The 2026 Franchise Report on Local Marketing in the Age of AI
Get the full reportA majority of both brands and franchisees report that brands control or dictate strategy, with limited discretion at the local level. Yet franchisees are the ones that execute — often inconsistently across locations. A true hybrid, shared-responsibility model remains the minority scenario, used by just 25% of brands and 20% of franchisees.
of both brands and franchisees say uncertainty over “what's working” is the top obstacle to local marketing success
of franchisees say AI search visibility is “very important” or “critical” — compared to 69% of brands
of brands and franchisees report using AI in some form — but adoption is broad and shallow, not operationalized
AI has created a new opportunity: standardizing local marketing content and execution across the system, while taking the operational burden off franchisees. The result is Location Performance Optimization (LPO), a new way to coordinate brand strategy and local execution across every platform that matters, including AI.
Listings, business data, and core content kept consistent across every platform — from Google to social to AI. The foundation everything else builds on, removing the variability that today causes broken pages, duplicate listings, and inconsistent customer experiences.
Fresh local content, active reviews, hyperlocal posts, FAQs, and offers that signal an active local presence. This is what makes locations findable and recommendable in AI-led discovery — and what relieves franchisees from figuring out what content to produce.
AI agents coordinate truth and context across every location in real time — executing updates, responding to reviews, surfacing what's working, and giving brands and franchisees a single basis for decisions and investment.
Local visibility is a key driver of traffic to our restaurants. We stay visible where it matters most: locally — making it easy for guests to find us and come enjoy our flame-grilled burgers.
Get the full report for the complete data, benchmarks, and operating model franchise brands and operators need to win in the age of AI.