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Feb 4 2025

Google’s Q4 Earnings Point To An AI-Focused Future via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, reported strong fourth-quarter results for fiscal 2024, primarily driven by its commitment to AI.

Alphabet announced revenues of $96.5 billion for Q4 2024, up 12% from last year.

Google Services, including Search and YouTube ads, grew by 10% to $84.1 billion.

Google Cloud increased revenues by 30% to $12.0 billion as more businesses adopted its AI services.

Operating income rose by 31%, and net income increased by 28% to $26.5 billion.

AI-Driven Growth

CEO Sundar Pichai highlighted the company’s AI achievements and recent launches during the earnings call.

Pichai said:

“Q4 was a strong quarter driven by our leadership in AI and momentum across the business. We’re making dramatic progress across compute, model capabilities, and in driving efficiencies. We’re rapidly shipping product improvements, and seeing terrific momentum with consumer and developer usage.”

Infrastructure Investments

Alphabet is investing heavily in its infrastructure, launching new data centers and subsea cable projects to improve global connectivity.

Pichai stated:

“We broke ground on 11 new Cloud regions and data center campuses in places like South Carolina, Indiana, Missouri, and around the world. We also announced plans for seven new subsea cable projects, strengthening global connectivity.”

These efforts will support the growth of AI services, as data centers now provide nearly four times more computing power for the same energy.

Implications for Search and Marketing

Google reported that its AI-powered search features are gaining traction. AI Overviews are now available in more than 100 countries.

Circle to Search, available on over 200 million Android devices, is popular among younger users, who now use it for more than 10% of their searches.

SEO professionals and digital marketers should brace for further changes, as Pichai declared that “2025 is going to be one of the biggest years for Search innovation yet.”

The company’s $75 billion capital expenditure plan for 2025 suggests significant investments in search technology and AI capabilities.

Looking Ahead

Google’s Q4 results highlight its focus on AI. Overall revenue increased 12%, and the cloud business grew 30%. Profits increased as well, with operating income rising 31%.

The company’s investments in data centers and undersea cables will support global AI growth.

New AI features, such as Search Overviews and Circle to Search, are changing user behavior, so SEO teams should prepare for more changes in 2025.

Keep an eye on Google’s $75 billion spending plan to expand AI technology.

Featured Image: Dennis Diatel/Shutterstock

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Feb 4 2025

LinkedIn Video Views Up 36%, New Tools & Courses Available via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

LinkedIn video viewership is up 36% YoY. The platform adds new tools and free training courses to boost video creation.

LinkedIn video watch time is outpacing other content formats.
New creator tools include profile previews, enhanced analytics, and desktop video features.
Free LinkedIn Learning courses can help you learn more about video’s role in professional communication.

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Feb 3 2025

How WordPress Hot Nacho Scandal Shapes WP Engine Dispute via @sejournal, @martinibuster

In a recent interview, Matt Mullenweg referenced three scandals and controversies from his past that have been long forgotten to show how it’s possible that the WP Engine scandal will also be forgotten. One of the examples he cited, the Hot Nacho Scandal, led Google to ban WordPress.org, caused Mullenweg to be rebuked by influential tech leaders, and resulted in his shaming in the mainstream media.

The Hot Nacho Scandal, named for a software company called Hot Nacho, was an intense event for Matt Mullenweg that shows what he endured in the past and may help explain his attitude toward the WP Engine scandal today.

Matt Recalls Three Forgotten Controversies

In a part of the interview where Matt downplays the current WP Engine (WPE) dispute he cited three scandals and controversies from the past ten to twenty years to show how he’s made mistakes and also how he has not shied away from an aggressive attention-getting defense of the WordPress open source project and yet with time it’s mostly been forgotten. He cited three controversies as examples of how the WP Engine controversy can also be forgotten with time, perhaps giving an insight into Matt’s thinking about it.

He cited three incidents:

1. The 2005 Hot Nacho Scandal

2. The 2007 Easter Theme Massacre

3. The Chris Pearson Thesis Conflict

The Thesis controversy is relatively recent but the other two go back almost two decades. The Hot Nacho incident was intense not unlike the situation Mullenweg finds himself to day with WP Engine and may explain where he gets his strength to carry on in the fight with WP Engine.

