Digital Digest
Marketing Intelligence Weekly
Weekly updates on the digital marketing news you need to know, including data reform, AI, cookie deprecation and platform updates.
Data privacy
Data privacy in travel
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Australia’s Privacy Reforms Put Ad Targeting on Notice
- The Attorney-General's Department released an exposure draft of the next round of privacy reform last week, which reaches into digital marketing operations directly rather than sitting with your compliance team.
- While none of it is law yet, you should plan on the basis that most of it arrives in some form. As drafted, cookie and device identifiers and hashed email addresses count as personal information where they let you single out an individual. Sending them to an advertising platform is a disclosure, and a disclosure for marketing purposes requires consent.
- In practice that points at: uploading customer lists to build Custom Audiences in Meta or Customer Match in Google Ads, firing advertising pixels and tags on your site before a consent decision has been made, conversion and remarketing signals passing back into ad platforms.
- Two things worth doing now. Make your legal or compliance counsel aware it exists, so they are across it on the same timeline you are. And make sure the executives who own customer data, technology and risk know it is coming, because this lands across several functions.
- In Marketing We Trust’s CEO, Paul Hewett, sits on the privacy council of the merged AANA and ADMA, now the Marketing Association of Australia. This is a priority for the council and we are meeting to review the draft and discuss the implications for the industry. Its members include the privacy, legal and data leads of Qantas, Suncorp, Telstra, NAB, Optus, Woolworths, Wesfarmers, Amazon, Google and Meta. In Marketing We Trust will be part of that response.
- We will keep you across this as it moves through consultation, with submissions closing September 18. More to come.
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AI in digital
Marketing by numbers
Platforms
ChatGPT queries are now commercial almost 20% of the time
- Commercial-intent conversations on ChatGPT more than doubled in a year, rising an estimated 119% from 243 million to 533 million per week. At the current rate, that equates to roughly 28 billion commercial conversations annually.
- Commercial intent grew from 13.9% to 19.2% of ChatGPT conversations between June 2025 and June 2026. Users are also starting 41% more commercial conversations per week, suggesting AI is becoming a more established part of purchase journeys.
- Commercial conversations are the stickiest type of interaction, with users going through more turns and being less likely to stop after a single prompt. For marketers, that creates more opportunities for brands to be surfaced, compared or left out as consumers narrow their choices.
- Purchase intent varies significantly by industry, with Automotive (59.1%) and Travel & Hospitality (56.1%) leading commercial usage, followed by Telecom, Hardware and Financial Services at around 47%. The gap between the highest and lowest industries is roughly 10x.
- The takeaway for brands is that AI visibility is increasingly tied to purchase decisions, particularly in high-consideration categories. As commercial usage compounds, appearing favourably in ChatGPT conversations could become an increasingly important source of customer acquisition and revenue.
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AI in digital
Platforms
Google AI Mode Shows Different Products and Prices
- Google’s AI Mode rarely mirrors its standard Popular Products carousel, with just 1.28% of products appearing in both for the same search on the same day.
- Even when the same product appeared in both, 49.6% showed a different first-listed seller, meaning brands ranking prominently in traditional shopping results may not get the same visibility in AI Mode.
- Pricing also varies significantly: 38.1% of matched products had different prices, and when prices differed, AI Mode displayed the higher price 68.4% of the time.
- AI Mode offers a much narrower product selection, averaging 3.9 products per query versus 27.8 in the Popular Products carousel. Google says both experiences are powered by the same Shopping Graph, although it hasn’t verified the study’s findings.
- For ecommerce marketers, a strong traditional Shopping presence isn’t a reliable indicator of AI Mode visibility. The findings suggest brands should monitor their products, sellers and displayed prices across both experiences separately.
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AI in digital
Platforms
Google Search AI Mode Gets Gemini 3.8 Flash
- Google has rolled out Gemini 3.8 Flash in Search AI Mode, less than three weeks after introducing Gemini 3.7 Flash.
- The new model is available globally to Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers, who can select Gemini 3.8 Flash via the model dropdown in AI Mode.
- Google describes Gemini 3.8 Flash as its “most intelligent workhorse model” yet, with significant improvements in agentic tasks and complex, multi-step reasoning.
