Google retired the question box on business profiles. Its AI answers from reviews instead.

Who this is for

This is for the physician or medical professional who owns an aesthetic practice, and for the operations lead who keeps the practice's Google profile current.

For years a Google Business Profile carried a public question-and-answer box. A patient could post a question, and the owner or anyone else could reply.

Google has taken that box apart in stages since the fall of 2025, and an AI feature in Google Maps now answers questions about a place. Both readers want to know what the practice still controls once the box is gone.

What did Google change, and when?

Google's developer change log records the first step. On November 3, 2025, the My Business Q&A API was discontinued, and questions and answers can no longer be read or posted through it. The API was the route outside software used to manage the box.¹

An entry dated September 15, 2025 gave the reason. Google said it was "in the process of updating the Q&A functionality and user experience."¹

On December 3, 2025, a Google product specialist posted the patient-facing change in the Google Business Profile Help community. Customers "can ask their question directly in Google Maps and get an updated, instant answer based on your answers and relevant reviews."²

The same post says owners can keep answering existing questions inside their profile, and that those answers "may be shown in Maps."²

On March 12, 2026, Google's blog announced Ask Maps, a conversational feature in Google Maps, rolling out in the U.S. and India on Android and iOS, with desktop to follow. Google says it draws on information from over 300 million places, including reviews from more than 500 million contributors.³

Neither Google post names the other. BrightLocal, a local-search software company, connects them in its April 2026 guide: Google "has now officially discontinued Q&A, replacing it with an AI-powered experience called Ask Maps."⁴

What does Ask Maps build its answer from?

Google's December post names two inputs: the business's own answers and relevant reviews.²

BrightLocal's guide gives a longer list. It names the profile's descriptions, services, attributes, hours, photos and posts; reviews on Google and other sites; the business website; and third-party sources when the answer is in none of those. Google's own posts give no full list.⁴

Search Engine Journal tested the feature in January 2025, when it first appeared on business profiles. Its review found Google appeared to rely first on the profile, its reviews and the business website, and went to third-party sites only when it needed to.⁵

Of those inputs, the practice writes the description, services, hours and posts, and it uploads photos. Patients write the reviews.

Patients read those reviews on their own too. Reputation, a reputation-management vendor, reported from research it ran with YouGov in 2021 that 72% of US adults read online patient ratings and reviews when considering a healthcare facility or physician.⁶

BrightLocal's 2024 survey of 1,141 US consumers found Google was still the most-used site for reading reviews, at 81%, down from 87% in 2023. That survey covers local businesses in general.⁷

The old box let an owner write the exact words a patient read. Google now assembles the answer itself, from reviews and the profile.

Does Ask Maps show up on aesthetic practice listings?

On the listing we checked, yes. On October 17, 2026, we opened the Google Maps listing of a plastic surgery clinic in Pittsburgh. In the iPhone app, an Ask button sat in the listing's row of buttons, between Start and Call. In a desktop browser, Ask Maps sat at the top of the menu on the left, beside the listing.⁸

That is one clinic on one day, and the earlier record points the other way. In January 2025, Search Engine Journal found Ask Maps missing on profiles for "most healthcare providers, counseling, social services, pregnancy care, and drug rehab centers," though it did appear on dentist profiles. The listing's primary category decided whether it showed. BrightLocal repeated that finding in April 2026.^5,4

Neither source names med spas, dermatology or plastic surgery, and Google's two posts name no excluded categories. A practice can check its own listing in a minute: open Google Maps on a phone, search for the practice, and look for Ask in the row with Directions and Call.

The old box gave the AI little to work with on these listings. We audited 16 aesthetic practices in July 2026. Eleven had a Google profile we could assess on this, and all 11 showed zero owner-answered questions.⁹

The audit came after Google began changing the box in December 2025. It shows what a patient could see in July 2026, and it does not show whether those owners had answered questions before. Google's December post told owners their existing answers would keep informing Maps, and on these 11 profiles there were none to inform it.²

Do patients trust these answers, and who answers for them?

A sizable share say they do not trust AI on health. A Deloitte Center for Health Solutions survey of more than 2,000 US consumers in March 2024 found 30% did not trust health and wellness information from generative AI tools, up from 23% in 2023. In the same survey, 74% named doctors as their most trusted source for treatment options.¹⁰

Answer quality on general medical questions has been studied. A February 2026 systematic review in PLOS Digital Health screened 348 articles and analyzed 20. It cites two studies in which over 90% of ChatGPT's responses gave high-quality, evidence-based information that matched clinical guidelines.¹¹

That review's four research areas are text quality, clinical efficacy, user engagement and safety. None of them concerns facts about one practice, such as its hours, prices or which procedures it offers.¹¹

The Federal Trade Commission's health products guidance sets two principles for advertising: it must be truthful and not misleading, and the advertiser needs adequate substantiation before making a claim. For health benefits or safety, that means competent and reliable scientific evidence.¹²

The FTC's business guide to online advertising adds the reach. The FTC Act prohibits unfair or deceptive advertising in any medium, and claims about health, safety, or performance must be substantiated.¹³

The FTC's Endorsement Guides speak to reviews directly. In procuring, suppressing, boosting or editing consumer reviews, an advertiser should not take actions that distort what consumers think of its products.¹⁴

None of these documents mentions an AI answer on a map listing. Our reading, and a lawyer may draw the line elsewhere: a claim a practice puts on its profile stays the practice's claim to substantiate, wherever Google later repeats it.

Regulators outside the US have named the risk without writing a rule for it. The UK Competition and Markets Authority, responding to the government's 2023 AI white paper, listed AI "giving consumers false or misleading information" among the risks in its remit.¹⁵

The European Commission's Digital Services Act requires platforms to report "the accuracy and rate of error of their automated content moderation systems." That duty covers moderation. It sets no accuracy standard for a generated answer about a named clinic.¹⁶

What should a practice check on its Google profile now?

Medical groups are early on AI search in general. An MGMA Stat poll on June 16, 2026, with 218 responses, found 55% of medical groups had no strategy for improving their visibility in AI searches, 35% had one, and 11% were unsure.¹⁷

The description, services, hours and photos are now inputs to an answer, so their accuracy matters more than when a person had to scroll to them.

A claim on the profile carries the same substantiation duty as an advertisement.

Reviews feed the answer too, and the FTC's review rules govern how a practice asks for them.

About this review

We read Google's developer change log for the Q&A API, Google's December 3, 2025 post in the Business Profile Help community, and Google's March 12, 2026 Ask Maps announcement. We used two trade-press accounts, BrightLocal's April 2026 guide and Search Engine Journal's January 2025 review, for how Ask Maps sources its answers and which categories show it. We read FTC, UK CMA and European Commission documents for rules on accuracy. Trust and review-reading data points come from Deloitte, MGMA, Reputation and BrightLocal, and general AI answer quality from a peer-reviewed systematic review. Our own audit covered 16 aesthetic practices in July 2026, read from each practice's live Google profile, and is reported here only as anonymous totals. We checked one clinic's listing for the Ask button by hand on October 17, 2026, in the iPhone app and in a desktop browser.

The audit is 16 practices in one window, taken after Google began changing the question box. The healthcare category finding comes from one January 2025 review, which BrightLocal repeated in 2026, and our own Ask check covers one listing. Reputation and BrightLocal are vendors reporting their own surveys. The PLOS review measures general medical answers. The MGMA poll concerns AI search broadly.

Fractional Aesthetics is a growth strategy practice for aesthetic medical businesses.