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Jack Jostes
How do I actually show up in AI search? What do I need to do? Google's AI doesn't just answer the plant question. I wanted Gemini to just handle it, but I hit a wall. Every year, Google holds this massive annual tech conference where they announce everything that's changing in search, AI and how people use the Internet. This year, it was called Google IO 2026. My team and I watched the whole thing and I pulled out the four announcements that I think actually matter for landscape companies. And that's what today's EPIS is all about. My name's Jack justice, and this is the Landscaper's Guide to Modern Sales and Marketing podcast, where we share sales, marketing and leadership tips to help you grow your snow and landscape company.
AI Search Surpasses One Billion Users
00:45
Jack Jostes
Before we get into the specific tools, I want to start out with one number, because it reframes the whole Is AI actually a thing regular people use Question. One thing that's majorly overlooked in conversations about AI is Google's AI mode directly in its search box. And here's what Google's CEO said at the conference.
01:09
Google I/O Presenter
AI mode has been a revelation. Our biggest upgrade to search ever. People love it. In just a year, it's already surpassed 1 billion monthly users. When people use our AI powered features in search, they use search more. I love how search has become less about individual queries and feels more like an ongoing conversation, giving you deeper insights and connecting you with the vastness of the web. Another place we've been rapidly innovating is in the Gemini app. Last year at I O, the Gemini app had 400 million monthly active users. Today, we have surpassed 900 million, more than doubling in a year. In that same time, daily requests have grown over seven times. It's incredible growth.
01:59
Jack Jostes
From 400 million to 900 million users in one year, more than doubled. And people are using it seven times more often than they were only a year ago. Think about what that means in landscaping terms. If you went from 400 residential customers to 900 in a single season, you'd be scrambling. That's the pace that this is moving at. And these aren't just tech people. These are homeowners. These are commercial property managers, too. These are people deciding who to call for a patio project this summer. They are using AI to search, to ask questions, to find contractors. That's the context for everything else. In this episode, Google completely redesigned the search box for the first time in 25 years. 25 Years. That's not a small tweak. Here's what the new search experience actually looks like.
Google's New AI Search Experience
02:57
Jack Jostes
And More importantly, what it means for how homeowners find landscape companies.
03:03
Google I/O Presenter
I'm excited to announce we're launching a brand new intelligent Search box. Before, the search box was a contained space, but now it's totally reimagined with AI. It expands with your curiosity and as you ask, search helps you formulate your questions with AI powered suggestions. This goes beyond autocomplete. It offers nuances that you might not have even thought to add, helping you take the exact question on your mind and ask it with ease. This new search box puts our most powerful AI tools right at your fingertips and you can ask across modalities with text, images, files, videos and search reasons across them all. Now this is the biggest upgrade to our iconic search box since its debut over 25 years ago and is starting to roll out today.
04:01
Google I/O Presenter
Next, we're making it even easier to continue the conversation with search, bringing AI overviews and AI mode into one seamless AI search experience so you can flow effortlessly from your question to your response on the main search results page to follow ups in AI mode. And your context stays with you. And as your conversation gets deeper, your links and your sources get even more relevant to what you might want to explore. So you continue to get the best of AI and the best of the web.
How Homeowners Will Search For Landscapers In The Future
04:30
Jack Jostes
Okay, so here's what this actually looks like in real life for a landscape company. A homeowner is scrolling Pinterest at 9pm she finds this incredible outdoor living space example she likes with a travertine patio floor, fire pit, ornamental grasses. She screenshots it. The next day she goes to Google, drops that photo directly into the new search bar and asks what plants are these and how much would it cost to have a patio installed like this from a landscape company in Mesa, Arizona? Google's AI doesn't just answer the plant question, it pulls up local contractors whose websites show similar work. If your website doesn't have professional project photos, real current photos of actual jobs you've done, you are not in that conversation, not buried, not on page two. You're just not there. People used to search just simple things like landscapers near me.
05:32
Jack Jostes
And they still do. But now they're also searching a long rambling prompt like I have a shaded muddy backyard in Plano, Texas. Two large dogs who in my neighborhood does lo maintenance landscape installation in my area, and what are the ballpark price ranges, including a 100 square foot patio? That's a really long query being entered into AI search right now. And your website and online presence is either helping you answer that question and show up or it doesn't. While the changes in search are especially interested from the standpoint of getting found lead generation for new customers, much of Google I O was about AI tools you can use for other reasons. This next one is for every landscape owner who got into this business to be outside, but now spends half of their life answering emails and doing spreadsheetary instead.
