| Name | Value | Date | Basis | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GOOGL | 343.50 | Regular-session close | Nasdaq via Yahoo Finance ↗ | |
| MSFT | 517.53 | Regular-session close | Nasdaq via Yahoo Finance ↗ | |
| META | 728.08 | Regular-session close | Nasdaq via Yahoo Finance ↗ | |
| RDDT | 147.86 | Regular-session close | NYSE via Yahoo Finance ↗ | |
| HUBS | 214.53 | Regular-session close | NYSE via Yahoo Finance ↗ | |
| ADBE | 237.69 | Regular-session close | Nasdaq via Yahoo Finance ↗ | |
| CRM | 234.69 | Regular-session close | NYSE via Yahoo Finance ↗ |
New research by Emmett and Churchman surveying 200 UK senior technology decision-makers finds that capable B2B suppliers routinely lose deals not because they lack ability, but because they fail to prove their credibility — a phenomenon the firm calls the "Commercial Credibility Gap."
A new Creator AEO playbook from social media platform Later, based on a survey of 487 marketers, finds that as many as one in three AI answers cite creator content, while most brands continue to invest their AI search budgets in company-owned channels that AI models weigh least.
Third-party tracking data shows external links inside Google AI Overview answer text rose sharply from near zero to 26.2% between early and late September 2026, while a separate recording demonstrates that some underlined text in AI Overviews opens AI Mode rather than an external webpage. Google's own Search Console reports do not currently provide enough data to measure click-through rates from AI features.
Marketing AI firm SQREEM, led by new CEO Stephen Yap, is positioning its large behavioral model (LBM) as an alternative to language-model-based AI, arguing that tracking what people actually do online offers brands deeper audience insight than text or keyword analysis.
Iterable has unveiled a major Fall Product Release adding native RCS messaging, Nova Conversations, an Integrations Hub, and new Nova Intelligence Agents to its AI customer engagement platform. The company says the update is designed to connect fragmented customer data across the marketing stack and create a continuous intelligence loop in which every interaction informs the next.
A convergence of academic studies — including a Wharton experiment with more than 10,000 participants and a Pew Research Center tracking study of nearly 69,000 Google searches — shows that AI-generated summaries reduce how much users learn, suppress source clicks, and erode the natural feedback loop that once let readers gauge how reliable an answer was. Writing for Search Engine Journal, Duane Forrester argues the findings carry direct consequences for content publishers and B2B marketers.
Enterprise digital visibility company Conductor has appointed Wei Zheng as Chief Executive Officer, promoting her from her previous role as Chief Product Officer. The move comes as Conductor deepens its focus on Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) amid the growing influence of AI on how consumers discover and evaluate brands.
Google's invitation-only pay-per-value pilot, which offers direct payments to publishers whose content powers AI-generated answers, is drawing cautious and divided responses from the media industry. While some see it as a step forward, publishers and industry leaders warn that opaque payout formulas, limited access, and structural power imbalances could leave smaller outlets worse off.
Microsoft is moving its communications team out of marketing and into the Corporate, External and Legal Affairs organization led by vice chair and president Brad Smith, placing reputation management alongside legal, regulatory and government-relations functions. Brent Colburn will serve as interim communications leader while Microsoft searches for a new chief communications officer, and CEO Satya Nadella is urging more employees and executives to become public voices for the company.
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.
HubSpot's chief marketing officer and a senior growth executive say the inbound marketing model they helped create is no longer fit for purpose, citing a loss of 5 million blog visits in a single month and a 37% rise in AI-driven search as evidence. Writing in Fortune, Kipp Bodnar and Kieran Flanagan argue that AI answer engines have shattered the traditional buyer funnel and call for a full organisational transformation built around a new "Loop Marketing" framework.
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.
