Local SEO is now SEO AI, in three editions: Standard, Pro, and the new . Standard and Pro keep the features your clients use today under the new names. SEO AI Premium adds the AI Search Specialist, an AI employee that shows whether AI recommends your clients and does the work to change it.

Customers now ask ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity which local business to call. If a business isn't recommended, it's invisible to those customers. The AI Search Specialist moves your clients from "Are we showing up?" to "Are we being chosen?"

The Local SEO Pro open beta ended Oct 30. Profile changes made during the beta stay in place, and past reports are available through chat with the AI Search Specialist. SEO AI Pro features are unchanged.

Questions? Reach out to your Vendasta account rep.

You and your clients can now see how much work your Conversations AI Employees do, measured in AI Credits. Nothing is charged and nothing stops until January 1, 2027, when Included credits start to apply.

The subscription itself is unchanged. Extra credits are always a credit pack you choose to buy, never a charge that builds up unnoticed.

Use November and December to see real usage and plan around it:

AI Credits measure the work your AI Employees do, such as answering a call or handling a chat conversation.

Conversations AI is the first product on AI Credits. SEO AI, CRM AI, Social AI and Reputation AI follow, with timing to be confirmed. Vibe Credits stay separate, with their own balance.

The number of messages and voice minutes are estimates for the default AI model. On Conversations AI Premium, chat and voice share from the same Included credits amount.

A credit buys a fixed amount of AI work, and how far it goes depends on how that work is set up. Think of it like the range on a car: a simple FAQ call on the default model goes further than a complex call on a premium model.

You can now quote what a subscription includes before the month starts. Use the conversion rates above to price in AI Credits, or keep selling in estimated messages and minutes.

Each row in the usage list shows:

Until January 1, 2027, the page is for visibility only: usage is recorded in AI Credits but is not limited by them. A banner on the page reads "This is an early look at your AI Credit usage. Credits start applying from January 1, 2027." Only Conversations AI usage appears for now, and usage for other AI products may be missing or incomplete. Once the Buy credits page is available, your Extra credits balance will appear on the AI Credits tab.

Partners can see AI Credits usage across their entire portfolio of accounts in Partner Center, starting now. If your organization has Premium Reports, there is nothing to request or switch on.

Premium Reports are included with the Professional, Premium and Custom Enterprise plans, and must be enabled for your organization. On Starter, or if Premium Reports isn't enabled, account-level usage is still available in Business App.

each admin needs the Premium Reports permission under My Team to see reports. Individual reports can also be shared with specific people.

If something here doesn't work for how you run your business, tell us at feedback.vendasta.com or talk to your Vendasta account manager. We're running visibility for two full months before credits apply, so we can act on what you tell us.

No. Until January 1, 2027, usage is shown for visibility only. It is not limited by AI Credits and it is never billed later.

That timeline has been replaced by the one in this post. Nothing changes for your clients before January 1, 2027. From then, Conversations AI Premium includes 23,000 Included credits a month, about 340 voice minutes. Review their November and December usage to have a specific conversation with each client before credits apply.

Not in this release. Usage is visible on the account, so nobody is caught out by it. If that doesn't fit how you work with your clients, tell us at feedback.vendasta.com.

Nothing now. From January 1, 2027, new AI work pauses once a Conversations AI subscription runs out of Included credits, and work already underway always finishes. Buying a credit pack restores capacity right away. Included credits renew on the 1st of the month.

Credit packs and the Buy credits page are coming soon. We will announce pack sizes, prices and how to buy before credits apply.

Conversations AI is the first. SEO AI, CRM AI, Social AI and Reputation AI follow, with timing to be confirmed. Usage for those products may appear but can be incomplete, and their Included credits are not final. Vibe Credits are a separate system with their own balance, and the two never affect each other.

Not Included credits. Each product has its own. Extra credits from packs you buy are shared across all AI products on the account.

You may see some usage from mid-October onward, but it is partial. Review November and December for a reliable picture of a full month's AI Credits usage.

Save building credits by exploring ideas, troubleshooting issues, and asking questions with a daily free Ask allowance, now available in Vibe.

Every Vibe plan now includes a dedicated daily Ask allowance that resets every 24 hours at midnight UTC. Ask questions, diagnose issues, and scope page architecture freely before spending your regular credits on making actual project changes.

Many critical steps in web development, such as investigating why a form fails to submit, analyzing page structure, or planning a booking flow, involve exploration rather than direct code updates. Previously, sending diagnostic or planning prompts drew from the exact same credit balance needed to build.