- Despite the upgrade, Gemini 3.7 Flash hasn’t been made free in AI Mode. Google says it is looking to bring these capabilities to more users when possible.
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AI in digital
Marketing by numbers
Platforms
ChatGPT Ads Hit US$1 Billion in 200 Days
- ChatGPT has hit a US$1 billion annual advertising run rate just 200 days after opening its ad platform globally, with tens of thousands of advertisers already using its self-serve offering.
- Major Australian brands are already on board, including Airwallex, Budget Direct, Kogan, L’Oréal Group, Luxury Escapes, Virgin Australia and Xero. Australian advertisers gained access in May following positive results from the US pilot.
- Ads are currently limited to ChatGPT’s Free and Go plans, while Plus, Pro and Enterprise remain ad-free. The advertising offering is now live across more than 40 countries.
- OpenAI is pushing beyond simple reach towards intent and outcomes. Local ads lead Mitch Pilar says advertisers want to know whether they’re appearing at a “genuinely useful moment”, with more sophisticated targeting, optimisation and measurement being introduced.
- OpenAI is building serious local ad expertise, hiring former Google executive Mitch Pilar and former Meta agency partner Andy Sinn to drive its Australian advertising go-to-market strategy.
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AI in digital
Platforms
OpenAI Says Astra Could Mark the AGI Era
- OpenAI has released Astra, calling it its “most intelligent and aligned model” yet, with president Greg Brockman suggesting its capabilities could signal the beginning of the artificial general intelligence era. It represents a major step up across computer use, professional work, science, maths, health and cybersecurity.
- The biggest shift is from answering questions to autonomously getting work done. Astra can tackle multistep workflows including research, CRM updates, data analysis, form filling and website creation, with OpenAI claiming it can complete a job search in 2 minutes 51 seconds that would take a human around five hours.
- For marketers and knowledge workers, Astra promises outputs closer to finished deliverables with less hand-holding. It can create polished documents, spreadsheets and presentations, follow existing templates and styles, fill routine information gaps using context, and ask targeted questions when missing details could materially change the result.
- OpenAI’s AGI messaging remains complicated. Just days before launch, CEO Sam Altman reportedly called AGI a “very poorly defined term” and an “irrelevant marketing term”, underlining how fluid the definition remains even as OpenAI positions Astra as a potential milestone.
- Astra’s capabilities also bring significant safety concerns. The model has reached OpenAI’s “critical” cybersecurity capability level, while a separate incident reportedly saw unreleased models escape a training sandbox and autonomously attack third-party software, prompting OpenAI to acknowledge that inadequate monitoring and alignment could slow or halt future scaling.
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AI in digital
Platforms
Google Blurs the Line Between AI Overviews and AI Mode
- Google Search has confirmed it is now pushing searchers into AI Mode from the AI Overview by default, without having to click the "Show more" button.
- When triggered, the AI Overview automatically expands to show a fuller AI-generated response, with an “Ask anything” prompt allowing users to continue with follow-up questions, similar to AI Mode.
- This creates a more seamless transition from AI Overviews into an AI Mode-like experience, keeping users within Google’s AI interface rather than requiring them to switch search experiences.
- The expanded response can push traditional organic results further down the page, potentially affecting visibility and click-through traffic for publishers and brands.
- Google says the expansion only happens when its systems predict a more detailed response will be useful, and it will not expand if a user has already started scrolling.
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AI in digital
Platforms
Google launches Gemini AI built for finance
- Google Cloud has launched Gemini Enterprise for Financial Services, a purpose-built agentic AI solution designed to automate complex workflows across capital markets and corporate banking. It is initially available in preview and is already being used by institutions including CME Group and Deutsche Bank.
- The platform combines a Financial Research agent with 50+ specialised skills and 13 secure data connectors, connecting with sources including FactSet, Moody’s, PitchBook, S&P Global and SEC Edgar. Outputs are designed to be auditable, with confidence scores, methodologies, data snapshots and source citations.
- Google is targeting high-value, time-consuming financial workflows, including KYC research, portfolio risk analysis, credit opportunities and bond issuance. Google says bond portfolio risk analysis can be reduced to under five minutes, while client pitch presentations can go from taking days to minutes.
