The short version: Google has launched two new AI features for small business owners: connect your Google Business Profile to Gemini for AI-powered customer analytics and review responses, plus a Business Notebooks feature that carries your business context across every AI conversation. Both features begin rolling out globally this month — with a specific exclusion for the UK and EEA, with no confirmed UK timeline.

Feature 1: Google Business Profile connection

Connect your Google Business Profile to Gemini with a single tap.

Once connected, Gemini has access to your customer reviews, customer questions, and performance data. You can ask it questions about your own business: search impressions, direction requests, call data, and customer engagement — all pulled from your live GBP data.

The practical use case for a local service business is immediate. A plumber, solicitor, or retailer with a Google Business Profile currently has to log in to the GBP dashboard to check how the listing is performing, manually read reviews to identify patterns, and write responses to reviews in a separate tab. With Gemini connected, all of that becomes conversational.

You could ask: "What are customers most often complaining about in my reviews?" or "How many direction requests did I get last month compared to the month before?" and receive a plain-English answer from your own business data. The draft review responses function alone — AI writing a personalised, professional reply to each new Google review — removes one of the most consistently skipped tasks in local business management.

Feature 2: Business Notebooks

Business Notebooks give Gemini persistent memory about your business.

The feature creates a dedicated space that holds your Business Profile, your website, your chats, and your sources — with Gemini referencing all of that material across every conversation. Context carries over between sessions instead of resetting each time.

This solves the most frustrating limitation of current AI tools for business owners: having to re-explain context in every new conversation. With Business Notebooks, you set your business context once — services offered, customer types, location, tone, typical questions — and Gemini uses it in every subsequent conversation without being re-briefed.

For a service business, this means an AI assistant that already knows what you do, who your customers are, and what kind of language you use — without you having to establish that each time.

The UK exclusion: what it means

Important for UK businesses: Google confirmed that both features will begin rolling out globally this month, excluding the EEA and UK. No UK rollout date has been confirmed. This is likely a GDPR-adjacent regulatory compliance decision — the same pattern as previous Google feature rollouts that landed in the US before reaching the UK.

This is genuinely disappointing for UK small business operators. The Business Profile connection feature in particular would be immediately valuable for any business with a Google listing — and nearly every UK local business has one.

The exclusion does not mean the features will not arrive. Most Google products that launch globally-excluding-EEA/UK do eventually reach UK users, typically within six to eighteen months of the initial launch. The timeline for Gemini features has generally been shorter than that, but no commitment has been made for these specific tools.

What UK businesses should do now

The UK exclusion does not mean there is nothing to do. The preparation you do now will determine how much value you extract from these features when they do arrive:

  • Audit your Google Business Profile now. Ensure your description, categories, services, and photos are current and accurate. The Gemini connection will only be as useful as the quality of the data it reads.
  • Start responding to every Google review. Build the habit now. When Gemini arrives to draft these responses, you will have a clear baseline to improve from — and you will already have the habit of responding, which affects your GBP ranking regardless of AI tools.
  • Document what business data questions matter most to you. What would you want to ask Gemini about your business performance? Write down the top five. When the feature arrives, you will be ready to use it immediately rather than spending the first weeks working out what it is for.

Prepare for when this arrives in the UK

Audit your GBP: Description, categories, services, photos — make sure they reflect what you actually offer today.
Respond to all reviews: Build the habit now. Gemini will help with the words later.
Write your top 5 business questions: The data questions you would ask if you had an AI reading your GBP every day. Have them ready.