Google Search Advocate John Mueller has acknowledged that Search Console relies on "block flattening" to record AI Overview positions, assigning every link inside an AI-generated summary a single rank rather than tracking individual placements. SEO analysts say this makes average position data misleading and are calling on marketers to replace traditional ranking metrics with direct outcome measures such as site visits, inquiries, and conversions.
A joint analysis by WARC, LinkedIn and LIONS Advisory, building on earlier research by LinkedIn and Bain & Company, argues that B2B brands must move beyond visibility to build verifiable "Buyability" signals — a shift made more urgent as large language models take a growing role in the purchasing journey. An examination of 700 B2B campaigns found that those with high Buyability scores were significantly more likely to report improvements in ROI and incremental revenue.
Google Search Console now offers a dedicated Generative AI performance report that lets businesses measure how often their pages appear in AI-powered search experiences such as AI Overviews and AI Mode. SEO agency TechWyse outlines how marketers should interpret the new data, warning that AI impressions risk becoming a vanity metric without proper context, and noting key gaps including the absence of query-level data and the inability to separate results by individual AI product.
A September 2026 expert opinion piece in Nation's Restaurant News argues that foodservice equipment manufacturers and ingredient brands must rethink their go-to-market strategies as B2B buyers now complete approximately 70% of their purchasing journey independently and 84% have already chosen a preferred vendor before conversations begin — a shift that makes pre-sales influence the decisive battleground for suppliers.
A webinar hosted by Go Fish Digital and OpenAI outlined the distinct roles of paid ChatGPT ads and earned generative engine optimization (GEO) visibility, explaining how to measure brand presence in AI-generated answers and why website evidence must come first.
Grid My Business, a local SEO platform, has launched AI Search, a feature that lets businesses and agencies measure how often and where they are mentioned across four AI platforms — ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Google AI Mode, and Google AI Overviews — across different geographic locations.
Multiple datasets from Meltwater, Tinuiti, OtterlyAI, Weglot, and Scrunch show YouTube has become the most-cited platform across eight major AI systems, with long-form videos between 10 and 20 minutes receiving the highest share of citations — though those citations can fade by roughly 43% within a month.
Trendos Chief Commercial Officer Gintare Rimolaityte outlined a citation-audit framework in a Search Engine Journal webinar, showing marketers how to identify which sources inform AI-generated answers across Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, ChatGPT, and Gemini — and how to turn competitor citation gaps into a concrete action list.
Google is experimenting with a "Dive Deeper" feature in Discover that opens an AI-generated topic overview directly from a feed card, potentially keeping users on Google-owned surfaces before — or instead of — visiting a publisher's site. The test begins with video content and raises new measurement questions for publishers tracking the gap between AI impressions and actual referral clicks.
Singapore-based Pranas has published research showing that brands with strong conventional web presences can still be underrepresented or misattributed in AI-generated answers, coining the term "AI Visibility Gap." An analysis of more than 20,000 prompts found YouTube, Instagram and Wikipedia among the most-cited sources in Google AI Overviews, while separate studies revealed that brand mentions in AI results do not reliably translate into direct website traffic, and that AI visibility can diverge significantly from real-world market share.
Baidu has introduced an AI Traffic Analysis section in its webmaster tools, tracking four new metrics—AI Citations, AI Impressions, AI Clicks, and AI CTR—though the dashboard remains empty as the rollout is still in progress. The move makes Baidu one of the few search engines to report AI citations as a distinct category, offering international brands a rare source of first-party AI visibility data in the Chinese market.
A Search Engine Journal analysis argues that AI-assisted research has created a "Day Zero" window in B2B buying, during which buying groups form vendor preferences before any formal procurement activity begins, making early brand visibility more decisive than search-engine placement alone.