Matt said:

“You know, some of these previous controversies that got mainstream media coverage, you know CNN, I had this Hot Nacho scandal in the first couple years of WordPress or the Thesis fight or the Easter Massacre of themes, like all these things I’m mentioning you probably haven’t heard of.

It used to be like half my Wikipedia page, now it’s not. Today if you go to my Wikipedia page, their PR firm has a whole paragraph about this. I think in 5 years maybe it’ll be a sentence or not even on there at all.

So it’s not my first rodeo. Sometimes you have to fight to protect your open source ideals and the community and and your trademark. “

The Hot Nacho Scandal

The Hot Nacho scandal is named after an SEO software company that paid Matt Mullenweg to host web pages on WordPress.org, which resulted in Google banning the WordPress.org website.

Mullenweg was still working at CNET at the time and working on WordPress on the side when the scandal broke. The news was featured in publications such as Ars Technica, eWeek, MSNBC, Slashdot, and The Register.

A March 31, 2005 article published in The Register featured the lurid article title, “Blog star ‘fesses up to payola spam scam” and describes the shocking transaction that Mullenweg arranged with an SEO software company:

“Matt Mullenweg, founder of the popular open source weblog software WordPress, and CNET employee, has admitted to gaming the web’s search engines by hosting tens of thousands of “articles” that contain hidden, paid-for keywords.

Mullenweg hosted at least 160,000 pieces of “content” on his site wordpress.org which use a cloaking technique to hide keywords such as “asbestos”, “debit consolidation” and “mortgages”. Mullenweg was paid a flat fee by Hot Nacho Inc., which creates software for search engine gamers to use.”

Rebuked By Jason Kottke

Jason Kottke is a widely respected blogger who is known as a pioneer of independent publishing. So it must have been disappointing to Matt Mullenweg to be the recipient of harsh criticism from someone like Kottke, who wrote:

“WordPress is using its high Page Rank to game Google AdWords. This stinks like last week’s fish. Is WordPress and wordpress.org an open source project like we’ve all been told or is it a company? Either way, contributing to spam noise on the web is annoying.”

Hot Nacho Explains His Side

The founder of the Hot Nacho company explained that they were developing an SEO writing software and wanted to test it on WordPress.org. Matt agreed to accept payment to host the articles, cloaking the links to them so site visitors wouldn’t see them. It wasn’t sophisticated cloaking either. Mullenweg simply used CSS to push the links off-screen.

The Hot Nacho founder published an explanation and begged the world to not harshly judge Mullenweg:

“For my part, I invariably place some advertising on such pages because I’m also not corporate sponsored… It was a blunder that Matt used invisible links to connect to the Articles collection. It wasn’t necessary and I’m sure he regrets having done it that way. But please cut the guy some slack. …Sure, it was a mistake, but it was motivated by the fact that he’s a really good guy.”

Matt Mullenweg himself wrote:

“Knowing what I knew then, I would probably make the same decision; knowing what I know now I wouldn’t even consider it. Not thinking through all the ramifications was a big mistake. So was not having more community dialog from the beginning, which would have caught this earlier. I am extremely sorry for both, and it won’t happen again.”

The upside to the Hot Nacho Scandal was that WordPress received more donations in four days than it had in the previous entire year.

Transformative Event

The Hot Nacho Scandal may have been a formative experience for a young Mullenweg. It exposed him to intense criticism, rebuke and anonymous threats. According to Mullenweg at the time, he said that what others say doesn’t matter as much as what you do and acknowledged that he was developing a thicker skin.

Understanding what the Hot Nacho Scandal was helps put some context to how Mullenweg is approaching the WP Engine Conflict today.

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Feb 3 2025

Can AI-Generated Content Be Copyrighted? Here’s What U.S. Law Says via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

The U.S. Copyright Office has released a report on how current laws apply to content created by AI.

It affirms that AI can assist with the creative process, but only works that include meaningful human input can be copyrighted.

Here’s what you need to know about copyrighting AI-generated content.

Key Findings

Human Authorship Is Essential

The report states that AI-generated output can only receive copyright protection if a human adds significant creative input.

This input might include:

Major changes to AI-created material
Creative arrangement or selection of AI outputs (like putting together AI-generated text into a collection)
Use of AI elements in larger human-created works (such as using AI-generated visuals in a film storyboard)

However, just giving prompts to an AI system without any extra creative input doesn’t qualify for copyright.