- Deutsche Bank helped design the Financial Research agent and plans to deploy it within its Corporate Bank, with potential applications spanning customer research, acquisition, forecasting, financial crime risk management and pitch development.
- For marketers, the bigger signal is Google’s move towards packaged, industry-specific AI, rather than relying solely on general-purpose tools. Financial Services and Legal are the first specialised Gemini Enterprise solutions, with more industry offerings expected to follow.
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AI in digital
Marketing by numbers
Platforms
AI influenced 20% of global retail sales during last holiday period
- AI is rapidly becoming a major retail channel. Microsoft says AI-driven retail traffic grew 693% year on year last holiday season, while AI and AI agents influenced 20% of global retail sales during the period, worth roughly US$262 billion.
- AI-referred shoppers appear particularly valuable. Microsoft says 72% of consumers expect AI-assisted shopping experiences from retailers within the next year, while AI-referred visitors convert 42% better than non-AI traffic.
- Brands now need to market to AI as well as humans. While people respond to creative and brand storytelling, AI assistants rely heavily on structured, accurate product data to decide which products make their recommendations.
- Product feeds are becoming critical marketing infrastructure. Incomplete or outdated catalogue data could mean a brand isn't simply ranked lower, but excluded from an AI recommendation altogether.
- Microsoft's playbook focuses on being discovered, chosen and measured. Its approach combines AI-ready Merchant Center feeds, AI-native ads and Copilot Checkout with AI Visibility insights in Microsoft Clarity, giving marketers new ways to optimise their generative engine optimisation (GEO) strategy.
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Platforms
Google combines Google Tag and Tag Manager
- Google is bringing Google tag and Google Tag Manager together, upgrading Google tags into fully capable Tag Manager containers with interface-driven tagging, debugging and version control, without changing how existing tags behave.
- No-code event tracking is the headline update. Advertisers will be able to navigate their website, select elements and define events or conversions visually, while Google handles selectors and triggers behind the scenes.
- Measurement could also get faster, with optimised Tag Manager containers able to send data directly to Google destinations rather than loading additional gtag.js JavaScript, potentially reducing latency and improving site performance.
- Tag Manager is getting simpler and more transparent, with a redesigned interface, centralised settings and a visual map showing where measurement data flows across destinations such as Google Ads and Google Analytics.
- Existing Tag Manager users remain in control. Container optimisation is optional and proposed changes can be previewed before publishing, which is particularly important for advertisers with sophisticated existing measurement setups.
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AI in digital
Marketing by numbers
AI Is Becoming a Holiday Shopping Essential
- 65% of consumers plan to use AI for at least one part of their holiday shopping, while just 8% of retailers feel very confident using AI to improve the shopping experience.
- Personalisation is a major AI opportunity, with 78% of shoppers saying they’d use AI-powered tools if they made their shopping experience feel more personalised.
- Gift discovery is the top planned AI use case, with 43% using it to find gifts, followed by comparing products and summarising reviews (33%), budgeting and spend planning (29%), and post-purchase tasks (15%).
- Retailers may be underestimating the shift to AI, with only 14% expecting increased use of AI shopping assistants to be the biggest behavioural change this holiday season.
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AI in digital
Platforms
Claude and Cowork Now Share the Same Memory
- Anthropic is unifying memory across Claude and Cowork, meaning users can switch between the tools without having to re-enter context, preferences or details from previous projects.
- Claude can now automatically update its memory as conversations happen, removing the need for users to explicitly ask it to remember something. Users can pause or reset memory at any time.
- Memory management is getting more granular, with users able to view the topics Claude has saved, then edit or delete individual memories directly within settings.
- Users can opt in to saving certain sensitive topics, such as dietary allergies, although this is switched off by default. Some highly sensitive information, including government IDs and financial account numbers, will never be stored.
- Memory is enabled by default across Claude’s Free, Pro and Max plans on web, desktop and mobile, potentially making persistent personalisation a much more standard part of the Claude experience.
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AI in digital
Marketing by numbers
Platforms
We’ve updated our Future of Search white paper (Aug 2026)
- Search hasn’t disappeared, it’s fragmented across social, AI, marketplaces, maps, forums and more. For marketers, ranking on Google alone no longer equals visibility, brands need to be discoverable across multiple surfaces.
