Ecommerce MGMT, Author at Ecommerce Management Education

Feb 2 2026

Google Shows How To Get More Traffic From Top Stories Feature via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Google added new documentation to Search Central covering their Preferred Sources program that helps news websites get into the Top Stories feature. The documentation explains what publishers can do to make it more likely to be ranked in Top Stories and get more traffic.

Source Preferences Tool

The preferred sources program is available only to English language web pages globally. Google also states that sites that are already in the Preferred Sources tool are eligible to deep link to encourage users to add your site as a preferred source. https://www.google.com/preferences/source

According to Google:

If your site appears in the source preferences tool, you can use the following methods to guide your readers to select your site as a preferred source:

Add the deeplink to your social posts or promotions. Use the following URL format, which takes users directly to your site in the source preferences tool:
https://google.com/preferences/source?q=Your_Website's_URL
For example, if your site is https://example.com, use the following URL:

https://google.com/preferences/source?q=example.com

Do What You Can For More Traffic From Top Stories

Getting traffic out of Google appears to be getting increasingly difficult. So it’s useful to take advantage of every available opportunity.

Featured Image by Shutterstock/RealPeopleStudio

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Feb 2 2026

Reclaim Traffic with Smarter Ads

As AI Overviews and shopping agents divert organic traffic, ecommerce marketers may turn to advertising for predictable growth in 2026.

Artificial intelligence is reshaping how people discover, evaluate, and buy products. It may be early days, but the pace of change is accelerating.

For example, an October 2025 Harvard Business Review survey revealed that 74% of U.S. adults aged 18-30 had used an AI chatbot in the previous month. That’s up from 58% of young adults in a February 2025 survey.

Audiences

Search engines increasingly answer questions within the results. Shopping agents compare products before a shopper ever visits a website. The result is declining organic traffic.

Seemingly every industry is experiencing what might be a once-in-a-generation change in how it operates.

Yet the same AI tools creating disruption also offer opportunity. If organic traffic is less reliable, ad targeting becomes more valuable, and audience intelligence becomes a competitive advantage.

For ecommerce shops, optimized targeting can regain predictability.

But marketers are not limited to retargeting their own shoppers or even lookalike audiences.

Merchants can buy pre-built audiences based on purchase behavior, device usage, location history, and other signals, then activate those same audiences across major advertising platforms, including social, programmatic display, connected TV, and video.

Illustration of multiple caricatures with a circle around the targets

Better ad targeting can dramatically improve performance.

4 Tactics

Beyond demographics

The first step toward audience and advertising optimization might be to move beyond demographics.

“There are standard audiences that have been around forever, like age, gender, and interest, but we find a lot of our more interesting data sets in purchase history, what we call the Shopping Graph,” explained Mike Ford, CEO of Skydeo, a predictive audience firm.

This optimization is simple enough: target consumers who have recently purchased adjacent products, perhaps from competitors or in similar product categories.

To be sure, focusing on buy signals — transactional data — can cost more than broad demographic targeting. But those audiences often convert at significantly higher rates, which may more than offset the higher cost.

Hand-pick attributes

A second way to target audiences is to hand-pick attributes, or at least understand the lookalikes, thus adding human intelligence to the algorithmic mix.

Lookalike modeling is often obscure, hidden in the platform or the provider’s systems.

Instead of uploading a customer list and relying solely on an algorithm, marketers can build audiences based on explicit traits. Examples include buyers of premium dog food or folks who installed fitness apps and purchase athletic apparel.

Refresh

Another optimization tactic is to update the audience regularly.

“Sometimes audiences get stale. Sometimes they time out, and we have to refresh them,” said Ford.

Many marketers treat audiences as static assets. They build once and reuse indefinitely. This approach becomes ineffective when buying intent is sudden and short-lived.

Treat high-performing audiences like advertising creative. Rebuild or refresh audiences regularly. Ask platforms or vendors about the audience updates. Pick daily or weekly refresh cycles where possible.

Leverage AI

The fourth audience-targeting optimization Ford recommended was to leverage AI.

Ford’s Skydeo and many other data businesses, such as Adstra, Starcount, or AlikeAudience, have massive amounts of targeting data and established, off-the-shelf audiences.

Instead of hunting through taxonomies, ecommerce marketers can review, test, and validate machine-ranked audiences. The AI proposes options. Humans decide what to keep.

This does not undercut the idea of hand-picking audience attributes or demanding some level of algorithmic transparency. Rather, it is the idea of using AI not to replace human insights, but to accelerate them.

Traffic in 2026

When traffic is abundant, marketers can afford inefficiency. When traffic becomes scarce, waste is a problem.

Audience targeting optimization does not solve every challenge with AI-driven product discovery. But it can improve advertising effectiveness. And advertising is among the best ways to market in 2026.