Gemini Spark And The Daily Brief Assistant
06:36
Jack Jostes
So Google announced two features together that could completely change your morning routine. They're called Gemini Spark and the Daily Brief, which is almost like having a 24. 7 Executive assistant. So here's the announcement.
06:51
Google I/O Presenter
Gemini Spark. It's your. It's your personal AI agent that helps you navigate your digital life, taking action on your behalf and under your direction. It runs on dedicated virtual machines on Google cloud and it's 24. 7. And yes, you can close your laptop. It's powered by Gemini 3.5 and the Google Antigravity Harness, which allows it to perform long running tasks easily in the background. Spark will integrate seamlessly with tools starting with our own and in the coming weeks with third party tools through mcp and you can work with. Spark, however is most convenient in the Gemini app or soon through email and chat.
Real-World Landscape Company Use Cases
07:48
Jack Jostes
So let's imagine this. It's 6am on Tuesday. You got off the job site late 7pm last night. You didn't check your inbox. You walk out to your truck and instead of opening to 17 unread emails, your daily brief hands you this. You've got three new leads from your website, two material deliveries are confirmed for 10am, Route 4 needs to adjust because road construction on Maple is starting this week. That's it, two minutes and you're off and running. And while that brief was being put together, Spark is running in the background on Google's cloud servers, not on your phone, on their servers. So even when your phone was off at 10pm, Spark was triaging your email, filtering things, flagging what needs your attention, and organizing your calendar. It's like having an office manager who works the overnight shift.
08:45
Jack Jostes
Now this isn't fully rode out to everyone yet, but it's coming this summer and it's already on an infrastructure that's live. So whether or not you or other landscape company owners use this specific tool from Google or maybe some other AI tool is one thing and how consumers use it is another. And I believe it will change the way people find and communicate with your company. Especially if you sell to high end residential affluent customers who are typically pretty tech savvy. All right, this last section is pure personal reaction. Three Things from the conference that I can't wait to actually use. Starting with one that actually hit home based on a story this week. So a week ago I tried to do something simple. Buy a gift card from one of our Ramblers. That's what we call our team at Ramblin Jackson.
The AI Shopping Experience And Agent Payments
09:44
Jack Jostes
One of my Ramblers had a plumbing emergency. I happen to have endured the same plumbing emergency two weeks ago. And during that time life just got overwhelming to do basic stuff like dishes, showers and laundry. So I thought him I'd help him out by buying him a gift card to take his family out for dinner. So I used Google's Gemini and I prompted it to find a barbecue or American cuisine restaurant within a 20 minute drive of my employees city that sells gift cards online. I'm just like, here's everything I want. It's like here it is. And I wanted Gemini to just handle it. But I hit a wall at the payment step. The AI completely stopped. It gave me options and I was ready to buy.
10:33
Jack Jostes
But then I had to click on the link, go to their site, enter my card and check out like it's 2015. But the AI got me to the 1 yard line and quit. So during that moment I thought it would be really cool if I could just ask my AI assistant to go buy this for me, make the purchase and send the email to my employee and be done with it. So that was just, you know, the other week, this week when I watched Google IO announce the fix. It's called Agent Payment Protocol AP2. So Google is actually letting AI complete purchases for you securely with limits you control. Here's how they introduced it.
11:24
Google I/O Presenter
The Agent payments protocol or AP2. So when it comes to agent payments, the number one question we hear is how do I know it just won't go off and buy something I don't want to motorcycle anyone? It's a fair question and it's why we created AP2. It's designed so your AI agent can securely make payments on your behalf, but always under your control. For us it comes down to two things. Setting boundaries and ensuring accountability. First, let's talk about boundaries. We are now making it easy to set strict guardrails. Just tell your agent the specific brands and products that you want and how much you want to spend. It automatically makes a purchase if the criteria are met. But boundaries only work if there's accountability. AP2 creates a transparent, verifiable link between you, the merchant and all the payment processors.
12:29
Google I/O Presenter
It uses privacy preserving technology to keep your data safe and with tamper proof digital mandates. AP2 ensures the agent is always acting on your behalf and gives you a permanent digital paper trail. So if you ever need to make a return, you and the merchant are looking at the same record. Your payment info stays shielded, the data stays private and your purchases stay secure.
12:57
Jack Jostes
Like giving a teenager their first debit card, the controls go on before you hand it over, not after. And that is exactly the right analogy. You set the rules in advance. The spend limit $50 or only gift card merchants or only approved vendors. Then you just say buy a Home Depot gift card from my crew lead and email it to him and it's done. For landscape companies that means buying supplies, paying invoices with pre approved amounts, managing subscriptions, all without you stopping what you're to pull out your wallet. And that made me think could people hire and start paying lawn care companies for stuff like this? Will the future have standardized pricing options directly on your site for certain things? Maybe a design build project needs meetings and a custom plan.