No Legal Changes Recommended

The Copyright Office believes current copyright laws can adapt to content made by AI.

They point to past examples of copyright principles changing to accommodate photography, computer code, and other new technologies.

The report doesn’t support immediate changes to the law.

What This Means

Here’s what this means for artists, writers, and businesses using AI tools:

Collaborative Works: Projects that mix AI-generated elements with human-created ones (like AI-assisted designs improved by artists) might get partial copyright protection.
Tool Usage: Using AI for editing, brainstorming, or technical tasks does not take away a work’s copyright eligibility as long as a human shapes the final result.
Prompt Engineers: Those who only create prompts for AI without adding more creative input will not own rights to the AI outputs.

What’s Next?

The Copyright Office will examine issues like AI training data and licensing in future reports.

Ongoing lawsuits might influence how courts interpret these rules.

This report is part of the U.S. Copyright Office’s AI Initiative launched in 2023. The first part focused on digital replicas and voice cloning, while future sections will address AI training data, licensing, and liability.

FAQ: U.S. Copyright Office Report On AI-Generated Content

We understand you may still have questions, and we’ll do our best to answer them with quotes pulled directly from the report.

1. Is current copyright law sufficient to handle AI-generated works?

“Questions of copyrightability and AI can be resolved pursuant to existing law, without the need for legislative change.”

2. Can AI-generated material ever be copyrighted?

“Copyright does not extend to purely AI-generated material, or material where there is insufficient human control over the expressive elements.”

3. Does using AI tools disqualify a work from copyright protection?

“The use of AI tools to assist rather than stand in for human creativity does not affect the availability of copyright protection for the output.”

4. Are prompts enough to claim authorship of AI-generated content?

“Prompts alone do not provide sufficient human control to make users of an AI system the authors of the output.”

5. Can human edits to AI outputs qualify for copyright?

“Human authors are entitled to copyright in their works of authorship that are perceptible in AI-generated outputs, as well as the creative selection, coordination, or arrangement of material in the outputs, or creative modifications of the outputs.”

6. Should AI systems receive new legal protections?

“The case has not been made for additional copyright or sui generis protection for AI-generated content.”

7. What about international competition in AI development?

“In the European Union, the majority of member states agreed, in response to a 2024 policy questionnaire on the relationship between generative AI and copyright, that current copyright principles adequately address the copyright eligibility of AI outputs and there is no need to provide new or additional protection.”

8. How does this affect creators with disabilities who use AI tools?

“Discussing creators with disabilities, another noted that “AI acts as a tool in the hands of an author,” rather than a source of expressive content.

The Office strongly supports the empowerment of all creators, including those with disabilities. We stress that to the extent these functionalities are used as tools to recast, transform, or adapt an author’s expression, copyright protection would be available for the resulting work.”

For More Information

Read the full report and access registration examples at copyright.gov/AI.

Featured Image: Family Stock/Shutterstock

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Feb 3 2025

Digital Ads Cost 19% More, Convert Less: User Frustration To Blame via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

New data shows what many marketers already suspect: it’s getting harder and more expensive to convert online visitors.

A study of 90 billion sessions shows organic traffic is down from last year, pushing more brands toward paid channels to make up the difference.

This information comes from Contentsquare’s Digital Experience Benchmark Report, which examines changes in traffic patterns and highlights growing user frustrations.

Key Trends Shaping Today’s Digital Experience

1. Increasing Traffic Costs

Global website traffic dropped by 3.3% year-over-year (YoY), forcing brands to depend more on paid ads.

Paid sources now account for 39% of all traffic, a 5.6% increase. Organic and direct traffic fell by 5.7%.

With digital ad spending rising by 13.2%, the average cost per visit increased by 9% compared to last year and by 19% over two years.

2. New Visitors Leave Quickly

User engagement metrics are declining globally, with overall consumption (like time spent, page views, and scroll depth) falling by 6.5%.

New visitors viewed 1.8% fewer pages YoY, while returning visitors had a slight increase (+0.5%).

Most sessions that started on product detail pages (PDPs) ended immediately, underscoring the risk of overly transactional landing pages.

3. Frustration Hurts Retention

“Rage” clicks (clicking a page element at least three times in less than 2 seconds) and slow load times affected one in three visits and reduced session depth by 6%.