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Jan 31 2026

WordPress Announces AI Agent Skill For Speeding Up Development via @sejournal, @martinibuster

WordPress announced wp-playground, a new AI agent skill designed to be used with the Playground CLI so AI agents can run WordPress for testing and check their work as they write code. The skill helps agents test code quickly while they work.

Playground CLI

Playground is a WordPress sandbox that enables users to run a full WordPress site without setting it all up on a traditional server. It is used for testing plugins, creating and adjusting themes, and experimenting safely without affecting a live site.

The new AI agent skill is for use with Playground CLI, which runs locally and requires knowledge of terminal commands, Node.js, and npm to manage local WordPress environments.

The wp-playground skill starts WordPress automatically and determines where generated code should exist inside the installation. The skill then mounts the code into the correct directory, which allows the agent to move directly from generated code to a running the WordPress site without manual setup.

Once WordPress is running, the agent can test behavior and verify results using common tools. In testing, agents interacted with WordPress through tools like curl and Playwright, checked outcomes, applied fixes, and then re-tested using the same environment. This process creates a repeatable loop where the agent can confirm whether a change works before making further changes.

The skill also includes helper scripts that manage startup and shutdown. These scripts reduce the time it takes for WordPress to become ready for testing from about a minute to only a few seconds. The Playground CLI can also log into WP-Admin automatically, which removes another manual step during testing.

The creator of the AI agent skill, Brandon Payton, is quoted explaining how it works:

“AI agents work better when they have a clear feedback loop. That’s why I made the wp-playground skill. It gives agents an easy way to test WordPress code and makes building and experimenting with WordPress a lot more accessible.”

The WordPress AI agent skill release also introduces a new GitHub repository dedicated to hosting WordPress agent skill. Planned ideas include persistent Playground sites tied to a project directory, running commands against existing Playground instances, and Blueprint generation.

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Here

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App Biotechnology and health The Checkup

Jan 31 2026

How the sometimes-weird world of lifespan extension is gaining influence

For the last couple of years, I’ve been following the progress of a group of individuals who believe death is humanity’s “core problem.” Put simply, they say death is wrong—for everyone. They’ve even said it’s morally wrong.

They established what they consider a new philosophy, and they called it Vitalism.

Vitalism is more than a philosophy, though—it’s a movement for hardcore longevity enthusiasts who want to make real progress in finding treatments that slow or reverse aging. Not just through scientific advances, but by persuading influential people to support their movement, and by changing laws and policies to open up access to experimental drugs.

And they’re starting to make progress.

Vitalism was founded by Adam Gries and Nathan Cheng—two men who united over their shared desire to find ways to extend human lifespan. I first saw Cheng speak back in 2023, at Zuzalu, a pop-up city in Montenegro for people who were interested in life extension and some other technologies. (It was an interesting experience—you can read more about it here.)

Zuzalu was where Gries and Cheng officially launched Vitalism. But I’ve been closely following the longevity scene since 2022. That journey took me to Switzerland, Honduras, and a compound in Berkeley, California, where like-minded longevity enthusiasts shared their dreams of life extension.

It also took me to Washington, DC, where, last year, supporters of lifespan extension presented politicians including Mehmet Oz, who currently leads the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, with their case for changes to laws and policies.

The journey has been fascinating, and at times weird and even surreal. I’ve heard biohacking stories that ended with smoking legs. I’ve been told about a multi-partner relationship that might be made possible through the cryopreservation—and subsequent reanimation—of a man and the multiple wives he’s had throughout his life. I’ve had people tell me to my face that they consider themselves eugenicists, and that they believe that parents should select IVF embryos for their propensity for a long life.

I’ve seen people draw blood during dinner in an upscale hotel restaurant to test their biological age. I’ve heard wild plans to preserve human consciousness and resurrect it in machines. Others have told me their plans to inject men’s penises with multiple doses of an experimental gene therapy in order to treat erectile dysfunction and ultimately achieve “radical longevity.”

I’ve been shouted at and threatened with legal action. I’ve received barefoot hugs. One interviewee told me I needed Botox. It’s been a ride.

My reporting has also made me realize that the current interest in longevity reaches beyond social media influencers and wellness centers. Longevity clinics are growing in number, and there’s been a glut of documentaries about living longer or even forever.

At the same time, powerful people who influence state laws, giant federal funding budgets, and even national health policy are prioritizing the search for treatments that slow or reverse aging. The longevity community was thrilled when longtime supporter Jim O’Neill was made deputy secretary of health and human services last year. Other members of Trump’s administration, including Oz, have spoken about longevity too. “It seems that now there is the most pro-longevity administration in American history,” Gries told me.

