ChatGPT Now Uses Yelp Reviews. Here's What That Means for Med Spas.

If you run a med spa, whether that's Botox and fillers or a GLP-1, peptide, or pain management practice, ChatGPT can now pull in Yelp reviews, ratings, and business details when it answers questions about local providers. Yelp signed a deal with OpenAI on July 23, 2026, and Yelp's name and a link now show up directly inside ChatGPT's answers. For most practices in this category, Yelp has been an afterthought next to Google. That's about to matter more than it used to, and almost nobody in the GLP-1, peptide, and pain management space has adjusted for it yet.

Key Takeaways

• ChatGPT now pulls Yelp reviews, ratings, and photos into its answers, effective July 23, 2026.
• GLP-1 and medical weight loss clinics are some of the fastest-growing, most competitive practices in local healthcare, and most look alike online.
• Almost none of them have a real Yelp presence yet, which leaves an open lane for differentiation.
• Yelp does not allow businesses to ask for reviews in any form. A complete, compliant profile is the real starting point.

Where Each AI Platform Gets Its Local Data

ChatGPT is not the first AI platform to draw on Yelp data. Here's what each major platform currently draws on for local business answers, ordered by how often each one sends traffic to websites.

A Google Business Profile is still the primary source across the board. Yelp is now a factor for two of the four major platforms, and it already was for one of them before ChatGPT added it.

Do Med Spas Have Yelp Reviews?

Pull up a Yelp search for GLP-1 clinics in your own market, then compare it to Google. In a search across the Atlanta metro, practices with well over 100 Google reviews each, several past 150, turned up on Yelp with one review, or none at all. One search didn't even have enough real clinics in the category to fill the results page, so Yelp filled the remaining slots with businesses that had nothing to do with GLP-1 care: a paramedic training service, a life coach.

It means almost the entire category is starting from the same place. If your Yelp listing looks thin right now, you're standing in an open field alongside the rest of your competitors, before most of them have noticed it's open.

New GLP-1 and medical weight loss locations keep opening, and most look alike online: similar pricing, similar claims, similar stock photography. In a category that crowded, a platform almost nobody has built out yet is a real way to look different from the clinic down the street.

An Opportunity for Med Spas in ChatGPT Search

Yelp built its name on restaurants, and that's still the first thing most owners think of when they hear "Yelp." Google review requests became routine for local practices years ago. Yelp never made the list.

That's the opportunity, if nobody else in this category is doing it yet, be the first to do it, then learn from it while the field is still wide open. Almost no GLP-1, peptide, or pain management practice has a real Yelp presence today, and ChatGPT just gave that platform a direct line into how people search for local care.

Can You Ask Patients for a Yelp Review?

A common assumption is that Yelp works like Google: ask happy patients for a review, just don't pay for one. Yelp's own policy is stricter than that. From Yelp's Content Guidelines: "Please don't ask your customers to review your business on Yelp... You should also never offer compensation (discounts and freebies count too) in exchange for reviews." Yelp's recommendation software is built to detect solicited reviews, even unpaid ones, and routes them to a "not recommended" section that doesn't count toward a business's star rating. Yelp currently recommends about 72% of the reviews submitted to the platform, according to Yelp's own factsheet.

A practice can mention that its Yelp page exists, the same way it might mention its Google listing. A direct ask for a review is a different matter. It works against Yelp's own guidelines and can hurt a rating instead of helping it.

How to Get Your Med Spa Ready for Yelp

Because Yelp restricts how you can solicit reviews, here's what actually works, pulled directly from Yelp's own business support and content guidelines.

Do this:

• Claim the business page. Free, through Yelp for Business at biz.yelp.com/claim. Claiming unlocks the ability to update hours, services, and photos, and to respond to reviews.
• Keep the profile accurate and current. Correct category (medical weight loss, peptide therapy, pain management, not just "med spa"), current hours, real photos of the practice, and a name, address, and phone number that match every other listing online.
• Respond to reviews once the page is claimed. This is a feature available to claimed businesses, and it's separate from soliciting new reviews.

Avoid this:

• Don't ask for reviews, in any form, from anyone. Not customers, not staff, not friends or family, whether it's in person, by email, or by text. Don't offer a discount, freebie, or payment in exchange for one. Don't write a review of your own business or a competitor's. All three violate Yelp's Content Guidelines, and Yelp's software is built to catch and filter them out.

Applying a Yelp strategy to your practice

A strong Yelp profile next to a strong Google profile is another trusted source telling a prospective patient, and telling the bots, that this is a real, established practice. It's one more vote of confidence for a practice's digital presence, saying the same thing the Google reviews already say. I recently wrote about this if you want to learn more: how to check whether AI recommends your business.

Nobody knows exactly how much weight ChatGPT puts on Yelp data compared to Google, and that will likely keep shifting. What's true today is simpler: very few GLP-1, peptide, or pain management practices have a real Yelp presence. Getting there first costs almost nothing, and it's the kind of head start that's hard for a competitor to close once a practice has a year of real reviews behind it. That's a conversation worth having now, while most of the category still hasn't started.

FAQ

Does ChatGPT use Yelp reviews now?

Yes. Yelp signed a licensing deal with OpenAI on July 23, 2026, and ChatGPT can now pull in Yelp's reviews, ratings, and photos when answering local search questions.

Do other AI platforms use Yelp too?

Yes. Perplexity already draws on Yelp, Google Business Profile, and TripAdvisor data for local answers. Gemini pulls local data from Google Search and Google Maps instead of Yelp. Claude currently has no dedicated local-review data partnership identified.

Can a GLP-1 or peptide clinic ask patients for a Yelp review?

No. Yelp's own guidelines say not to ask customers for reviews, in any form, and not to offer anything in exchange for one. Reviews Yelp believes were solicited are filtered out of a business's star rating.

Do I need Yelp's paid placement to benefit from this?

Not necessarily. A complete, accurate, current, and honestly-categorized profile is the starting point. Paid placement is a separate decision, not a requirement to appear in ChatGPT's answers.

If you run a GLP-1, peptide, or pain management practice and want a clear picture of your presence across Google, Yelp, and AI platforms right now, I broke down what the ChatGPT-Yelp deal means for local SEO here.

Disclaimer: The information shared here is based on professional experience and is intended for general guidance. It is not specific marketing advice. Each business requires its own strategy.