Sites that addressed these frustrations had 18% higher retention rates than their competitors.

4. Conversion Rates Decline

Global conversion rates fell by 6.1%, worsened by the lower yield of paid traffic (1.83% compared to 2.66% for unpaid traffic).

High-performing brands countered this trend by enhancing engagement: sites that improved session depth saw a 5.4% rise in conversions, while others faced a 13.1% drop.

5. Retention Starts On-Site

Despite a 7% YoY drop in 30-day retention, returning visits grew by 1.9%, driven by paid ads (+5.6%YoY).

Sites with strong retention had 17% fewer rage clicks and 18% more page views per visit, showing that smooth experiences lead to customer loyalty.

What This Means For Marketers

Here are some actionable insights for digital teams:

Diversify Traffic Strategies: Explore new channels, like retail media networks, to reduce dependence on unstable paid ads.
Improve New Visitor Journeys: Use heatmaps and personalized content to lower early exits.
Address Frustration Proactively: Implement real-time monitoring to tackle rage clicks and slow load times.
Leverage Analytics: Use behavioral data to identify high-intent visitors and improve their pathways.

Methodology

Contentsquare’s report analyzed 90 billion sessions, 389 billion page views, and 6,000 global websites from Q4 2023 to Q4 2024. The metrics covered various sectors, including retail, travel, and financial services.

Featured Image: robuart/Shutterstock

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Feb 3 2025

Matt Mullenweg Expects WP Engine Dispute Resolution Soon via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Matt Mullenweg downplayed his dispute with WP Engine, saying it’s not as big a deal as people are making it out to be and shared that he believes it will all be over in a few months.

Matt Compares Himself To Standing Up To Bullies

The podcast host expressed surprise at how harshly Matt went after WP Engine, expressing that he never figured Matt to be the kind of person who would go after someone else so hard, that it didn’t seem to fit his idea of the kind of person Matt Mullenweg was in his mind. Matt responded that he thought that was kind of funny because he’s actually that guy.

The podcast host commented:

“I’ve read a lot about Matt’s work. I don’t know Matt and I’ve listened to him, he doesn’t seem like someone who would ever like insult someone and I was actually surprised that you were going as hard as you were. And I guess your perspective is like, they’re coming after everything I made or they don’t contribute, whatever. But I was actually surprised that you were you you were pissed off and I didn’t think that you would be the type of guy that would come off pissed off…”

Matt smiled as he explained that he feels obliged to stand up for WordPress, like someone standing up to a playground bully.

He explained:

“…so just like a schoolyard bully, you kind of have to stand up for yourself. So it’s kind of funny because you say you don’t think of me as doing this but actually if you look at the history of WordPress there have been maybe four or five times in the history where I had this kind of villain arc … like we had a fight to protect our principles and the sustainability and the future of WordPress.”

Matt Says People Will Forget About WP Engine Dispute

Matt compared the current dispute with WP Engine with previous controversies as a way to note how those were forgotten and one day the WP Engine conflict will also be forgotten.

Mullenweg continued:

“You know, some of these previous controversies that got mainstream media coverage, you know CNN, I had this Hot Nacho scandal in the first couple years of WordPress or the Thesis fight or the Easter Massacre of themes, like all these things I’m mentioning you probably haven’t heard of.

It used to be like half my Wikipedia page, now it’s not. Today if you go to my Wikipedia page, their PR firm has a whole paragraph about this.

I think in 5 years maybe it’ll be a sentence or not even on there at all.”

Mullenweg Downplays WP Engine Dispute

Matt sought to portray WP Engine as not that big a company and ultimately people are making a bigger deal about the dispute than it actually is.

He said:

“And they’re a web host which people think is the largest but actually you know probably the sixth or seventh largest WordPress web host. There’s a lot of bigger ones and they’re a single digit percentage of all the WordPresses in the world. They probably have like 700,000 800,000 or something.

People have made this into a bigger deal than it really is.”

Mullenweg Expects Fight To Be Over In Months

Lastly, Mullenweg expressed the opinion that it was his duty to stand up and fight and that he expected the WP Engine dispute to be behind him within a few months although he did acknowledge that there are many angry people.