13:51
Jack Jostes
But do you really need all that to buy a 5 treatment lawn care package? We shall see.
Ask Maps And Local Search Changes
Another major update is with Google Maps. Google said Maps just got its biggest upgrade in a decade. The new feature is called Ask Maps and the idea is you can have a full conversation with your map. You can ask it complex routing question, find vendors by what they have in stock and layer in traffic and timing. Now I want to be straight with you because our senior local SEO strategist Kevin Cava flagged something when were viewing this together. Kevin pointed out that Ask Maps is actually most useful for what he calls immediacy needs. Think plumbers, locksmiths, H Vac. Someone's pipe burst and they need someone right now. They Ask Maps they call the first result Landscaping is a little different.
14:48
Jack Jostes
Customers are comparison shopping, probably not in a crisis mode, but if you sell something like emergency tree cleanup or maybe this could impact you. Ask Maps probably isn't going to change how your landscape design customers find you, but time will tell for things like lawn care, tree care and smaller ticket items.
Ask YouTube For Faster Problem Solving
Last one and this is one for everyone who has ever sat in their shop at 6am watching a 20 minute YouTube video just to find the 30 seconds of information they actually needed. The Google just launched Ask YouTube. You don't have to watch the whole video, you just ask it. My commercial mower deck isn't leveling on the left side. Show me exactly where in this video to fix that and it jumps you directly to that moment.
15:40
Jack Jostes
For landscape companies with equipment techs, crew leads who troubleshoot in the field, and owners who are also the mechanic. This could be a real time saver and it's available now. Additionally, I believe the reason to create YouTube content for your landscape company has only become stronger. Google just announced their official AI Optimization guide over on their development portal and I will be covering that in depth in another podcast in a few weeks, so make sure you don't miss that. Subscribe to my weekly email newsletter to get my top three podcasts right away. Plus events to my events@landscapersguide.com events see our show Notes for a link in Google's official AI Optimization Guide they explicitly state, and I quote, our generative AI search features can bring in relevant images and video, which means more opportunities for your website to appear beyond webpage links.
How To Show Up In AI Search Results
16:45
Jack Jostes
So Google is telling us plainly, if you're just writing generic paragraphs on a website, the AI is going to steal that information, summarize it, and never give you a click. But if you upload a YouTube video showing your face, your crew, your real world landscaping projects, Google's AI mode will pull that video directly into the AI answer as visual proof. So video isn't just entertainment anymore, it is part of SEO. So here's the question I know is sitting in the back of your mind through this whole episode. Jack, this is all interesting, but how do I actually show up in AI search? What do I need to do? And here's the honest answer. The fundamentals haven't changed. AI tools ChatGPT, Gemini, Google's AI overviews, AI mode. All of them. Don't invent what they say about your business. They extract it.
17:44
Jack Jostes
They pull information from your website, your Google Business profile, your online reviews, your social media presence, and anywhere else your business is mentioned online. They then synthesize all of that into answer. The businesses that show up in AI results are the ones with the most complete, consistent, positive digital footprint. A strong Google Business profile, a well optimized website, a steady flow of genuine recent reviews, professional photography from projects and regular mentions across the web.
The Digital Footprint That Drives AI Visibility
18:46
Jack Jostes
Right now I'm in the editing phase of my new book and I want to share with you a graphic from it about how AI extracts information from different sources. That graphic shows it visually. AI pulls from your website, from your Google Business profile, from your reviews, your social media and online mentions. Feeding these things is how you actually show up in AI. It's the same work you would be doing for traditional search. The platform evolved, the job didn't.
Now I have a whole episode coming. Specifically on the technical Google documentation for optimizing your site with AI search. Our SEO team and I have been deep in that and I want to dedicate a full episode to it, so stay tuned for that one for today. Big thanks to Kevin Cava, our senior Local SEO Strategist, for watching this with me and sorting through and flagging what matters versus what's just noise. I also had a Google I O watch party with my friend Jeffrey Magner from Bighorn Local Media, whose agency I acquired in 2013, and another agency colleague. I love this stuff and I appreciate you hearing my perspective on how it relates to the green industry.
19:43
Jack Jostes
If you want help with your Google Business profile, your website, and making sure you're set to show up in AI search, that's exactly what we do at Ramblin Jackson, so check out ramblinjackson.com to learn more and see our show. Notes for a link I went over a lot of geeky techy information kind of fast today, but when you work with me and my team, we slow it down and we're patient in helping you figure out which parts are most important for your business. My name is Jack Justice. This is the Landscaper's Guide podcast and I look forward to talking with you next week.