Gemini, Google's AI assistant, now has tools built for small business owners. On October 20, 2026, Google announced a business landing page in the Gemini app for your brand, your finances and your customer insights, with connected apps that include Google Business Profile, Canva, Shopify and Xero. For a local business, the profile connection matters most: once it is on, Google's help page says Gemini can update your hours, contact info and action links, draft review replies and create posts. Before you connect it, check three things: who owns the profile, what Gemini keeps from your chats, and who reads a change before customers see it.
This is the third piece in our Google Business Profile series, after what Google lets your profile say. Here is what launched, what the connection can do, who can use it, what Gemini keeps, what to connect first and how to check its work.
What did Google launch for small businesses in Gemini?
Google describes "a new business landing page designed to help small business owners streamline their daily tasks." According to the announcement, it brings together three things:
- Your brand style: you upload your website, brand kit, fonts or color palettes, and Gemini keeps that style in the images it makes for you, so you do not upload the guidelines again each time.
- Financial insights: Gemini turns spreadsheets, receipts and purchase records into financial graphics and interactive models.
- Connected apps: Google's own services and third-party apps "like Adobe, Canva, Dropbox, Shopify, Wix, Zoho, and Xero."
Google says "Tens of millions of small business owners are using Gemini today," and that the landing page, the marketing and finance skills and the new connected apps "are beginning to roll out in the coming days globally for all Gemini app users."
What can Gemini do with your Google Business Profile?
Google's help page, Manage your Business Profile on Google with the Gemini web app, lists four kinds of work:
- Update your profile, such as business hours, contact info and action links.
- Engage with customers by drafting review replies and creating posts.
- Analyze and summarize customer feedback from reviews, including the themes in it.
- Show your business insights, including performance metrics and the search keywords people use to find you.
The first two change what customers see on Google. The help page does not describe a review step before a change goes live, so build your own, as the last section explains.
Who can connect a Business Profile to Gemini?
The help page sets clear limits. You need to:
- be an owner or manager of only one verified Business Profile on Google;
- be 18 or over;
- sign in to the Gemini web app, at gemini.google.com, with a personal Google Account that is associated with the profile;
- have Keep Activity on.
It adds that, for now, the feature is not available with a work or school Google Account. A business with several locations, or a manager who handles more than one profile, cannot use it yet.
In our work with owners, this is where many get stuck. The profile often sits under an old personal Gmail, a former employee's account or an agency login, and nobody on the team is sure who is an owner. Open the profile's people and access settings, write down who has access and remove anyone who no longer works with you. Our Google Business Profile checklist covers the rest of that setup.
What does Gemini keep from what you share?
Connected apps need Keep Activity. Google's page on Connected Apps in Gemini says that when Keep Activity is off, connected apps are not available on gemini.google.com. With it on, the Gemini Apps Privacy Hub explains what follows:
- Your chats and what you share, such as uploads, are saved in your Activity.
- "A subset of chats are reviewed by human reviewers," and Google asks: "Please don't enter confidential information that you wouldn't want a reviewer to see."
- Activity is deleted automatically after 18 months by default, and you can change that to 3 or 36 months.
- Reviewed chats are kept for up to three years.
- Disconnecting an app does not delete data from your Gemini Apps Activity.
That shapes what you hand over. Before you upload receipts or a spreadsheet for a financial chart, take out customer names, account numbers and anything about your employees. Put that on the one-page rule sheet from our guide to training your team on AI, under what stays out.
What should you connect first?
One app at a time, starting with the uses that only read:
- Your Business Profile, after the access check above. For the first week, ask Gemini only for insights and review summaries: which searches find you and what customers praise or repeat.
- Your brand. Upload the website, the logo files, the fonts and the colors before you ask for any image, so the first picture already looks like you.
- The tools you open every day, one per week, so you can tell which one helps.
- Finances last, with cleaned copies of the files, once you trust how Gemini handles the rest.
Our own test for each connection is one question at the end of the week: what did it save, and what did someone have to fix? If the fixes take longer, disconnect it in Connected Apps settings.
How do you check Gemini's work before customers see it?
Treat Gemini like a new hire with a key to the front door: useful on the first day, and still checked:
- One person approves every review reply. Read the draft, check the customer's name and the facts, and remember the reply is public.
- After any change to hours, phone or links, open your profile on Google Maps on a phone and confirm what customers see.
- Read each post against Google's rules for posts. Our post rules guide lists what Google removes.
- Once a month, open Connected Apps settings and disconnect anything nobody used.
How Banana Blueprint helps you put AI to work safely
Banana Blueprint is a business design and engineering firm in Northeast Ohio. We work in person with owner-led businesses in Kent, Akron and Cleveland, and by video with owners across the U.S. Through AI consulting, we help you decide which assistant gets access to what, set up the accounts so the business owns them and write the rules your team follows. Through marketing and branding, we keep your Google Business Profile true and your brand kit ready to upload.
If you are still choosing an assistant, read ChatGPT or Claude? The one-week test. The same test works for Gemini. For a quick read on your setup, take the 60-second check.
When you are ready, start the conversation by phone or video, in English or Español.
Filed under AI & Technology
Written by Adolfo Polanco for owners who want their business to run with less chasing and more clarity. We help owners put AI where it saves the most time, with people in charge of every decision.