The characterization that the dispute will be over within a few months is startling because it seems to suggest that there is something going on behind the scenes or that he would simply prevail and get his way. Mullenweg didn’t explain what he meant by that comment and the podcast hosts didn’t ask him to elaborate.

Mullenweg said,

“So it’s not my first rodeo. Sometimes you have to fight to protect your open source ideals and the community and and your trademark.

By the way, I expect this to resolve in the next few months. Although it’s easy to find like, if you go on Reddit or Twitter, I get a lot of hate.”

At this point Matt explained the conflict from his point of view, painting himself as the victim who was forced to go on the attack, narrating a sequence of events that generally isn’t how most people experienced it. He painted WP Engine’s side as the aggressor and characterized the public rebuke he gave of WP Engine at WordCamp as a “presentation.”

Mullenweg explained:

“Some of the people are uncomfortable with you know us having to to fight protect ourselves. You know WP Engine took some, a very aggressive legal action. So it turned out when we thought we were sort of good faith negotiating they were preparing a legal case to attack us because you know 3 days after I give this presentation they launched this huge lawsuit with Quinn Emanuel it’s kind of like the one of the biggest nastiest law firms.”

Where Were The Hard Questions?

One of the podcast hosts solicited the WordPress communities on Reddit and Twitter for questions that he could ask Matt Mullenweg. The community responded with many questions but the podcast hosts largely refrained from asking those user submitted questions, which to be fair were pretty hard-hitting and inherently presupposed things about Mullenweg.

Watch the podcast interview:

Featured Image by Shutterstock/supercaps

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Jan 31 2025

AI Overviews Data Shows Massive Changes In Search Results via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Enterprise SEO platform BrightEdge published results on current AI Search trends, showing that Google AI Overviews (AIO) has expanded its presence by up to 100% in increasingly complex search queries. The changes suggest growing confidence in AI for search, with indications that Google is relying on authoritativeness and greater precision in context awareness for matching queries to answers, particularly in relation to content modality.

The data shows that AI Overviews (AIO) has evolved from showing featured snippet style answers to being capable of handling multi-turn, complex search queries. The takeaway is that Google is increasingly comfortable with AI’s ability to surface precise answers for longer queries and this is a trend that may continue to rise.

Google AIO Presence Is Growing

Google continues to show confidence in their AI Overviews (AIO) search feature as BrightEdge has discovered that more keyword phrases are triggering AI answers now than at any point since the feature was rolled out last year.

25% of search queries using 8 words or more are displaying AI Overviews (AIO), which is a clear upward trend indicating that Google continues to refine the accuracy of AIO and is better able to handle increasingly complex search queries.

A graph shows how the keywords with 8, 9, and 10 words continued to increasingly show AI Overviews

Graph Representation Of AI Overviews Growth

Keyword phrases with less than four words continue to show an increasing amount of AIO but the growth in longer more precise keywords is growing significantly faster.

Screenshot Showing Percentage Of Keywords With Google AI Overviews

Change In AIO Patterns: Gains For Authoritative Brands

BrightEdge provided additional data that looks at specific topic categories, showing how queries for some topics consolidating to answers from big brand sites.

For example, in the healthcare category where accuracy and trustworthiness are paramount Google is increasingly showing search results from just a handful of websites. Content from authoritative medical research centers account for 72% of AI Overview answers, which is an increase from 54% of all queries at the start of January.

15-22% of B2B technology search queries are derived from the top five technology companies such as Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft.

Qualities Of AIO Answers

BrightEdge data reveals that AIO answers follow certain patterns that reveal qualities that Google feels make content more relevant.

Excels at step by step and how to answers (structured hierarchical information)
Shows precise real-time relevance
Answers lean toward general guidance

Educational Search Queries

For educational queries AIO shows a preference toward concise answers with a clean visual presentation. In the below example Google is hiding content that has additional information that answers additional questions beyond the main query. This may relate to Google’s information gain patent which is about anticipating additional information that a user will be interested in after receiving the answer to their original search query.

AIO Showing Information Gain Ranked Content

Change In YouTube Citations

An interesting pattern picked up by BrightEdge is that YouTube technical tutorials have increased by 40% in AIO while health related queries that show YouTube videos are trending downward by 31%.

