Google discontinued the Business Profile Q&A API on 3 November 2025 and removed the public Q&A section from profiles in December 2025. Customers now ask their questions in Google Maps and get an instant AI answer generated from the business's reviews, profile data and website; owners cannot answer individual questions any more. The only levers left are the facts the AI reads from: profile fields, review replies, the website and posts.
The old Q&A section had one design flaw and one design feature. The flaw: it was public, so any Google user could ask and any Google user could answer, and most owners never saw the question. The feature: an owner could step in and post the correct answer, marked as coming from the business. The numbers on how often that happened were never good. A 2019 analysis of more than 43,000 profiles found that 91% of questions were never answered by the business, and where an answer existed, 82.6% of the time it came from a Local Guide — a stranger with a badge. Four years later SOCi measured the same thing for multi-location brands and got 92% of questions ignored.
So "strangers answer before you do" was never a slogan. It was the baseline. What changed in 2025 is who the stranger is.
What changed, in order
The notice
Google's changelog announces the Q&A API will be discontinued and says the company is "in the process of updating the Q&A functionality and user experience".
The API dies
The My Business Q&A API is discontinued. The NEW_QUESTION and NEW_ANSWER notification types go with it. No tool can read or answer questions programmatically from this day on — ours included.
The section disappears
Q&A vanishes from profiles on desktop and mobile. A Google product specialist explains that the section "has become more difficult for customers to wade through", that customers can now ask in Google Maps and get "instant AI answers based on business responses and reviews", and that existing Q&A stays in the backend and "may be shown in Maps".
Ask Maps
Google launches Ask Maps, a Gemini feature, in the US and India: conversational answers about "over 300 million places", drawing on reviews from "more than 500 million contributors" plus web content. In August 2026 it expands to more than 150 countries and territories.
Who answers now
What the AI reads
- Reviews and your replies to them — Google names "business responses and reviews" first.
- Profile fields — hours, special hours, attributes, categories, the 750-character description.
- Your website — Whitespark and BrightLocal both document website content as an input to Ask Maps answers.
- Third-party sources — directories and articles about the location.
What you can no longer do
- Answer a specific customer's question in your own words.
- Delete or flag a wrong answer once it is generated.
- See the list of questions being asked per location — there is no feed and no notification.
- Add new Q&A in the dashboard: the old entries remain, read-only.
This is a worse deal for an owner than the old section, and a better deal for the customer, which is why it will not be reversed. The 2019 stranger wrote one answer that sat on your profile until somebody noticed. The 2026 stranger writes a fresh answer every time somebody asks, sounds authoritative, and is grounded in whatever it found. SOCi's 2026 Local Visibility Index made the grounding visible: business information was "about 68% accurate on ChatGPT and Perplexity, compared with 100% accuracy on Gemini, which is grounded in Google Maps". Gemini is not guessing about your location. It is reading your profile — and if the profile says nothing, the reviews.
Why this is more urgent than the old Q&A ever was
The audience is no longer a handful of people scrolling a profile. Yext's March 2026 survey found 47% of US adults had used AI for local search in the previous month, and 74% rated their trust in the recommendations at four or five out of five. BrightLocal's 2026 consumer survey put the use of ChatGPT and similar tools for local recommendations at 45%, up from 6% one year earlier — now the third most popular source after Google and Facebook.
The question has not changed
"Are you open on Saturday?", "Is there parking?", "Do I need an appointment?" — the same questions that went unanswered in 2019. What changed is that an answer is now guaranteed. If you did not supply the fact, the answer is assembled from a two-star review that mentions the Saturday you were closed for stocktaking.