- Social is becoming a serious discovery channel, especially for younger audiences. Social ads are now the leading source of brand discovery for under-35s, while TikTok and Instagram play a growing role in commercial and transactional searches.
- Google is increasingly becoming an answer engine rather than a click generator, with 68% of searches ending without a click and AI Overviews appearing on more than 20% of searches. That means marketers need to optimise for visibility, citations and influence, not just website traffic.
- AI is changing how people research products, particularly for comparisons and recommendations, but it hasn’t replaced traditional search. Google still dominates overall search activity, while consumers increasingly move between search, social and AI throughout the buying journey.
- Traditional keyword research is becoming less representative of how people search in AI. Between 65% and 85% of ChatGPT prompts reportedly have no matching keyword in existing databases, pushing marketers towards persona-led content, fresher information and stronger topical authority.
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AI in digital
Platforms
ChatGPT’s citations collapse, but brand recommendations hold
- ChatGPT dramatically cut citations from major social platforms, with YouTube down 88%, Reddit 81%, TikTok 72%, Facebook 38% and LinkedIn 36%. Petra Labs says the shift appeared specific to ChatGPT, highlighting just how quickly AI search sources can change.
- Strangely, the brands ChatGPT recommended barely changed. Petra Labs says users were largely seeing the same recommendations, just backed by different cited sources, suggesting the links an AI displays may not fully reveal what shaped its answer.
- Company-owned websites picked up much of the lost citation share, particularly “non-competitive owned media”, such as businesses publishing useful content about adjacent products or services. That could create another relatively low-cost route for brands to influence AI visibility beyond PR, social and their own websites.
- Don’t overhaul your AI search strategy based on a sudden algorithm shift. Reddit citations had already begun rebounding, and the broader lesson is to build authority across multiple crawlable owned and third-party sources rather than chasing whichever platform ChatGPT currently favours.
- AI search is challenging traditional marketing measurement. A creator with fewer views could potentially have greater value if an AI system uses their content to inform recommendations, meaning marketers may increasingly need to measure AI influence alongside reach, clicks and engagement.
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AI in digital
Platforms
Google Brings Interactive AI Tools Into Search
- Google is rolling out generative UI directly into AI Overviews, allowing Search to create custom visual layouts, interactive tools and simulations on the fly.
- The feature can dynamically respond to queries and follow-ups. For example, an AI Overview can generate an interactive pH scale, then adapt it to plot specific citrus fruits when the user asks a follow-up question.
- This could create more competition for websites built around utility content, including calculators, converters and comparison tools, as users may increasingly get these experiences without leaving Google.
- Generative UI is already available globally in English within AI Mode and is rolling into AI Overviews, with Google expecting full availability there within the coming weeks. Google hasn't yet revealed which types of searches will trigger it.
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AI in digital
Marketing by numbers
Google Finds AI’s Biggest Problem Isn’t Knowledge
- Google research found frontier LLMs encode 95–98% of tested facts, yet fail to directly recall 26–34% of them. The issue is increasingly about accessing knowledge already learned, rather than lacking the information in the first place.
- Entity order can significantly affect AI answers. If an LLM learns a relationship in a subject-to-object order, reversing those entities in a question can make the same fact harder for the model to retrieve.
- Simply rephrasing a question had little impact on recall, while reversing subject and object order did. This suggests the underlying structure of how entities are presented may matter more than variations in wording.
- Rare or long-tail facts are particularly vulnerable to recall problems, even when the model has successfully encoded them. More reasoning can recover some missing facts, but it comes with higher computational costs.
- For marketers and SEOs, there’s an interesting potential implication: structuring entity relationships in content to mirror how people commonly query them could possibly improve AI recall.
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AI in digital
Platforms
ChatGPT Is Becoming Google’s Biggest Paid Destination
- ChatGPT attracts a higher proportion of paid clicks from Google than any other leading destination analysed. It ranked as the sixth-most-clicked destination overall, highlighting just how intertwined Google Search and AI discovery have become.
- Paid search is proving surprisingly resilient as zero-click behaviour grows. Across iPullRank’s 13.1 billion search-event dataset, Google’s zero-click rate rose by around 2.6 percentage points and organic clicks fell roughly 2.8 points, while paid clicks showed no meaningful change.
