Google AI will soon call on your customer's behalf to book an appointment: what you as a tradesperson need to know
At I/O 2026, Google announced that its AI can independently call on behalf of a customer to book an appointment. Google describes the feature for three categories, home maintenance, beauty and pet care, and is rolling it out in the summer of 2026 in the United States. Nowhere is it described in what order the AI calls through businesses. Google has not named a date for the Netherlands, and that is exactly the reason to have your profile in order now, not only once it actually happens.
Your phone rings. There is no human on the line.
You are up a ladder, halfway through a job. Your phone rings, an unknown number. You think: I will call back later. What you do not know: that call did not come from a customer. It was Google. And Google does not wait.
That sounds strange, but it is exactly what Google announced at Google I/O 2026
Google's AI agent, powered by Gemini, can independently call on behalf of a customer to book an appointment. The customer types in something like book a painter for next week. Google looks up the relevant businesses and calls on the user's behalf. Google does not describe exactly how that selection comes about. What does logically follow from a phone call: whoever picks up and is available gets the job, and whoever does not pick up does not get a turn.
This is not science fiction
Google Duplex, the technology behind this, has existed since 2018. Back then, an AI called a real hairdresser live on the Google I/O stage to book an appointment. What has happened since is not that the technology suddenly exists, but that it has moved into the ordinary search function. We are not adding a figure for how often that happens worldwide: there is no number we can point to, and a number we cannot point to does not belong here.
Note: agentic booking is rolling out in phases
Not every user has it today. But the profiles that are complete now will be at the front as soon as the rollout begins. So do not wait until it actually goes live.
What is agentic AI, and why is this different from before?
Agentic AI is an AI that independently carries out tasks on behalf of a user. No suggestions, no list of options for you to click through. An agent like this just does it: searching, comparing, calling, scheduling and confirming the appointment. All in one motion. The customer only has to enter the initial request.
Google Assistant used to say: here are three businesses nearby, tap one to call
That was already easier than searching yourself, but the customer still had to choose and call themselves. That in-between step is now a thing of the past. The AI chooses and calls, and does so faster than someone searching by themselves. We are not adding a ratio here, because nobody publishes one.
This changes the rules of the game for local businesses
In the past, you had influence through your website, through word of mouth, through a sign in the neighbourhood. Now a Google system decides which business gets called first. Google does not explain how that choice comes about, so we are not making up a weighting for it. What Google does document is the weighting behind the local results such a choice draws on: relevance, distance and prominence, where more reviews and positive ratings can help your local position, checked on 25 August 2026. Activity on your profile is not part of that. You can read what that new search experience looks like in our article on Google AI Mode for tradespeople and painters.
Google announced the calling feature at I/O 2026 and is rolling it out in the summer of 2026 in the United States, for home maintenance, beauty and pet care
For the United Kingdom, India or the Netherlands, Google has not named a date. Last checked on 25 August 2026: that notice is still up, Google itself writes there that the feature is being rolled out in the United States this summer, and there is still no date given for the Netherlands. We are not adding how many people in the Netherlands use Google for local searches: there is no measurement of that we can point to.
The scenario that costs you a job
Say a customer in Oisterwijk wants a landscape gardener for a quote, this coming Saturday. In the past, that customer would have googled landscape gardener Oisterwijk, clicked through a few sites, looked at the prices and decided to call themselves at some point during the day. Maybe not even that same day.
Now that works differently
The customer types into Google: book a landscape gardener in Oisterwijk for Saturday, quote for a garden renovation. Google AI looks up businesses that match the request and calls on the customer's behalf. What is in your Business Profile is your only calling card here: your availability, your services and your reviews. How recently your profile was updated does not count towards that, because it is not a documented factor. Business number one picks up and is free on Saturday. Appointment made. The other two are not even called.
The scary part is not that the AI calls
The scary part is that you are up the ladder and do not pick up, while your competitor does. Then you have lost the job before you even knew about it. No second chance, no calling back.
There is a step before that moment: the AI has to know you exist
If your Business Profile is empty, outdated or too vague about your services, you will not even make that top three. Then you are not called at all, and you lose the job before the phone even rang.
Note: Google documents three factors for local rankings: relevance, distance and prominence
There is no documented penalty for a profile that sits idle for a while. What does decline is the evidence a visitor finds on your profile, and that is exactly what an agent needs to be able to read. You can read how those signals feed into AI answers in our article on Google AI Overviews and local SEO for tradespeople.
What Google needs from your Business Profile
Before the AI agent decides to call you, it reads your Google Business Profile from top to bottom. That profile is your digital calling card with Google, and the only thing the AI uses to decide whether you are the right person for the customer. Your website, your Instagram, your flyer through the letterbox: none of that counts at that moment.