I recently spoke to Alicia Jackson, the new director of ARPA-H. The agency, established in 2022 under Joe Biden’s presidency, funds “breakthrough” biomedical research. And it appears to have a new focus on longevity. Jackson previously founded and led Evernow, a company focused on “health and longevity for every woman.”

“There’s a lot of interesting technologies, but they all kind of come back to the same thing: Could we extend life years?” she told me over a Zoom call a few weeks ago. She added that her agency had “incredible support” from “the very top of HHS.” I asked if she was referring to Jim O’Neill. “Yeah,” she said. She wouldn’t go into the specifics.

Gries is right: There is a lot of support for advances in longevity treatments, and some of it is coming from influential people in positions of power. Perhaps the field really is poised for a breakthrough.

And that’s what makes this field so fascinating to cover. Despite the occasional weirdness.

This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first, sign up here.

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Jan 31 2026

The Download: US immigration agencies’ AI videos, and inside the Vitalism movement

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

DHS is using Google and Adobe AI to make videos

The news: The US Department of Homeland Security is using AI video generators from Google and Adobe to make and edit content shared with the public, a new document reveals. The document, released on Wednesday, provides an inventory of which commercial AI tools DHS uses for tasks ranging from generating drafts of documents to managing cybersecurity.

Why it matters: It comes as immigration agencies have flooded social media with content to support President Trump’s mass deportation agenda—some of which appears to be made with AI—and as workers in tech have put pressure on their employers to denounce the agencies’ activities. Read the full story.

—James O’Donnell

How the sometimes-weird world of lifespan extension is gaining influence

—Jessica Hamzelou

They established what they consider a new philosophy, and they called it Vitalism.

This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first, sign up here.

The AI Hype Index: Grok makes porn, and Claude Code nails your job

Separating AI reality from hyped-up fiction isn’t always easy. That’s why we’ve created the AI Hype Index—a simple, at-a-glance summary of everything you need to know about the state of the industry. Take a look at this month’s edition of the index here.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Capgemini is no longer tracking immigrants for ICE
After the French company was queried by the country’s government over the contract. (WP $)
+ Here’s how the agency typically keeps tabs on its targets. (NYT $)
+ US senators are pushing for answers about its recent surveillance shopping spree. (404 Media)
+ ICE’s tactics would get real soldiers killed, apparently. (Wired $)

2 The Pentagon is at loggerheads with Anthropic
The AI firm is reportedly worried its tools could be used to spy on Americans. (Reuters)
+ Generative AI is learning to spy for the US military. (MIT Technology Review)

3 It’s relatively rare for AI chatbots to lead users down harmful paths
But when it does, it can have incredibly dangerous consequences. (Ars Technica)
+ The AI doomers feel undeterred. (MIT Technology Review)

4 GPT-4o’s days are numbered
OpenAI says just 0.1% of users are using the model every day. (CNBC)
+ It’s the second time that it’s tried to turn the sycophantic model off in under a year. (Insider $)
+ Why GPT-4o’s sudden shutdown left people grieving. (MIT Technology Review)

5 An AI toy company left its chats with kids exposed
Anyone with a Gmail account was able to simply access the conversations—no hacking required. (Wired $)
+ AI toys are all the rage in China—and now they’re appearing on shelves in the US too. (MIT Technology Review)

6 SpaceX could merge with xAI later this year
Ahead of a planned blockbuster IPO of Elon Musk’s companies. (Reuters)
+ The move would be welcome news for Musk fans. (The Information $)
+ A SpaceX-Tesla merger could also be on the cards. (Bloomberg $)

7 We’re still waiting for a reliable male contraceptive
Take a look at the most promising methods so far. (Bloomberg $)

8 AI is bringing traditional Chinese medicine to the masses
And it’s got the full backing of the country’s government. (Rest of World)

9 The race back to the Moon is heating up
Competition between the US and China is more intense than ever. (Economist $)

10 What did the past really smell like?
AI could help scientists to recreate history’s aromas—including mummies and battlefields. (Knowable Magazine)

Quote of the day

“I think the tidal wave is coming and we’re all standing on the beach.”

—Bill Zysblat, a music business manager, tells the Financial Times about the existential threat AI poses to the industry.

One more thing

Therapists are secretly using ChatGPT. Clients are triggered.

Declan would never have found out his therapist was using ChatGPT had it not been for a technical mishap. The connection was patchy during one of their online sessions, so Declan suggested they turn off their video feeds. Instead, his therapist began inadvertently sharing his screen.

For the rest of the session, Declan was privy to a real-time stream of ChatGPT analysis rippling across his therapist’s screen, who was taking what Declan was saying, putting it into ChatGPT, and then parroting its answers.

