Google Business Profile's Q&A feature is disappearing. Here's what's answering customer questions now, and what every Australian business should know.
Customers are still asking questions about your business. They just aren't asking them in the same place anymore.
Google's quietly shown Q&A the door. Customers haven't lost the urge to ask questions, they've just lost the box to ask them in. Google's filling that silence itself now, using the information it can already find about your business.
For Australian businesses, that changes what information matters most, and it's worth understanding why.
What happened to Google Business Profile Q&A
Google discontinued the Q&A API on 3 November 2025. No new questions or answers can be added since. The public section has been rolling off profiles in the months since, though not at the same pace everywhere. Some listings lost it straight away. Others are still showing old questions while Google finishes the transition.
Either way, the direction is clear. Previously, if a customer asked whether you offered emergency call-outs, you could answer that directly. Now Google is more likely to generate the answer itself, drawing on your profile and website rather than on anything you've written in reply to a customer.
Why this hits Australian businesses differently
In the US, Google already has a dedicated replacement running. It's called Ask Maps, a Gemini-powered chat tool built into Google Maps that answers customer questions about a place on the spot. It launched in the US and India in March 2026.
Profile feeling out of date?
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As of now, it hasn't reached Australia, and there's no confirmed date for when it might.
Most of what's written about this online is aimed at US businesses, where Ask Maps is already live. Australian businesses have lost the Q&A box, without a like-for-like replacement to fill it in the meantime. AI Overviews in search results already draw on profile data to answer some of these questions. But there's no dedicated “ask this place a question” tool inside Google Maps here, the way there is in the US.
What's doing the answering now
For years, an incomplete Google Business Profile mainly meant missing out on a few clicks. Now it can also mean Google's AI doesn't have enough to work with when it tries to answer a customer's question confidently. The information already sitting in your profile is what Google reaches for, including:
- →Your services list
- →Your business description
- →Your opening hours
- →Your photos
- →Your reviews and replies
If your services section just says “Plumbing,” there's little for anything to draw on when someone asks “do you install hot water systems.” Google is likely to attempt an answer anyway, drawing on the information it can find across your profile and website. Whether that answer is right depends entirely on what's there.
Q&A used to catch a lot of the small, specific questions customers had, and for plenty of businesses it worked well while it lasted. Losing it doesn't remove the need for those answers to exist somewhere. It just moves the job entirely onto those five fields and your website. Every one of them is doing more work than it used to.
That's a lot to keep current on top of running the business day to day. If it's been a while since you set your profile up properly, our Google Business Profile setup guide covers exactly what Google expects in each of those fields.
A Google Business Profile does more legwork than most business owners realise. It was never just a digital signpost telling people where you are and when you're open. It's increasingly the source Google reaches for when deciding how to describe your business to a potential customer. Overlook it, and you're handing over more control than you meant to.
Where this leaves your Google Business Profile
Google hasn't removed customers' questions. It's changed who's answering them.
Keeping your Google Business Profile and website complete and accurate is now one of the more straightforward ways to influence the answers customers see. That's true whether it's through AI Overviews or Google's next local search update. An SEO optimised website page that clearly explains what your services cover and what customers can expect gives Google somewhere reliable to point to. That's on top of your profile itself.
We get it, checking Google settings and features might not always be top of the priorities list. It's probably not why you got into this trade in the first place. If you'd rather not keep on top of those updates yourself, that's exactly what Localsearch's Google Business Profile management service is designed to help with, including a free check of how your profile stacks up against your local competitors, so you can see where the easiest wins are hiding.