Of particular interest is that the high volume search queries (100k+ search volume) that trigger YouTube content have decreased by 18.7%. This may reflect a change in user needs and Google’s ability to identify that context and understand that it’s not served well by video content.

What all of this means is that it’s increasingly important to think about context awareness, the appropriateness of the content to the query. The question to ask is what kind of content best serves the context and to expand that answer across modalities like images, sound, video, and text, then within those formats think in terms of how-to, data dump, informative, etc.

BrightEdge observes:

“Most Interesting Pattern:
AI Overviews are developing sophisticated, context-aware citation models. While YouTube citations are declining for health queries (e.g., “symptoms,” “diet”), they’re increasing for technical how-to content, jumping from 2.0% to 2.8% of citations in this category.

Pay Attention:

1. Context is King – Focus video content where it’s gaining traction (technical tutorials, DIY) and pivot to text for topics where traditional authority is preferred (health, finance)
2. Match Your Industry’s Pattern – In sectors with distributed authority (like B2B tech at 15-22% per source), focus on direct citations; in consolidated spaces (like healthcare at 72% institutional),

partner with established authorities

3. Monitor Actively – With citation patterns shifting dramatically in just one month, weekly monitoring of your space is crucial to spot new opportunities before competitors”

Takeaway

A way to make sense of the data is that it Google AI Overviews appear to be increasingly relying on the authoritativeness of the content as the stakes go higher with more complex search queries.

Authoritativeness isn’t just about being a big brand but it may have to do with simply being meaningful to the Internet audience as a go-to source for a particular topic. Trustworthiness and other related factors are important and this has nothing to do with superficial SEO activities like author bios and so on.

Read the data:
How AI Giants Are Carving Distinct Territory in the Search Landscape

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Jan 31 2025

Elementor Rolls Out WordPress AI Site Planner via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Elementor released a free to use standalone AI app called Site Planner that enables users to create a website in a step by step process beginning with the most general concept of the site and ending with a complete website design down to the individual page elements. I gave it a try and was stunned by how easy and fast it was to create a website.

Intuitive Approach To Site Building

Elementor’s application of AI features an intuitive and attractive user interface, everything feels to have been considered so that at no point does one feel the need to read instructions. The questions asked at the start of the process establish a general overview of what the site is about, necessary pages, what the goals are and so on.

Getting started is as simple as clicking a start button, the first hint that building a site with Elementor is going to be easy.

Screenshot Of Start Of AI Site Building App

Collaborative Capabilities

The site design process can be a designer working with a client or multiple stakeholders in a company working together to roll out the next iteration of a website. Elementor’s Site Planner app recognizes this reality and offers users the option to collaborate over Google Meet or proceed alone with the AI as one of the first steps of the process.

Screenshot Of Collaboration Option

Generate A Website Brief

A website brief is a document that outlines the goals and expectations of a web design project. It serves as a road map and plan that guides the stakeholders through the planning and development stages of the project.

Elementor’s AI Site Planner app smartly begins with asking the right questions for putting together a website brief that serves as the backbone of what is to be created.

The site planner generates a website brief describing what the website project is and once that’s approved Elementor creates what it refers to as a sitemap, a site diagram or site architecture diagram that provides a high-level overview of the different pages and how they’re interlinked.

It then generates a wireframe of the entire site that can be zoomed in to edit individual sections of a website at an overview level, to “fine-tune” the layout.

This is how Elementor describes the process:

1 Brief
From Vision -> Brief
Start an AI-led conversation and get your project off the ground. Watch your ideas, descriptions, and notes transform before your eyes into a proper website brief.

2 Sitemap
From Brief -> Sitemap
AI Site Planner instantly maps out all your key pages and creates a complete sitemap in minutes, not hours. Easily shuffle or edit pages to fit your vision.

3 Wireframe
From Sitemap -> Wireframe
Get your first draft in minutes. Watch AI turn your sitemap into content-filled wireframes in a click.

Elementor AI Site Planner

The Elementor AI Site Planner is in my opinion a successful implementation of AI for planning a website. Read the full announcement.

Site Planner by Elementor AI – Generate Professional Sitemaps & Wireframes in Minutes

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Net Vector

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Jan 31 2025

You.com Deploys USA-Hosted DeepSeek AI Model via @sejournal, @martinibuster

You.com AI Assistant and Search announced the deployment of the new open-source DeepSeek AI model, joining advanced models from Anthropic, Meta, Grok, and OpenAI. DeepSeek-R1 is safely hosted on U.S. servers, ensuring that no user data is sent overseas.