But Declan is not alone. In fact, a growing number of people are reporting receiving AI-generated communiqués from their therapists. Clients’ trust and privacy are being abandoned in the process. Read the full story.

—Laurie Clarke

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ Sinkholes are seriously mysterious. Is there a way to stay one step ahead of them?
+ This beautiful pixel art is super impressive.
+ Amid the upheaval in their city, residents of Minneapolis recently demonstrated both their resistance and community spirit in the annual Art Sled Rally (thanks Paul!)
+ How on Earth is Tomb Raider 30 years old?!

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App Artificial intelligence

Jan 31 2026

Inside the marketplace powering bespoke AI deepfakes of real women

Civitai—an online marketplace for buying and selling AI-generated content, backed by the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz—is letting users buy custom instruction files for generating celebrity deepfakes. Some of these files were specifically designed to make pornographic images banned by the site, a new analysis has found.

The study, from researchers at Stanford and Indiana University, looked at people’s requests for content on the site, called “bounties.” The researchers found that between mid-2023 and the end of 2024, most bounties asked for animated content—but a significant portion were for deepfakes of real people, and 90% of these deepfake requests targeted women. (Their findings have not yet been peer reviewed.)

The debate around deepfakes, as illustrated by the recent backlash to explicit images on the X-owned chatbot Grok, has revolved around what platforms should do to block such content. Civitai’s situation is a little more complicated. Its marketplace includes actual images, videos, and models, but it also lets individuals buy and sell instruction files called LoRAs that can coach mainstream AI models like Stable Diffusion into generating content they were not trained to produce. Users can then combine these files with other tools to make deepfakes that are graphic or sexual. The researchers found that 86% of deepfake requests on Civitai were for LoRAs.

In these bounties, users requested “high quality” models to generate images of public figures like the influencer Charli D’Amelio or the singer Gracie Abrams, often linking to their social media profiles so their images could be grabbed from the web. Some requests specified a desire for models that generated the individual’s entire body, accurately captured their tattoos, or allowed hair color to be changed. Some requests targeted several women in specific niches, like artists who record ASMR videos. One request was for a deepfake of a woman said to be the user’s wife. Anyone on the site could offer up AI models they worked on for the task, and the best submissions received payment—anywhere from $0.50 to $5. And nearly 92% of the deepfake bounties were awarded.

Neither Civitai nor Andreessen Horowitz responded to requests for comment.

It’s possible that people buy these LoRAs to make deepfakes that aren’t sexually explicit (though they’d still violate Civitai’s terms of use, and they’d still be ethically fraught). But Civitai also offers educational resources on how to use external tools to further customize the outputs of image generators—for example, by changing someone’s pose. The site also hosts user-written articles with details on how to instruct models to generate pornography. The researchers found that the amount of porn on the platform has gone up, and that the majority of requests each week are now for NSFW content.

“Not only does Civitai provide the infrastructure that facilitates these issues; they also explicitly teach their users how to utilize them,” says Matthew DeVerna, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center and one of the study’s leaders.

The company used to ban only sexually explicit deepfakes of real people, but in May 2025 it announced it would ban all deepfake content. Nonetheless, countless requests for deepfakes submitted before this ban now remain live on the site, and many of the winning submissions fulfilling those requests remain available for purchase, MIT Technology Review confirmed.

“I believe the approach that they’re trying to take is to sort of do as little as possible, such that they can foster as much—I guess they would call it—creativity on the platform,” DeVerna says.

Users buy LoRAs with the site’s online currency, called Buzz, which is purchased with real money. In May 2025, Civita’s credit card processor cut off the company because of its ongoing problem with nonconsensual content. To pay for explicit content, users must now use gift cards or cryptocurrency to buy Buzz; the company offers a different scrip for non-explicit content.

Civitai automatically tags bounties requesting deepfakes and lists a way for the person featured in the content to manually request its takedown. This system means that Civitai has a reasonably successful way of knowing which bounties are for deepfakes, but it’s still leaving moderation to the general public rather than carrying it out proactively.

A company’s legal liability for what its users do isn’t totally clear. Generally, tech companies have broad legal protections against such liability for their content under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, but those protections aren’t limitless. For example, “you cannot knowingly facilitate illegal transactions on your website,” says Ryan Calo, a professor specializing in technology and AI at the University of Washington’s law school. (Calo wasn’t involved in this new study.)

Civitai joined OpenAI, Anthropic, and other AI companies in 2024 in adopting design principles to guard against the creation and spread of AI-generated child sexual abuse material . This move followed a 2023 report from the Stanford Internet Observatory, which found that the vast majority of AI models named in child sexual abuse communities were Stable Diffusion–based models “predominantly obtained via Civitai.”

