are only shown to free-tier and lower-cost subscription users. Users on Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Edu plans will not see them. OpenAI has additionally committed to keeping ads away from sensitive topics, including health, mental health, and politics, which is a meaningful safeguard for practices in healthcare and legal verticals. On the data side, OpenAI does not share individual conversations with advertisers. Advertisers receive only aggregated reporting, such as total views and clicks, with no access to what individual users discussed.
The Growth of ChatGPT and What It Means for Discovery
According to a Pew Research Center survey, 34% of U.S. adults have now used ChatGPT, roughly double the share from the previous year. Among adults under 30, that number rises to 58%. These are not just people using it for homework or entertainment. They are using it to research services, compare providers, and ask the same kinds of questions they used to type into Google, including questions about which dentist to see, which attorney to hire, and which medical practice to trust.
The platform is currently limited to large advertisers with significant minimum commitments, which puts it out of reach for most local businesses right now. Self-serve tools are expected over time, but no firm timeline has been announced. When they do arrive, the practices that have already built a strong digital presence will be positioned to benefit immediately.
How AI Platforms Decide Which Practices to Recommend
This is where the ChatGPT discussion becomes relevant for every practice, even those not planning to advertise there anytime soon. Unlike Google, which ranks pages based on keywords and backlinks, AI platforms like ChatGPT generate recommendations using a different set of signals entirely. Research into how ChatGPT selects businesses to recommend points to consistent entity information across the web, trusted third-party citations, review volume and quality, structured data, and topical authority built through quality content.
In practical terms, this means the investments you are already making in your Google Business Profile, directory listings, online reviews, and website content are not just SEO tactics. They are also the foundation of your AI visibility. A practice that is well represented across trusted online sources is far more likely to be surfaced by ChatGPT when someone asks for a recommendation in that category and location.
Two Shifts That Point to the Same Conclusion
Apple Maps and ChatGPT are different products moving at different speeds, but together, they point to the same thing: the definition of local visibility is expanding beyond Google, and the practices that prepare now will have a meaningful head start.
The following are the actions worth taking right now, in order of priority:
- Claim your Apple Business profile at business.apple.com if you have not done so already, and build it out completely with accurate details, photos, and services
- Audit your online presence across directories, review platforms, and your website to ensure consistency, since these signals feed both traditional SEO and AI-driven discovery
- Focus on review volume and quality, as this is one of the most direct signals both Apple Maps and AI platforms use to evaluate and surface local businesses
- Continue investing in Google Ads and Local Service Ads, which remain the dominant channels for high-intent lead generation and are not going anywhere
- Watch for ChatGPT’s self-serve rollout, and be ready to test with a modest budget once the platform becomes accessible to local businesses
The practices well-positioned across these channels, as advertising access expands, will have a clear advantage over those scrambling to catch up.
Stay Ahead With Market My Market
At Market My Market, staying several steps ahead of where the industry is going is not just a goal. It is one of the core standards by which our team holds itself accountable. We are actively monitoring both platforms, preparing testing strategies for when Apple Maps ads go live, and tracking ChatGPT’s advertising rollout so we can move quickly on your behalf when the opportunity is real and measurable.
If you have questions about what these developments mean for your practice specifically, or you want to talk through how to strengthen your online presence ahead of these shifts, we are ready to help. Reach out to us here, and your Client Experience Manager will be in touch.