DeepSeek-R1

DeepSeek-R1 is a new reasoning model developed in China that has shaken up the AI technology space because of its high performance and novel training methodology which dramatically lowered costs. The model was released as open source which allows anyone to download it, customize it and host it on their own servers, which is what You.com did.

You.com

You.com is a free AI assistant and search engine that provides access to top AI models at lower rates than their individual subscriptions. For example, users that pay $15/month can take advantage of OpenAI’s models for tasks they excel at, then switch to Anthropic’s Claude for creative work, where many find it superior, without the need to subscribe to both services. That’s a saving of approximately $25/month for access to models that cost about $20/month.

Screenshot Of DeepSeek-R1 Availability On You.com

DeepSeek-R1 Integrated Into You.com

You.com Pro users can access DeepSeek’s model in addition to all the other available models. The official You.com X (formerly Twitter) account tweeted:

“@deepseek_ai is officially live at you(dot)com. The hype is real, and it’s spectacular 🔥

DeepSeek R1 & V3 are crushing benchmarks and pushing the boundaries of what LLMs can do. Give them a spin and see why everyone’s buzzing.”

Richard Socher, You.com’s CEO and founder, tweeted:

“@deepseek_ai’s AI models are officially live at ydc. This is the best way to test out these great models and have them be accurate and up-to-date.

For folks worried about their data or China: We do not use the official API, there is zero data retention for our enterprise users and the servers are in the US. The magic of open source dispels these concerns.”

He followed up that tweet with another one accompanied by a screenshot showing how DeepSeek takes a little extra time to output because it’s a reasoning model that takes multiple steps to generate the output.

Socher observed:

“I like how it says that one source confirms the information from another source.

Because of the more advanced reasoning, it is slower that our default modes for now.”

Screenshot Of DeepSeek-R1 on You.com

You.com Continues To Exceed Expectations

You.com offers users an exceptional AI Assistant that allows users to choose between different AI models at essentially discounted prices, enabling users to be more productive at a competitive price.

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Jan 30 2025

Google Launches AI Phone Assistant To Call Businesses For You via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Google has launched a new tool called “Ask For Me” that uses AI to help you make phone calls to local businesses.

“Ask For Me” is designed to streamline the process of calling multiple businesses to compare quotes and schedule appointments.

This feature is being rolled out first for auto repair shops and nail salons, and following this initial experiment, it may expand to other businesses.

“Ask For Me” is available to people in the United States who opt-in via Google’s Seach Labs.

How “Ask For Me” Works

If you’re located in the US, you can opt-in via the landing page.

Here’s what it looks like:

Screenshot from: labs.google.com/search/experiment/26, January 2025.

Clicking the toggle button will activate the “Try it out” button.

Screenshot from: labs.google.com/search/experiment/26, January 2025.

Clicking “Try it out” will send you to a list of example queries to try.

Screenshot from: labs.google.com/search/experiment/26, January 2025.

You can also manually enter queries like “oil change near me” or “nail salons nearby,” and look for the “Ask For Me” option.

Then, you’ll see a “Get Started” button, which prompts you to provide more details about your desired service.

Google’s AI will call local businesses on your behalf and summarize the results. This saves time by combining service quotes and scheduling options in one place.

Pilot Program

The pilot program focuses on auto services and nail salons. You can search for an oil change or a nail appointment, enter your preferences, and let Google handle the calls.

This feature uses the same technology as Google Duplex, which helps with restaurant reservations and updating business listings on Search and Maps.

Opt-Out Option

The “Ask For Me” feature is still in the testing phase, so it may not be available to everyone.

Businesses can choose not to receive automated calls if they prefer. Participating businesses will be informed about automated calls.

AI Data and Privacy Considerations

Like other AI tools, Google monitors and tracks how you use it. This includes your feedback, queries, and other engagement data.

Google says it uses human reviewers to check the quality of its AI-generated results.

All automated calls and data collection are explained to the person who receives the call.

What’s Next?

After opting in through Search Labs, search for “oil change near me” to test it out. You might get placed on a waitlist due to limited capacity, but once approved, you can experience how AI handles calls.

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