But adult deepfakes have not gotten the same level of attention from content platforms or the venture capital firms that fund them. “They are not afraid enough of it. They are overly tolerant of it,” Calo says. “Neither law enforcement nor civil courts adequately protect against it. It is night and day.”

Civitai received a $5 million investment from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) in November 2023. In a video shared by a16z, Civitai cofounder and CEO Justin Maier described his goal of building the main place where people find and share AI models for their own individual purposes. “We’ve aimed to make this space that’s been very, I guess, niche and engineering-heavy more and more approachable to more and more people,” he said.

Civitai is not the only company with a deepfake problem in a16z’s investment portfolio; in February, MIT Technology Review first reported that another company, Botify AI, was hosting AI companions resembling real actors that stated their age as under 18, engaged in sexually charged conversations, offered “hot photos,” and in some instances described age-of-consent laws as “arbitrary” and “meant to be broken.”

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Jan 31 2026

AI Product Discovery Drives Brand Traffic

Phillip Jackson’s media company, Future Commerce, focuses on trends and developments in business.

The company surveyed U.S. shoppers during the 2025 holiday season. He says one insight stood out: when AI recommends a product, 77% of respondents leave the platform to buy on the brand’s site.

Phillip first appeared on the podcast in early 2024. In this our latest conversation, he addressed the downsides of optimized ecommerce sites, the outlook of traditional search, and, yes, the rise of autonomous shopping agents.

The entire audio of our conversation is embedded below. The transcript is edited for length and clarity.

Eric Bandholz: Bring us up to date.

Phillip Jackson: Future Commerce is a media company exploring the culture of commerce through newsletters, podcasts, research, and events.

When you and I last spoke, I remember thinking, “I’m made for this.” It felt like everything I’ve learned over my entire career was in one place.

Ecommerce was difficult when I started in 1999. I spent more than a decade working for a direct-to-consumer seller of natural health products. We hand-coded sites in HTML, ran Google AdWords, and scaled multiple brands.

Bandholz: Is it better in 2026?

Jackson: I’ve been saying since around 2019 that we’ve reached the ideal website. We’ve optimized ecommerce experiences to death, and what’s left is efficiency and boredom.

We do a lot of consumer and executive research at Future Commerce. In one study published around 2022, we analyzed about 15 of the world’s highest-traffic ecommerce sites, excluding Amazon. Think brands like Bath & Body Works and Bed Bath & Beyond. We removed logos and navigation, then showed the pages to consumers. Most people couldn’t tell one site from another because they’re functionally identical.

That level of optimization is powerful, but it has a downside: it’s unmemorable. These sites are designed for conversion, not for recall or cultural impact. They’re slippery. You buy, you leave, and nothing sticks.

You see this everywhere in culture. Netflix is a great example. It’s incredible how they use data to maximize completion rates, which is why they release entire seasons at once. The data probably proves it works. But it doesn’t show what’s lost: cultural conversation. Shows released across many weeks remain part of the culture for extended periods.

The same thing has happened in ecommerce and product design. Websites, sport utility vehicles, smartphones, and even electric toothbrushes all converge on the same form.

Many industry folks hope AI will make ecommerce exciting again, but real innovation requires risk, which few companies are willing to take on.

Bandholz: Will marketplaces and AI replace brand websites?

Jackson: There’s a lot packed into that question, and we actually have data around it. On the practical side, the website isn’t going anywhere. Advertisers may shift platforms, and AI-driven discovery is clearly changing behavior, especially among Gen Zs. Generative AI sites have become a trusted source for product and brand discovery.

We researched consumer AI usage before and after the 2025 holidays. One insight stood out. When AI recommends a product, shoppers overwhelmingly prefer to leave the platform and visit the brand’s website. Across two studies, two cohorts, and multiple English-speaking countries, 77% said they would rather click through to the website than buy inside the AI interface.

That challenges the narrative that AI agents will handle all purchasing. I’m bullish on agents long term, but the website remains the center of context, trust, and information for generative engines.

Interestingly, AI may affect physical retail more quickly than digital. In our data, 35% of Gen Zs and 40% of Gen Xs said they’d rather buy based on an AI recommendation than go to a store.

More broadly, old and new systems always coexist. Markets don’t disappear; they evolve. The brands that survive will have durable products, a clear identity, and strong relationships. Almost certainly they will have websites. Everything else is still up for debate.

Bandholz: Will genAI replace traditional search?

Jackson: We’re seeing signs of that shift. However, there are economic questions to answer. What companies win the AI race? Which consumer products become dominant?

Yes, AI is disruptive, but it’s also introducing a new modality in our relationship with digital culture. It isn’t just a search box. It’s a different kind of interaction. I see it as complementary rather than exclusive. Traditional systems don’t vanish overnight; they adapt and coexist. AI changes behavior, but it layers onto existing habits rather than erasing them.