What the AI uses to rank you: your category and the services you have filled in
Not just painting business, but also exterior painting, painting window frames, wood rot treatment. The AI matches those details against the customer's request. The more specific you are, the bigger the chance of a match.
The AI also looks at your opening hours and whether you also work at weekends
Does the customer want Saturday? Then you have an advantage if that is stated in your profile. Your reviews also count, not just the number of stars but the content too. Does a review say quick on site or gave a good quote? Then that matches search terms such as fast painter or painter who gives quotes.
Finally: your phone number needs to be correct, and it needs to be answered
The AI needs your number to be able to call. Surprisingly many businesses have the wrong number listed, or a number that forwards to a voicemail that never gets checked. Close that leak today.
Tip: go to Google and type my business while you are logged in
You see your profile straight away and can change everything. It takes 15 minutes and has an immediate effect.
5 things you can already do now
You do not need any technical knowledge to prepare for agentic booking. It comes down to basic things that keep your Google Business Profile current and complete. These are five concrete steps you can take today.
Fill in your services in detail
Not just handyman business, but also laying laminate flooring, bathroom renovation, cleaning gutters, interior painting. The AI matches on keywords in your services. The more detail, the bigger the chance you are found for specific jobs.Check your phone number and make sure you can be reached
Make sure you or a member of staff picks up when the phone rings. Voicemail is an option, but then you miss the agentic booking: it does not wait for a call-back arrangement.Stay active on your profile
Post a photo of a finished job, a seasonal offer or a tip every two weeks. Google never names activity as a ranking factor, so do it as evidence, not for ranking gains: whoever opens your profile should see that you are working.Collect reviews the right way
Send a message or an email with your Google review link after every job. Just ask, no discounts. The AI weighs the content of reviews: a review that says helped within 2 days works better than five stars with no text.Get your opening hours exactly right
Do you also work on Saturdays? Then that needs to be in your profile. The AI filters on availability. If Saturday is not listed, you drop out, even if you actually do work on Saturdays in practice.Quick result: if you only do one thing today, open your Google Business Profile and add three specific services that are not in there yet. That is the fastest improvement with an immediate effect on how the AI assesses you.
Want help with this
Take a look at our AI and automation service, or dive deeper into the subject yourself through our knowledge base.
What to say when the phone rings and it is an agent
Being reachable is half the battle. The other half is what happens in the thirty seconds after you pick up. A conversation with an agent runs differently from a conversation with a customer, and that difference is not in the technology but in what is and is not asked. The agent calls with a task and an agenda, not a story. It wants to know whether you do the work, whether you are free at the requested time, and sometimes roughly what it costs. Nothing more.
You can prepare for that, and it saves you a lot of fumbling up the ladder:
Answer in full sentences, not grunts
Yes, I do that, and I am free Saturday morning. That is a usable answer. Erm, I will have to check that, I will call you back, is not: there is no number to call back, because the customer did not call themselves.Know your standard answer to the price question
You do not need to name a figure you cannot deliver on later. What does work is a fixed phrase: for this kind of work I come and take a look first, and that visit is free. Say you only give a rough price once you have seen the job, and that you can book that visit now.Name a moment, not a period
Sometime next week is not an appointment. Thursday at nine o'clock is. An agent can do something with a time slot and nothing with vagueness, and the customer on the other end only sees the result.Say so if you have to say no
Full is full, and that is fine. What you do not want is to accept an appointment that you cancel a week later, because that costs you exactly the thing this whole article is about: the proof in your reviews that you do what you say.Record the conversation in the same place you record everything else
An appointment that only exists in your head does not exist. Put it in the same diary as everything else, because this appointment was not made by someone who will call you again to confirm.And keep in mind who you actually have on the line. It is not a salesperson and not a customer, it is a messenger. Being rude to an agent costs you nothing with that agent, but the conversation does end without an appointment, and the customer behind it only hears that it did not work out. The coolest way to handle it is exactly the way you would talk to a good secretary: short, concrete, and with a date at the end.
Three things you should specifically not do
With every shift in how Google works, someone comes up with a trick within a few weeks. With this shift, three of them are doing the rounds, and all three cost you more in the long run than they deliver.
Making up opening hours to get chosen more often
The temptation is clear: if the agent filters on availability, you just mark yourself open everywhere. Seven days, from seven to eleven. That works exactly once. After that, your reviews say you did not pick up, or that you cancelled the appointment, and the next agent reads those reviews too. Worse still is the customer standing in front of a closed door on Saturday because your profile said you were there. Put your real hours down, and add Saturday if you genuinely work it. That last one, by the way, is often the biggest win available, because many competitors do not fill in Saturday even though they are actually working then.
