It’s never been more important to keep up with the news if you’re a content marketer.

In this edition:

• 🍣 Google’s VP of Product reveals how AI recommends businesses
• 📊 ChatGPT widens its sources while Google tightens its list
• 🗞️ Stories to not doomscroll

🍣 Google’s VP of Product reveals how AI recommends businesses

Google’s VP of Product, Robby Stein, sat down for an interview on the Silicon Valley Girl Podcast, where he revealed some hints on how AI search decides which businesses to recommend. 

Is the traditional algo dying? Google’s goal is for its AI to act like a good human researcher, pulling from sources across the web.

This new “AI researcher” is pulling from sources it’d believe a human would find reliable. 

So this leads us to arguably the biggest change in SEO: The rise of PR (not that it wasn’t valuable before). In other words, businesses need to get mentioned in third-party “best of” articles. Those pages are what the model is reading and stitching together.

But the gist is not to stop thinking about SEO, because just like you’d optimize your website to be helpful to your ICP, AI needs to find your website helpful in the same way.

📊 ChatGPT widens its sources while Google tightens its list

Semrush’s new AI Visibility Index shows something important for marketers: ChatGPT and Google’s AI Mode are drifting in opposite directions. If you’re treating “AI search” like one channel, you’re going to miss where your brand actually shows up.

What changed in the last 90 days:

• ChatGPT is pulling from more places. It mentioned 12% more brands in September before dipping in October, and the number of sources it cites jumped 80%. It’s experimenting with a wider set of sites.
• Google AI Mode is narrowing. Brand mentions fell 4%, and its source count rose just 13%. Google is sticking to a smaller, more stable set of trusted sources.

Reddit’s wild reversal:

• ChatGPT dropped Reddit mentions by 82%, though it’s still the fourth most common source.
• Google AI Mode increased Reddit usage by 75%, using it in 1 in 5 answers, second only to Amazon.

Brand movement:

• Top brands barely moved. 25 new names entered ChatGPT’s top 100, but only two broke into the top 50.
• Overlap is real. 61 brands appear in both ChatGPT and Google’s top lists. The leaders stay leaders.

AI search isn’t one ecosystem. ChatGPT rewards broad coverage across many sites. Google AI Mode rewards tight reliability from a smaller set of sources. To show up in both, you need distribution across forums, news, listicles, and authoritative pages, not just one channel.

🧱 SEO pros outside the AI Overviews box

Please, I’m begging you. Just one citation.

🗞️ Stories to not doomscroll

AI is stalling on bad data. 75% of martech pain traces back to fragmented systems, leaving fewer than 2% able to personalize with AI effectively.

AI Overviews are crushing clicks. Organic CTR on those queries fell 61% and paid CTR dropped 68%, with even non-AI queries down 41%.

AI agents are changing conversions. 63% of first clicks instantly bounce due to errors or blocks, proving most sites aren’t agent-ready for automated shopping.

How Industry Dive scaled by going wide early. Launching 5 niche daily newsletters on day one, using LinkedIn groups for growth, and obsessing over engaged job-title-fit subscribers drove their $100M outcome.

Reddit’s ad engine is exploding. Revenues jumped 74% YoY to $549M as active advertisers climbed 75% and ML-driven optimizations boosted lower-funnel performance 20%.

Marketers are misreading loyalty. 65% think repeat buys come from brand love, but under 25% of consumers say that, with convenience and soft perks driving the real behavior.

ChatGPT ads are coming. Altman says no pay-to-play and no Google-style misalignment, aiming for trust-based recommendations with optional commissions.

AI Overviews suppress clicks but boost revenue. Organic traffic fell post rollout, yet search-driven direct sales climbed 20.6%, showing visibility still converts even without CTR.

🤝 Need a hand with your content marketing?

I run Stat Digital, a fractional content marketing team for B2B SaaS companies.

We can help you:

• Create blogs that capture ready-to-buy leads from SEO.
• Launch and run newsletters to nurture the thousands of neglected contacts going stale in your CRM (like this one)

Want me to audit your current marketing strategy? Schedule a free strategy session here.