Bandholz: What’s your advice to folks starting in ecommerce?

Jackson: Some level of investment in genAI visibility is non-negotiable. Consumers are increasingly turning to engines like ChatGPT for product recommendations. If you’re not tracking whether your brand shows up there, you should be. It may be the closest thing we have to true organic discovery.

Beyond that, many newer providers aren’t living up to their promised disruption. TikTok Shop, for example, is essentially an affiliate channel. It’s powerful, but it’s not going to change fundamentally how everyone shops.

Bandholz: What major macro trends are you watching?

Jackson: The first is machine autonomy. Every business, from the smallest startup to the largest enterprise, is pushing for more automation and productivity. You see it with self-driving vehicles, delivery robots, and last-mile automation. You also see it in companies, with systems that operate without human intervention. That shift is happening fast.

The second force is human sovereignty, driven by mistrust in institutions. The Edelman Trust Barometer in early 2026 is at a 25-year low. People don’t trust governments, corporations, or systems the way they used to. At the same time, they now have tools to verify claims, build their own worldviews, and take control of decisions.

Healthcare is an example. Individuals can now monitor their own health and interpret data in ways that weren’t possible five years ago.

These two forces — autonomy and sovereignty — can complement each other, but they can also collide. Brands that understand how to navigate both, at any scale, will define the next era of commerce.

Bandholz: How can listeners follow you and reach out?

Jackson: Our site is FutureCommerce.com. We’re on X, YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn. I’m on LinkedIn as well.

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Jan 30 2026

AI Recommendations Change With Nearly Every Query: Sparktoro via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

AI tools produce different brand recommendation lists nearly every time they answer the same question, according to a new report from SparkToro.

The data showed a <1-in-100 chance that ChatGPT or Google>

Rand Fishkin, SparkToro co-founder, conducted the research with Patrick O’Donnell from Gumshoe.ai, an AI tracking startup. The team ran 2,961 prompts across ChatGPT, Claude, and Google Search AI Overviews (with AI Mode used when Overviews didn’t appear) using hundreds of volunteers over November and December.

What The Data Found

The authors tested 12 prompts requesting brand recommendations across categories, including chef’s knives, headphones, cancer care hospitals, digital marketing consultants, and science fiction novels.

Each prompt was run 60-100 times per platform. Nearly every response was unique in three ways: the list of brands presented, the order of recommendations, and the number of items returned.

Fishkin summarized the core finding:

“If you ask an AI tool for brand/product recommendations a hundred times nearly every response will be unique.”

Claude showed slightly higher consistency in producing the same list twice, but was less likely to produce the same ordering. None of the platforms came close to the authors’ definition of reliable repeatability.

The Prompt Variability Problem

The authors also examined how real users write prompts. When 142 participants were asked to write their own prompts about headphones for a traveling family member, almost no two prompts looked similar.

The semantic similarity score across those human-written prompts was 0.081. Fishkin compared the relationship to:

“Kung Pao Chicken and Peanut Butter.”

The prompts shared a core intent but little else.

Despite the prompt diversity, the AI tools returned brands from a relatively consistent consideration set. Bose, Sony, Sennheiser, and Apple appeared in 55-77% of the 994 responses to those varied headphone prompts.

What This Means For AI Visibility Tracking

The findings question the value of “AI ranking position” as a metric. Fishkin wrote: “any tool that gives a ‘ranking position in AI’ is full of baloney.”

However, the data suggests that how often a brand appears across many runs of similar prompts is more consistent. In tight categories like cloud computing providers, top brands appeared in most responses. In broader categories like science fiction novels, the results were more scattered.

This aligns with other reports we’ve covered. In December, Ahrefs published data showing that Google’s AI Mode and AI Overviews cite different sources 87% of the time for the same query. That report focused on a different question: the same platform but with different features. This SparkToro data examines the same platform and prompt, but with different runs.

The pattern across these studies points in the same direction. AI recommendations appear to vary at every level, whether you’re comparing across platforms, across features within a platform, or across repeated queries to the same feature.

Methodology Notes

The research was conducted in partnership with Gumshoe.ai, which sells AI tracking tools. Fishkin disclosed this and noted that his starting hypothesis was that AI tracking would prove “pointless.”

The team published the full methodology and raw data on a public mini-site. Survey respondents used their normal AI tool settings without standardization, which the authors said was intentional to capture real-world variation.

The report is not peer-reviewed academic research. Fishkin acknowledged methodological limitations and called for larger-scale follow-up work.

Looking Ahead

The authors left open questions about how many prompt runs are needed to obtain reliable visibility data and whether API calls yield the same variation as manual prompts.