- Google and ChatGPT aren’t necessarily competing customer journeys. Users are actively moving from Google to ChatGPT, suggesting marketers should consider how paid search can connect traditional search with AI-led discovery rather than treating them as separate channels.
- Branded search remains valuable territory for advertisers. Paid clicks represented 4.4% of clicked branded searches versus 3.3% for non-branded searches, supporting the case for defensive brand bidding even when a brand already has strong organic visibility.
- Google is still overwhelmingly a discovery engine. Only around 14% of clicks went to a website explicitly named in the query, meaning roughly 86% were discovery clicks where marketers potentially have an opportunity to influence where users go next.
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Help desk
Platforms
Google’s August Spam Update Wraps Up
- Google’s August 2026 spam update has officially finished rolling out, running from 18 to 21 August and affecting all regions and languages globally.
- The update targets websites violating Google’s search spam policies, but does not specifically target link spam or site reputation abuse. Google hasn’t disclosed what percentage of searches were affected.
- SEO community feedback suggests the impact has been highly mixed, with some publishers reporting major traffic and Google Discover losses, while others saw previous ranking issues reversed.
- For marketers seeing visibility declines, Google recommends reviewing its spam policies and addressing any compliance issues. Recovery may take several months, as improvements can depend on future spam-system refreshes.
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AI in digital
Platforms
Microsoft Clarity Reveals AI’s Referral Payback
- Microsoft Clarity has launched an AI Scrape-to-Referral Ratio, comparing how often an AI platform scrapes a site with how much referral traffic it sends back.
- The metric gives marketers and site owners a clearer way to assess whether AI crawlers are delivering value or primarily extracting content. One example shows 6,000 scrapes for every referral, with just 41 visits generated.
- Bot Analytics also breaks performance down by AI operator, helping teams identify which platforms generate meaningful referral traffic versus those with high scraping activity and limited return.
- Marketers can jump directly from referral insights into filtered session recordings to assess whether AI-referred visitors actually engage, convert, sign up or make purchases.
- The bigger opportunity is making AI crawler access a more measurable decision. Rather than treating all AI visibility equally, brands can compare scrape volume, referral return and visitor quality when deciding which crawlers are worth allowing.
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AI in digital
Platforms
ChatGPT Ads Surge Across Australian Responses
- ChatGPT ads are rapidly becoming visible in Australia, with data stream analysis finding sponsored placements in roughly half of monitored responses, signalling that AI advertising is moving beyond experimentation and into meaningful scale.
- Telco, energy and travel brands are among the early movers, suggesting advertisers in high-consideration categories see conversational AI as a new channel for reaching consumers closer to decision-making moments.
- US analysis points to an emerging income divide in ChatGPT advertising exposure, raising questions for marketers about who AI ads actually reach and how representative that audience will be.
- For marketers, the early surge makes AI ad visibility, placement and competitive monitoring increasingly important as ChatGPT develops into a new paid media environment alongside traditional search and digital channels.
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AI in digital
Platforms
Claude Will Now Watermark AI-Generated Content
- Anthropic is rolling out machine-readable marking for Claude-generated content as part of its commitments under the EU AI Act. Claude models launched on or after 2 August 2026 will support marking from launch, with older models being updated over time.
- For text, Claude will embed an invisible watermark that doesn’t affect readability and can travel with copy when it’s pasted elsewhere. For supported files such as PNGs, JPGs and SVGs, Claude will also attach signed provenance metadata.
- Importantly for marketers, the watermark may survive some editing, but not necessarily substantial rewriting. Heavy editing, paraphrasing, translation or combining AI copy with other writing can make the mark undetectable.
- Detection isn’t definitive either. A Claude mark only indicates content may have been processed by Claude, while the absence of a mark doesn’t prove something wasn’t AI-generated.
- Our recommendation hasn’t changed: AI is a useful tool for creating copy, but marketers should still have human oversight and editors reviewing AI-generated content before it goes live. Watermarking adds transparency, not a substitute for editorial judgement.
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AI in digital
Platforms
Google brings agentic AI deeper into Ads and Analytics
- Google is expanding Ask Advisor, its Gemini-powered AI agent across Google Ads and Google Analytics, with new capabilities designed to move marketers from performance insights to action faster.
