Who Owns Dispensary Search? Local Stores, Weedmaps and AI in 39 Cities
ColaDigital, October 2026 (coladigital.ca)

Free to use with a credit link to the study page.
How to cite: ColaDigital, "Who Owns Dispensary Search? Local Stores, Weedmaps and AI in 39 Cities," October 2026, coladigital.ca.

Quotes from Vee Popat, founder of ColaDigital (approved for use with credit)
- "A lot of dispensary owners I talk to assume AI answers belong to Weedmaps and the big chains, but that's not what we found. When shoppers asked Google where to buy weed or about delivery, nearly 8 in 10 AI answers linked at least one local independent store."
- "Search 'dispensary' and a city name, and Google still gives you the map. Ask it a question, like where to buy weed, and an AI answer usually comes first. Nearly 8 in 10 of those answers linked at least one local independent store, so the stores winning page one today have a real shot at the AI answer too."

Charts (1600 x 900 PNG)
- chart1-ai-overviews-by-search.png: Google AI Overviews by search wording, 39 cities, October 21, 2026
- chart2-who-ai-overviews-cite.png: share of the 350 links in the 69 question-search AI Overviews (each site counted once per answer; 188 different sites)
- chart3-who-owns-page-one.png: page-one share and #1 spots by owner type, 35 cities, October 20, 2026
- chart4-listing-sites-2024-2026.png: Yelp, Weedmaps, Dutchie and Leafly page-one results, 2024 vs 2026

Highlight cards (1080 x 1080 PNG): card1 to card6

Data
- who-owns-dispensary-search_page-one-results.csv: every page-one result (positions 1-10), with owner class and page type
- who-owns-dispensary-search_ai-overview-searches.csv: the 156 live searches, with AI Overview presence, placement and linked sites

Method notes: page one from Semrush (Google US) for October 15, 2024 and October 20, 2026. AI Overviews from 156 live Google searches on October 21, 2026, through two US VPN exits (New York, then New Jersey), in a browser that appeared signed in to Google. Full method and limits are on the study page.