When assessing AI tracking tools, the findings suggest you should ask providers to demonstrate their methodology. Fishkin wrote:

“Before you spend a dime tracking AI visibility, make sure your provider answers the questions we’ve surfaced here and shows their math.”

Featured Image: NOMONARTS/Shutterstock

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Jan 30 2026

Google Analytics To Become A Growth Engine For Business via @sejournal, @brookeosmundson

On the first episode of the Google Ads Decoded podcast, host Ginny Marvin sat down with Eleanor Stribling, Group Product Manager for Google Analytics.

In the episode, Stribling noted an ambitious two-phase vision for the GA4 platform.

After acknowledging GA4’s rough transition from Universal Analytics, especially for marketers, she shared where the platform is headed over the next few years.

What Stribling Shared on Google Ads Decoded

After discussing the foundations of the importance of data strength, Stribling broke down the vision of GA4 into two timelines.

Over the next year or two, GA4 will focus on becoming a cross-channel, full-funnel measurement platform. She states the goal of this is:

To be that one place where you can really understand the impact of your media with data that makes sense and resonates and that you can take and make a business decision with.

This means moving beyond outdated siloed channel reporting to understand how all your media works together across the complete customer journey.

The longer-term vision she shared looks 3+ years beyond what GA4 is capable of today.

Stribling says GA4 will become a decision-making platform for businesses, essentially a growth engine that translates data into business outcomes.

“Making a world-class analyst available to every single person,” is how Stribling described this vision. AI will be the layer that makes this shift possible.

It will be interesting to see how Google’s vision for this will build out over the next few years. Considering they already have the reporting visualization tool, Looker Studio, my prediction is that there will be better or easier integration into it.

Beyond just better integration with Looker Studio, trying to become a growth engine or decision-making platform sounds like they’re trying to set themselves apart from the competition of other reporting platforms out there today, like Funnel or Power BI.

What’s Coming in the Advertising Workspace

Stribling pointed to the Advertising Workspace in GA4 as an area where marketers will see significant changes over the next year.

Expect improvements to reporting that better illustrate the user journey. Google is also building out budgeting and planning tools that let you upload cost data from other media buys and create spend plans based on your goals.

The platform will also suggest optimizations for in-flight campaigns, offering AI-powered recommendations to help you get closer to your campaign objectives.

Personally, I’m excited to see if they make the Explorer report building any more intuitive for marketers. I think it’s highly under-utilized right now because you’re essentially starting from a blank slate. It takes time, effort, and the right type of mindset to really sit down and try to re-learn an Analytics platform.

Why This Matters & Looking Ahead

GA4’s reputation amongst marketers hasn’t been stellar since it replaced Universal Analytics. In the podcast episode, Marvin reiterated that as a long-time marketer:

The platform felt designed for developers rather than marketers, and the transition left many advertisers frustrated.

Stribling’s comments signal that Google has been listening. Google seems to be heavily investing in making GA4 more accessible, while simultaneously building towards a future where the platform goes beyond its traditional reporting.

The two-phase vision shared is ambitious, particularly the long-term vision of GA4 as a business decision engine. Whether Google will move full steam ahead on this remains up in the air, but it seems that the direction GA4 is going is beyond just a measurement tool.

For now, the practical move for marketers is to keep working on your data strength. This includes auditing your tagging setup, testing the existing AI features that already exist today, and reviewing key conversion and event data.

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Jan 30 2026

SEO Pulse: Google Explores AI Opt-Outs, Gemini 3 Powers AIOs via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Welcome to this week’s SEO Pulse: updates affect publisher control over AI features, how AI Overviews process queries, and what AI model tradeoffs mean for content workflows.

Here’s what matters for you and your work.

Google Explores Letting Sites Opt Out Of AI Search Features

Google says it’s exploring updates that could let websites opt out of AI-powered search features. The blog post came the same day the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority opened a consultation on potential new requirements for Google Search.

Key facts: Ron Eden, principal, product management at Google, wrote that the company is “exploring updates to our controls to let sites specifically opt out of Search generative AI features.” Google provided no timeline, technical specifications, or firm commitment.

Why This Matters For SEOs

Publishers and regulators have spent the past year pushing back on AI Overviews. The UK’s Independent Publishers Alliance, Foxglove, and Movement for an Open Web filed a complaint with the CMA last July, asking for the ability to opt out of AI summaries without being removed from search entirely.

A BuzzStream report we covered earlier this month found 79% of top news publishers block at least one AI training bot, and 71% block retrieval bots that affect AI citations. Publishers are already voting with their robots.txt files. Google’s post suggests it’s responding to pressure from the ecosystem by exploring controls it previously didn’t offer.