This update removes friction by separating discovery from execution. You can now thoroughly troubleshoot and brainstorm for free, reserving paid credits strictly for implementing changes. If your balance reaches zero credits, you can continue troubleshooting while remaining within your daily Ask allowance.

Allowances refresh every day at midnight UTC (unused allowances do not roll over).

A progress indicator appears when 90% of the daily Ask allowance has been reached. Once the daily limit is exhausted, Ask mode transitions to consuming your standard credit balance until the next midnight UTC reset.

Switching from Ask to Plan or Build automatically carries over conversation history so no context is lost.

A: It is free for everyday use up to your tier's daily limit. If the daily allowance is exhausted, Ask mode will draw from your regular credits until the reset at midnight UTC.

A: No. Free Ask usage is tracked separately and does not appear in standard usage history. Only Ask queries that exceed the daily free allowance and draw from regular credits are recorded in usage history.

A: No, this allowance is automatically enabled across all editions.

Find, connect and fix every integration from one page, and connect more than one account to the same tool, such as two Gmail inboxes or two Shopify stores.

The separate Browse and Manage tabs are gone. The Integrations page now shows everything in one list: a section first, then , then one section per category. Each section shows six integrations, with connected ones displayed first, and a route to see the rest.

Before, you had to know whether an integration lived under Browse or Manage. Only one connection per integration showed on the page, so a second Gmail or Outlook inbox disappeared from the list, even when it was broken. Problems showed in banners at the top of the page instead of next to the integration they belonged to.

Now nothing is hidden. Every connected account is visible, broken connections are flagged where you'll see them, and you or your clients can fix them in one click, so AI Employees and automations keep running.

The new page is live in both Business App and Partner Center. No setup is needed.

A: Everything is on one page now. Turn on the "Connected" filter to see only what's connected, or "Mine" to see only the connections you made.

A: Yes. Select "Add" on the integration's row. Each integration has its own limit on how many accounts it allows.

A: No. Those accounts were always connected; the old page only showed one. They now appear on the row, and in "Needs attention" if they need fixing.

A: Open the integration. Its page lists who connected each account.

A: Yes. Pick the category and filters, then copy the page link. Whoever opens it sees the same view.

A: Yes. Business App and Partner Center share the same Integrations page.

A: Select "Retry." While connections can't load, the page hides the Connected and Mine filters and Connect buttons, so you won't see a false "not connected" state.

Give your AI Employees access to almost any tool your clients already use. If the tool has a public MCP server, you can connect it to Business App yourself, without waiting for a native integration.

You can now connect any public MCP (Model Context Protocol) server to Business App. Add the server's URL, sign in, and give its capabilities to an AI Employee, which can then use them in conversation.

Business across industry verticals use far more tools than any integration list can cover. Until now, if a tool wasn't on the list, AI Employees couldn't work with it, and you had to tell clients to wait for a native integration. Now, when a software vendor publishes an MCP server, you can connect it the same day. That means you can:

The tool must have a MCP server URL, plus an API key or an account to sign in with OAuth.

A: Any MCP server with a public URL. Private or locally hosted servers aren't supported.

A: With an API key or OAuth, depending on what the tool's MCP server supports.

A: The tool's vendor. How well a capability works depends on the third-party MCP server, which Vendasta doesn't control or support.

A: Yes. Once connected, you can add the server's capabilities to any AI Employee.

A: Native integrations stay available. MCP lets you connect tools that don't have one yet.

Nearly every WordPress site hosted on Vendasta has already moved to our new hosting. A few sites remain on older infrastructure and require a decision from you before the final deadline on

On October 21, the PHP project disclosed two critical vulnerabilities (CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619) that could allow unauthenticated remote code execution, and active exploitation has been observed.

Sites hosted on our new infrastructure were protected against both vulnerabilities prior to public disclosure. You and your clients do not need to take any action for these sites.

The remaining sites run on an older PHP version, which prevented them from migrating automatically and leaves them without this protection. Upgrading them to PHP 8.3 is the fastest way to secure them and complete their migration.

After the deadline, we will automatically attempt to upgrade every remaining site to PHP 8.3 and migrate it to the new hosting environment. Any site incompatible with PHP 8.3 will go offline and remain offline until it is updated or rebuilt.

Submit a support ticket directly in Partner Center.

Launch client accounts in minutes by applying pre-built, industry-specific configurations using

Vendasta Blueprints

, now available in Partner Center.

Vendasta now offers 18 ready-made templates built and tested for specific business verticals, including trades like plumbing, professional services like law firms, and personal care like salons. Instead of building from scratch, partners can apply an entire vertical configuration in a single step to instantly set up an account’s AI Receptionist, CRM pipelines and custom fields, follow-up campaigns, and review requests.