- Google Analytics is adding AI Overviews to its homepage, automatically summarising important changes such as sales peaks and traffic shifts since your last visit. Marketers can click an insight to investigate it further with Ask Advisor, or receive summaries via phone and email notifications.
- Google Ads is getting personalised AI insight cards, plus a prompt box that lets marketers ask questions about areas such as competitor impact on impression share or trends that could improve campaign performance.
- AI-powered Dashboards turn text prompts into visual reports, with automatically generated real-time summaries explaining the reasons behind performance. The feature is available in Google Ads and is coming soon to Google Analytics.
- New benchmarking in Google Analytics lets marketers compare campaign performance against anonymised averages from similar businesses, giving teams additional context for identifying opportunities and refining strategy. The new Ask Advisor capabilities are currently in beta for English-language accounts.
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AI in digital
Marketing by numbers
Platforms
ChatGPT Ads Reach One in Four Commercial Queries
- ChatGPT showed ads on 25.94% of commercial prompts in SE Ranking’s study of 50,006 US queries, putting its ad frequency close to Google AI Mode’s 29.45%. Each ChatGPT answer currently featured just one sponsored placement below the response.
- Ad relevance still has some serious gaps, with 14.35% of placements effectively unrelated to the prompt. The mismatch rate climbed above 50% for Relationships and News & Politics, highlighting the challenges of ChatGPT’s context-based targeting rather than traditional keyword targeting.
- Paid and organic ChatGPT visibility are largely separate games. Advertisers appeared among the answer’s cited sources in just 3.63% of placements, meaning marketers shouldn’t expect ad spend to improve their organic AI visibility.
- Audience fit could be a major limitation, particularly for B2B. SE Ranking generated 97,000+ impressions and 1,263 clicks at a 1.30% average CTR, but very few sign-ups, with the company pointing to ads only reaching Free and Go users as a likely factor.
- The early ad market is highly concentrated, with BestMoney accounting for at least 13.56% of all ads observed and individual brands taking more than half the placements in several niches. For marketers, the takeaway is to test budgets and context targeting carefully before scaling.
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AI in digital
Platforms
Google Expands AI Performance Reporting in Search Console
- Google’s generative AI performance report has expanded to significantly more Search Console profiles, giving marketers greater visibility into how their sites appear across Google’s AI-powered Search features.
- The report tracks impressions, pages, countries, devices and performance over time, helping marketers understand which content is gaining visibility within generative AI experiences.
- There’s still a major measurement gap: click and search query data aren’t included, limiting marketers’ ability to connect AI visibility with traffic and specific search intent.
- Despite the wider rollout, the report isn’t available for every site yet. Google’s John Mueller confirmed it only appears when a domain has sufficient generative AI data to display.
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AI in digital
Platforms
Google Search Console Reveals Hidden AI Mode Queries
- Google Search Console’s main Performance report includes query data generated through AI Mode and AI Overviews, even though its dedicated generative AI reports don’t show individual queries.
- Marketers may be able to identify AI Mode activity by spotting unusual conversational queries such as “yes”, “yes go on” and “yes, pricing”, alongside longer, more conversational searches.
- Google’s John Mueller confirmed that Search Console includes AI Mode and AI Overview activity in the general Performance report, rather than separating it into its own query dataset.
- Importantly, every follow-up question someone asks within AI Mode is treated as a new query, with its own impressions, position and click data. That gives SEOs another potential signal for understanding how users interact with brands and content through AI-powered search.
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Help desk
Platforms
Google Ads bidding changes land August 17
- From 17 August 2026, Google Ads will change how budget-limited campaigns using Target CPA and Target ROAS optimise, aiming to deliver more consistently towards the targets advertisers actually set.
- Campaigns currently outperforming their targets could see efficiency decline. For example, a campaign with a $10 Target CPA currently achieving $5 CPA may begin delivering closer to $10 unless its target is updated.
- Marketers should review affected “Limited by budget” campaigns before 17 August, particularly those outperforming their targets. Google will not automatically adjust targets or budgets on advertisers’ behalf.
- Google’s Bid Target Adjustment Tool is available from 6 July, allowing advertisers to compare targets against recent performance and quickly adjust them to maintain current efficiency or align with business goals.
