Google Ask for Me, Agentic Shopping, Ask Maps Moves

'Ask for Me' Rolls Out

As part of a broader announcement about Gemini 2.5 Pro in search, Google said that its experimental "Ask for Me" agent was rolling out in selected local categories. We've seen it in the wild in automotive, salons, pet grooming and dry cleaning. Mike first wrote about it in February when it was in Labs. It's an improved successor to Google Duplex, which called businesses to make local reservations and appointments. Ask for Me, which Google called "Have AI check pricing" in its post, is an RFP-lead-gen tool that asks a series of vertical-specific questions and then sends the request to multiple local businesses (7 - 8 in our testing). None of the businesses are identified up front, but we assume these are the top-ranked businesses in keyword/category + location. Google sends two emails: an acknowledgment of the inquiry and another with the business responses, which come within an hour or less. The second email shows the businesses contacted, their details (incl. reviews) and any responses around pricing and availability. In Mike's case, 3 out of 8 responded; in mine 2 out of 7. Many Local SEOs have expressed concern about spam/abuse potential and the tool wasting the business owners' time. It should be said that businesses can decline to participate if they don't want to receive these inquiries.