The four inputs you still control
| Input | Who reads it | What to do | Which agent |
|---|---|---|---|
| Profile fields | Gemini, AI Mode, Ask Maps — directly | Complete every field, confirm hours for every public holiday, keep one primary category per location, use all 750 characters of the description for the facts customers ask about. | Validation Agent · Watch Agent |
| Review replies | Every assistant that reads reviews | Reply to every review with the corrected fact in it. A reply is publicly posted under the review and the reviewer is notified. | Review Agent |
| Website FAQ per location | Ask Maps, AI Overviews, ChatGPT | One page per location with the ten questions customers actually ask, marked up as FAQPage, kept identical to the profile. | FAQ Agent |
| Posts and description | Google surfaces | Time-bound answers — holiday opening, a moved entrance, a new service — as a post, not as a hope. | Content Agent |
Two hundred locations make this a volume problem: two hundred FAQ pages, two hundred sets of special hours per holiday, a few hundred review replies a month. Nothing in the list is difficult. All of it is tedious, which is exactly the work that got skipped when 91% of questions went unanswered.
What the FAQ Agent does since November
The agent keeps the facts; the AI writes the answers
- One fact sheet per location — hours, access, parking, payment, booking, languages spoken — approved once by a person, versioned like the profile.
- Three outputs from one sheet: the profile description and attributes, a website FAQ page with FAQPage markup, and the facts the Review Agent is allowed to state in replies.
- A weekly check by the Watch Agent: the same ten questions asked to Google AI Mode, Gemini and ChatGPT per location, with the answer logged. When the answer drifts from the sheet, it is a line in the logbook, not a surprise.
Questions with no owner answer across 43,000+ profiles.
Up from 6% in one year (BrightLocal, Feb 2026).
Ask Maps coverage since August 2026.
We would have preferred to keep answering questions. Google removed that option for everyone at once, which at least makes the playing field level: the businesses whose answers Gemini gets right will be the ones that put the facts where it reads.
Questions we get on this
Can I still answer questions on my Google Business Profile?
No. Google discontinued the Business Profile Q&A API on 3 November 2025 and removed the public Q&A section from profiles in December 2025. Customers now ask questions in Google Maps and receive an AI-generated answer; business owners cannot reply to individual questions. Existing Q&A entries remain in the dashboard but cannot be added to.
Where do Google's AI answers about my business come from?
Google says the answers are based on business responses and reviews. Ask Maps, launched in March 2026, also draws on profile data, the business website and web content. Because Gemini is grounded in Google Maps, the profile fields you control — hours, special hours, attributes, categories and description — are the primary source.
Did Google delete the old questions and answers?
No. According to Google's December 2025 statement, existing Q&A content remains in the Business Profile backend, continues to inform Google's understanding of the business and may still be shown in Maps. It can no longer be edited or extended, and the dedicated section is no longer displayed on profiles.
How do I influence what Ask Maps says about my business?
Supply the facts where the AI reads them: complete every profile field, confirm hours for public holidays, reply to reviews with the corrected fact, publish a FAQ page per location on your website with FAQPage markup, and use Google Posts for time-bound information. Then check the answers regularly by asking the same questions yourself.
Is Ask Maps available in my country?
Ask Maps launched on 12 March 2026 in the United States and India and expanded to more than 150 countries and territories in August 2026, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan and Mexico. The removal of the public Q&A section in December 2025 applied to profiles globally.
Sources
- Search Engine Land — 90%+ of Google Q&A questions unanswered by owners (2019)
- SOCi — Local SEO statistics: multi-location businesses ignore 92% of questions
- Google — My Business Q&A API change log (discontinued 3 Nov 2025)
- Search Engine Roundtable — Google explains the Maps Q&A change (Dec 2025)
- Whitespark — With Google Q&A gone, you need an Ask-a-Question strategy (Jan 2026)
- Google — Ask anything about any place on Maps with Gemini (Mar 2026)
- EFTM — Ask Maps rolls out to 150 countries (Aug 2026)
- Search Engine Land — SOCi AI local visibility report 2026 (accuracy by assistant)
- Yext — Consumer search behaviors (Mar 2026)
- BrightLocal — Local Consumer Review Survey 2026