Stuffing your categories with keywords
Breaking down your services is good. Adding twenty services you do not provide is something else. A painter who also puts roofing, plumbing and flooring in his profile, because the agent might match on it, gets called for work he does not do. That costs you time, it delivers a disappointed customer, and it makes your profile less clear to Google, not more. Put in what you actually do, in the words your customer uses, and leave the rest out.
Selectively asking for reviews
Because the content of reviews counts, it is tempting to only ask your satisfied customers. That goes against Google's own guidelines for reviews, and the risk sits entirely with you. It also backfires with the reader: a row of nothing but glowing reviews reads as staged, while a single lesser review among the good ones is exactly what makes the whole thing credible. Ask everyone, after every job, with the same wording. How to keep that flow going without begging is covered in getting more Google reviews NL.
What this does to your diary if it works
There is a side to this topic that is rarely mentioned, and it is less exciting than the rest but more important for your week. If booking an appointment becomes easier, more appointments get booked. Not just with you, and not just by customers who are certain they want the job. A customer who had to call three times usually only called if they really wanted it. A customer who only has to type a sentence books something in faster, and cancels it faster too.
Three things you can set up around this, and none of them cost money:
Confirm yourself, the same day
Send the customer a short message or email with what has been agreed and when you are coming. The appointment was made through a middleman; your message is the first moment the customer hears from you. That half a minute of work cuts down how often you drive out for nothing.Reserve blocks instead of loose gaps
If your opening hours say you work Saturdays, plan Saturday morning as a viewing block rather than loose appointments spread through the day. Two first visits back to back in the same neighbourhood is half a Saturday; two first visits on opposite sides of your service area is a whole one.Keep track of where your appointments come from
One column in your diary or your admin, with the source in it: called, form, referral, agent. In three months you will then know whether this channel does anything for you, instead of just having a feeling about it. That is the same discipline you see elsewhere in our work when measuring your local visibility NL: know where you stand first, only then change something.And be honest about the flip side. A system that calls on behalf of customers takes away a bit of the personal contact that, for many tradespeople, is exactly the reason they get the job. There is no trick against that. What does help is that, in the first two minutes of the real conversation, you are simply yourself again: someone who knows the work, explains what needs to happen and says what it costs. The agent only arranges that you get a seat at the table. The rest is still your trade.
Frequently asked questions about Google AI booking
What exactly is agentic AI?
Agentic AI is an AI that independently carries out actions on behalf of a user, without that user needing to be involved themselves. At Google, that means: searching, comparing, calling and booking an appointment. The user only gives the initial instruction, the AI does the rest.
Is this already active in the Netherlands?
No. Google announced the calling feature at I/O 2026 and named a rollout in the summer of 2026 in the United States, for home maintenance, beauty and pet care. Google has not named a date for the Netherlands. Profiles that are complete now will be ready as soon as it does reach here.
Do I need to install special software?
No. You do not need to install or buy anything. The only thing that matters is that your Google Business Profile is complete and up to date. That is free, and you manage it through Google itself.
How do I know the caller is an AI and not an ordinary customer?
It introduces itself as an automated system from Google and states that it is calling on behalf of a customer. In practice the conversation sounds quite normal. Just pick up, listen, and say whether you are available and when.
What if I do not pick up? Does the AI leave a message?
In the current version, the AI calls the next one on the list if there is no answer. No voicemail is left, and there is no automatic call-back option. In practice, not picking up means missing the job. This may change in future versions, but for now, being reachable is the key.
Does TheSEO also help with my Google Business Profile?
Yes. We help local businesses in the Oisterwijk area and surroundings optimise their online visibility, including their Google Business Profile. We look at what is missing and give concrete advice. Get in touch for a free check.
Make sure you are ready before the first call comes in
Google has not named a date for the Netherlands, and that is no reason to wait. Everything in this article is work that already makes your profile better today, with or without a calling agent: services broken down, accurate opening hours, a number that gets answered, a service area you actually deliver on, and reviews that name what you did. Whoever has that in order gets found more often today by people, and soon by a system too. Whoever does not have it in order will lose jobs later without ever seeing a missed call.
Not sure whether your profile can handle that, take a look yourself first with the free local visibility checker NL: it checks your Business Profile on opening hours, photos, reviews and score. Want someone to look over what comes out of that with you? Tell us your trade, your service area and the jobs you would most like to land, and we will tell you which two things matter most for you and which you can safely leave alone. That can be done through the contact page, where you pick a slot in the diary yourself, or simply by phone. That first conversation carries no price and no obligation.