What changed in AI search this week
Weekly Insights
Every week we publish what we learn engineering AI visibility for brands, plus a roundup of the AI search news that actually matters.
This week in AI Search: AI Overviews on 83% of brand searches, the median AI citation halves in 11 days, Gemini tags its links, Shopify opts shops in.
This week in AI Search: links return to AI Overviews, some lead into AI Mode, Google auto-enables checkout in AI Mode, ChatGPT falls to 50% of prompts.
Our DMEXCO 2026 recap: a fully booked ChatGPT Ads masterclass with the first European numbers, our first booth, and plans for 2027.
This week in AI Search: Google drops free product listings in the EEA, turns local panels into AI Overviews and blocks scrapers, ChatGPT's 69 engines, Reddit's AI, Profound's $1.8B.
This week in AI Search: Google's DMA redesign in Europe, 57% of AI Overview citations come from outside the top 10, answers change per persona, llms.txt, and Applebot.
Siri AI ships with iOS 27: cited web answers from Apple's own index, fed by Applebot. Six expectations for AI search and what global brands should do now.
Free one-hour online clinic at Beeckestijn: formats, auction, targeting without keywords, creative and a live Ads Manager demo. 7 October 2026, in Dutch.
Two ChatGPT Ads sessions at Emerce Academy: a free knowledge session on 2 October and a three-hour deep dive on 29 October with your own campaign plan.
Our ChatGPT Ads CTR, CPC and CPM next to Google Search, Google Display and Meta benchmarks, and next to the early tests critics call underwhelming.
This week in AI Search: Search Console shows AI impressions to every site, B2B prompts cite product pages over Reddit, and ChatGPT Ads go self-serve in the EU.
ChatGPT Ads self serve platform has launched, and the Ads plugin for ChatGPT is enabled.
This week in AI Search: only 2.8% of cited sources are brand-owned, ChatGPT's rebuilt search tool gets a freshness dial, and Google drops parasite SEO penalties in Europe.
Our own panel puts Reddit's ChatGPT citation drop at 97%, finds no matching decline on any other engine, and shows Wikipedia went to zero in the same window.
This week in AI Search: ChatGPT Ads open in 31 European markets, Reddit citations collapse 96.9% in ChatGPT, and AI crawlers ignore JavaScript links.
Launch of PromptAds - the ChatGPT Ads Library for Europe
Publication of an article in De Telegraaf, with an interview of Arjan ter Huurne. The article talks about the launch of ChatGPT Ads in Europe.
This week in AI Search: ChatGPT names brands before searching, its fetch bot ignores robots.txt, Anthropic watermarks Claude, and Shopify counts AI referrals.
This week in AI Search: the IAB publishes AI visibility measurement guidelines, research shows ChatGPT over-indexes English pages, and ChatGPT Ads grows up.
This week in AI Search: ChatGPT Ads expand to five new markets, AI Overviews reach 43% of US searches, France reacts to AI Mode, and a noindex lesson.
A five-layer framework for measuring AI Search impact, from crawler access and model visibility to referrals, surveys and customer insight.
Learn how embedding models weight text. Discover why Google favors introductions while OpenAI prioritizes conclusions, and how to structure content for AI search.
Half of B2B software buyers now start in AI Search. What that means for attribution, AEO, GEO, and brand representation in the generative era.
Marketing strategy is entering a rare moment of reset. When AI mediates discovery, brands are no longer competing for attention - they are competing for interpretation and selection.
Traditional SEO rankings are becoming less relevant as AI systems synthesize answers. The new metric is machine trust - and earning it requires a different approach.
AI agents are beginning to make purchase decisions on behalf of consumers. Here is what that means for brand strategy and how to prepare.
In generative AI experiences, users don't click ten blue links. They ask AI systems a question and get an answer. This shift demands a new way of understanding visibility.
In Q4 2025, I founded PromptMarketing because something fundamental in search had changed. This wasn't another algorithm update - it was a structural shift. When AI speaks for your brand, you lose control.