We mined Google autocomplete for Montana AI queries. It was empty.
We built a small tool that asks Google's autocomplete what people actually type. Not a keyword tool with volume estimates. The raw suggest endpoint, probed politely and cached, across every service we sell, crossed with Montana and its cities. One full run: 5,259 requests, 23,584 completions collected, sorted into 271 clusters of demand.
The finding that mattered was the silence. "Business automation montana": nothing. "CRM billings mt": nothing. "AI automation great falls": nothing. Query after query in our newest, most exciting service line, and autocomplete had no completions to offer.
Then the old service line: "web design missoula montana" completes. "Website design billings mt" completes. "Central montana web design" completes. Real completions, city by city.
Autocomplete is a trail, not a forecast
Autocomplete only offers a completion when enough real people have typed that phrase. It is the worn path in the grass. Google does not pave a path nobody walks.
That makes it behavior evidence, which is different from the volume numbers keyword tools sell you. A volume estimate is a model's guess. An autocomplete completion is a fossil record of actual fingers on actual keyboards. And an EMPTY autocomplete, on an endpoint that eagerly completes everything else, is evidence too: it says the searches are not happening.
We sell AI automation, and I think it is the most valuable thing we do. The data does not care. Montanans are not typing those words into Google yet. They are typing web design, town by town.
What we changed because of it
Content effort now follows the worn path. The reference articles we write target the searches that exist, web design and websites, because that is where a Montana business owner actually meets us. The AI and automation story gets told AFTER the meeting, on the pages they land on, where we can make the case to someone who arrived looking for something they already knew they wanted.
Writing content for searches nobody makes is planting a sign in a field nobody crosses. The sign can be great. Nobody reads it.
If you sell something new anywhere local: spend an afternoon asking autocomplete what your town actually types. Free, fast, and it will tell you where the path is worn. Walk that one first, and carry the new thing with you.
Related: what that decision built, our Montana web design practice, and how to choose a web design company.