- The upside is more predictable scaling. After the change, Google says advertisers should be able to increase budgets on affected campaigns while maintaining performance closer to their stated CPA or ROAS targets.
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AI in digital
Platforms
Cloudflare gives marketers AEO visibility dashboard
- Cloudflare has launched its AEO Visibility Dashboard, giving brands visibility into whether AI assistants are recommending, mentioning or citing them.
- The dashboard uses Cloudflare’s network-level data, including real AI crawl activity and referral signals across millions of sites, alongside testing AI responses. Cloudflare argues this provides deeper insight than tools that rely primarily on sending sample prompts to AI assistants.
- Marketers get four key AEO metrics: Citation Rate shows which AI platforms use the brand as a source, Mention Rate tracks whether the brand appears without being cited, Prominence measures how strongly and where it features in answers, and Share of Voice benchmarks visibility against competitors.
- The metrics could help marketers diagnose why their AI visibility is weak before investing in content. For example, Cloudflare says, “A brand that gets mentioned but not cited has an authority problem, not an awareness problem”, potentially pointing marketers towards a very different optimisation strategy.
- Cloudflare sees AI recommendations as the new battleground for discoverability. As Chief Strategy Officer Stephanie Cohen puts it, “Being discoverable used to mean ranking on a page. That’s not enough anymore.” The dashboard is available in early access, alongside Cloudflare’s Agent Readiness tool, which checks whether AI systems can access and understand a brand’s site.
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AI in digital
Platforms
Microsoft Clarity Sharpens AI Visibility With Brand Query Insights
- Microsoft Clarity now separates branded and non-branded queries across its AI Citations dashboard and AI reports, helping marketers see whether AI systems are finding their content through direct brand searches or broader topic discovery.
- Share of Authority can now be analysed by query type, giving marketers a clearer picture of where their brand has authority compared with more generic, category-level queries.
- New filters make AI visibility easier to diagnose, allowing teams to compare performance for branded versus non-branded queries and identify where discovery and consideration opportunities exist.
- The update makes citation analysis more actionable, helping marketers distinguish existing brand strength from organic AI discovery and interpret changes in AI citation performance with greater confidence.
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AI in digital
Platforms
ChatGPT 5.6 Is Getting Smarter About Sources
- ChatGPT 5.6 is using domain-specific searches far more aggressively. The site: operator appeared in around 43% of analysed query fan-outs, compared with just 0.004% in ChatGPT 5.5, suggesting a major shift towards deliberately selecting sources.
- First-party brand websites are the big winners. 84% of domains targeted with the site: operator were branded domains, indicating ChatGPT often goes directly to the company or product website when looking for relevant information.
- Reddit dominates when ChatGPT wants external perspectives. Of the non-branded domains targeted, 71% were Reddit, rising to 93% within the Social & Forums category. Trustpilot similarly captured 54% of Review & Comparison mentions.
- ChatGPT appears to match its search depth to user intent. Root-domain searches most commonly appear alongside terms like “review”, “official”, “service” and “comparison”, while searches targeting specific URL paths are more strongly associated with product-specific queries and pricing information.
- For marketers, owned content and third-party reputation both matter. The findings suggest AI visibility increasingly depends on having authoritative first-party information alongside credible external validation from sources such as communities and review platforms.
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AI in digital
Marketing by numbers
AI Is Reshaping the B2B Buying Journey
- AI is already a major B2B research channel. 66% of AI-using professionals regularly use it to research vendors and solutions, while 92% say AI has shaped their vendor shortlist.
- AI visibility can directly influence pipeline and revenue. 97% say AI has helped them discover new vendors, while 83% say it has influenced their final vendor decision.
- Use-case relevance beats brand recognition. 53% notice vendors that closely match their specific needs, while just 7% say brand recognition makes a vendor stand out in AI responses, creating an opportunity for smaller brands.
- AI recommendations still need validation. While 75% trust AI vendor recommendations, buyers typically follow up through vendor websites, Google, competitor comparisons and review platforms, meaning strong AI and traditional search visibility need to work together.
- Marketers should expect AI's influence to keep growing. 89% expect to rely more on AI for work-related decisions, making visibility across tools such as ChatGPT and Gemini an increasingly important part of B2B marketing strategy.
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