The practical question is what “opt out of AI search features” would mean technically. It’s unclear whether this would cover AI Overviews, AI Mode, or both, and whether sites would lose visibility in those experiences or only be excluded from summaries.

What People Are Saying

Early reactions on LinkedIn focused on the regulatory context and what this could mean for publishers.

David Skok, CEO & editor-in-chief at The Logic, wrote on LinkedIn:

“For the first time, a major regulator is publicly consulting on a requirement that would allow publishers to opt out of having their content used in Google’s AI Overviews or in training AI models without being removed from general search results.”

He added that the consultation would allow publishers to opt out of AI Overviews “without being removed from general search results.”

Matthew Allsop, the CMA’s principal digital markets adviser, framed it as a “meaningful choice” issue, pointing to measures that would allow publishers to opt out of AI Overviews.

In SEO and publisher discussions, the focus has been on whether any opt-out comes with tradeoffs, and whether Google will provide reporting that shows where content appears across AI surfaces.

Read our full coverage: Google May Let Sites Opt Out Of AI Search Features

Google AI Overviews Now Powered By Gemini 3

Google is making Gemini 3 the default model for AI Overviews globally, in markets where the feature is available. The update also adds a direct path into AI Mode conversations.

Key facts: Robby Stein, VP of Product for Google Search, announced the rollout, saying AI Overviews now reach over 1 billion users. The Gemini 3 upgrade brings the same reasoning capabilities to AI Overviews that powers AI Mode.

Why This Matters For SEOs

The model upgrade and the seamless transition into AI Mode work together. Better reasoning means AI Overviews can handle more complex queries at the top of results. The follow-up prompt means those who want to go deeper can do so without leaving Google’s AI interfaces.

This creates a smoother path that keeps people inside Google’s AI experiences longer. Someone who sees your content cited in an AI Overview might previously have clicked through to your site. Now they can ask a follow-up question and stay in AI Mode, which may reduce click-through opportunities even when your content continues to be cited.

The seamless transition continues the pattern of Google handling more of the search journey within its own surfaces.

Read our full coverage: Google AI Overviews Now Powered By Gemini 3

Sam Altman Says OpenAI “Screwed Up” GPT-5.2 Writing Quality

Sam Altman said OpenAI “screwed up” GPT-5.2’s writing quality during a developer town hall Monday evening. He said future GPT-5.x versions will address the gap.

Key facts: When asked about user feedback that GPT-5.2 produces writing that’s “unwieldy” and “hard to read” compared to GPT-4.5, Altman was blunt: “I think we just screwed that up.” He explained that OpenAI made a deliberate choice to focus GPT-5.2’s development on technical capabilities, putting “most of our effort in 5.2 into making it super good at intelligence, reasoning, coding, engineering, that kind of thing.”

Why This Matters For SEOs

If you use ChatGPT for content workflows, you may have noticed the change. GPT-5.2 handles complex reasoning tasks better but produces prose that reads more mechanical. Altman confirmed this wasn’t a bug but a tradeoff.

The admission clarifies what to expect from AI writing tools going forward. Model developers are making explicit choices about what to improve. Writing quality competes with coding, reasoning, and other technical benchmarks for development resources.

This means matching the tool to the task. GPT-5.2 might excel at research synthesis, data analysis, and technical documentation, but it can produce awkward prose for blog posts or marketing copy. GPT-4.5 often reads more naturally, even if it couldn’t handle the same complexity.

Altman said future GPT-5.x versions will “hopefully” be much better at writing than 4.5 was, but gave no timeline.

What People Are Saying

On social media, the reaction focused on what the admission reveals about AI development priorities. Some framed it as a transparency win, noting that most companies would have reframed the issue as a design choice rather than acknowledging a mistake. Others pointed to the tension between optimizing for benchmarks versus optimizing for practical writing quality.

Read our full coverage: Sam Altman Says OpenAI “Screwed Up” GPT-5.2 Writing Quality

Theme Of The Week: Control And Tradeoffs

Each story this week involves platforms making choices about what to prioritize and who gets to decide.

Google is exploring whether to give publishers more control over AI features, responding to a year of regulatory pressure and ecosystem pushback. The Gemini 3 rollout gives users a smoother AI experience while reducing control over where that journey ends. And Altman’s admission shows that even model development involves tradeoffs between competing capabilities.

This week, the theme is about understanding which levers you can pull. Publisher opt-out controls might eventually let you decide how your content appears in AI search. Model selection lets you match AI tools to specific tasks. But the broader direction of these platforms is outside your control, and the choices they make shape the environment you’re optimizing for.

Top Stories Of The Week:

This week’s coverage focused on three developments worth tracking.

More Resources:

For deeper context on the publisher and AI visibility dynamics behind these stories, check these related pieces.

Featured Image: Accogliente Design/Shutterstock

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