Most GEO advice sold to dealers right now is wrong in one specific way: it treats your website as the thing AI cites. For local "dealerships near me" queries, it usually is not. A citation study run across US metros in August 2026 found Google AI Mode sent 79.8% of its citations for local-intent searches to Google Maps and Google Business Profile, and only 19.7% to the business's own website. Your GEO budget should split by query intent, because AI splits its citations by query intent. That is the operator read. Below is the evidence and what to actually change on your store this week.