Starting a new client from a blank account traditionally required substantial manual labor to determine and configure the right pipelines, follow-up automations, and receptionist instructions. This setup burden slows down onboarding and caps agency scalability. With Vendasta Blueprints, agencies, franchises, and multi-location brands can standardize their delivery, onboard clients faster without adding overhead, and ensure every location adheres to a proven, trade-tuned operating standard.

18 trade-specific templates:

Pre-configures the AI Receptionist, CRM pipeline, custom fields, follow-up campaigns, and review requests tailored to the trade (e.g., routing emergency calls for plumbers or conducting compliant intake for law firms).

Plain-language summaries outlining exactly what each template configures prior to application.

All automations arrive switched off by default so no messages are sent until you are ready.

A: The destination account must have Campaigns Pro, Reputation AI, CRM AI, and Conversations AI activated, or the application will fail.

A: Most blueprints consume all 3 available CRM custom object slots. It is strongly recommended to apply templates to accounts that do not currently have custom objects configured.

A: No. All automations arrive switched off by default, allowing you to review configurations and add client details before activating them.

Check, control, and safely update every AI Employee you configure to ensure they're doing their job well.

Anyone configuring an AI Employee in Partner Center or Business App now has four tools for managing it:

Every AI Employee is scored against three built-in jobs, each with chat and voice variants:

Each job is scored from real conversations in the last 30 days and shows "On target," "Below target," or "No results were found."

Add rules that apply to the AI employee's replies or to the visitor's message, and customize what happens when the defined scenarios occur. There are five core types of guardrails:

Want to change an AI Employee's behavior by improving prompts or adding capabilities, but not quite sure how? Press "Modify" and describe the change you want in plain language. The AI Employee Builder will propose an edit designed to achieve the desired outcome, and wait for your approval or further discussion before implementing any changes.

Edit without fear of changes having undesired effects. Each update is logged in an AI employee's History. Roll back to an earlier version with one click.

Before this release, monitoring and optimizing an AI employee's performance was time consuming, and often tedious. The only way to tell whether an AI Employee was doing its job was to read conversations they participated in one by one. Important behavioral directives had to be worked into the main prompt. Updates were implemented with no history logged and no way back, and changing behavior meant rewriting instructions manually.

Now you can:

Available in Partner Center and Business App.

Available for: AI Chat Receptionist and AI Voice Receptionist

Available for: Text-based channel employees. (Guardrails can’t be applied to voice employees.)

Available for: Any AI Employee

Available for: Any AI Employee

A: No. Guardrails and custom jobs only apply once you add or activate them.

A: No. Every guardrail is opt-in, Safety included.

A: Modifying with AI and versioning are available for all AI employees. Guardrails are available to any AI employees that communicate through text-based methods, so they are not available for AI Voice Receptionists. Jobs to be Done are available for AI Chat and Voice Receptionists.

A: Each job is scored against real conversations from the last 30 days. "On target" and "Below target" compare its pass rate with the job's target. "No results were found" means no conversation in that window matched the job.

A: The AI Employee's name, role, capabilities, guardrails and model settings. Triggers, knowledge sources and automations aren't part of a version, so check those after a rollback.

A: A capability shared by several AI Employees is one configuration, so publishing a change to it creates a new version of every AI Employee that uses it. To change just one AI Employee, give it its own copy of the capability.

A: No. The builder returns a plan, and nothing changes until you approve it.

Select all and export everything from any Business App or Partner Center table, and follow each import and export's progress.

Before, large accounts couldn't export their full data in one go because of the 64K-record limit, and there was no easy way to see how an export was going. Now you can export a complete list in one step and keep working while it runs, without wondering whether it worked. Imports got an upgrade too, with full visibility on their progress coming into Partner Center or Business App.

A: No. The 64K-record limit is gone.

A: No. You can navigate away. When you come back after it finishes, the download starts automatically, and you'll get an email with a link.

A: Yes. It works in both Business App and Partner Center.

Manage credit notes effortlessly with these updates that help you review, edit, and document.

Track credits and remember why they were issues with the latest updates to credit notes.

Before, there was no way to see which credit notes were still drafts and which were final, and once a credit note was issued you couldn't add context to it. Six months later, nobody remembered why a credit was given. Now you can find drafts that need finishing, track what's been applied, and keep a record of the reason for every credit.

A: A draft exists but hasn't been finalized, so its line items and amounts can still change. Once it's issued, they're locked.

A: Yes. The memo can be added or edited at any status.