I’ve discovered how essential it is to integrate trusted search intelligence across our enterprise. With the Conductor Data API, we’re extending these capabilities in ways I hadn’t imagined.
Seeing our data work harmoniously across platforms feels transformative, allowing us to leverage AI infrastructure like never before. This powerful insight has reshaped how we view our enterprise integration strategies.
Inspired by this post on Conductor Blog.
On episode 341 of PPC Live The Podcast, I had the pleasure of chatting with Andrea Cruz, Head of B2B at Tinuiti. We delved into a challenge that many senior marketers face: the struggle of providing immediate answers when clients press for details without prior notice.
We explored how missteps in communication can amplify client stress, and how adopting a proactive mindset can turn these challenges into pivotal moments of growth in one’s career.
As Cruz progressed from a hands-on marketer to leading entire teams, she encountered the challenge of advocating for projects she wasn’t directly managing daily. This shift brought new struggles, especially when clients questioned campaign performance or outcomes.
In those moments, freezing or delaying responses can damage trust. Cruz realized that senior leaders must offer clear direction, even without knowing every detail, to maintain confidence in discussions.
Through her experiences and mentorship, Cruz honed a technique for buying time without losing trust: asking thoughtful questions. This strategy not only buys time but also ensures that the responses are precise and address the core of the client’s concerns.
Her method includes asking clients to clarify expectations, requesting additional context, and confirming their understanding. This approach is crucial, especially in emotionally charged situations, and, for Cruz, it allowed her to manage complex conversations effectively despite being a non-native English speaker.
At Tinuiti, the focus is on a solutions-driven culture over assigning blame. By addressing ‘Where are we now?’ and ‘How do we get where we want to be?’, teams foster a safe space to discuss errors and learn from them. Cruz believes that leaders should set the standard by openly sharing their own mistakes.
Cruz advocates for proactive communication, urging teams to address issues before clients notice. Tailoring communication styles to client preferences fosters stronger relationships and transforms agencies into strategic partners.
Common mistakes in B2B advertising include spreading budgets too thin and underfunding campaigns. Cruz emphasizes that it’s better to focus on fewer channels with adequate resources to avoid ineffective outcomes.
Regarding AI, Cruz warns against limiting its use to basic tasks and shares how her team is leveraging AI for advanced operations, enhancing strategic execution.
Cruz’s message is clear: growth requires preparation and a willingness to adapt. By anticipating client needs and embracing experimentation, marketers can turn pressure into golden opportunities.
Inspired by this post on Search Engine Land.
Yesterday, I stumbled upon some exciting news from Cloudflare. They’ve introduced a feature called Markdown for Agents, which provides machine-friendly versions of web content alongside the traditional pages we all see.
Cloudflare describes this update as a proactive measure in response to increasing AI crawler activities and agentic browsing.
When a client requests text/markdown, Cloudflare fetches the HTML from the origin server, converts it right at the edge, and then hands over a Markdown version.
Interestingly, the response includes a token estimate header, which helps developers like me manage context windows more effectively.
Early feedback highlighted not only the efficiency gains but also the potential implications of offering alternate representations of web content.
What’s happening. Being part of the 20% of the web that Cloudflare powers, I learned that Markdown for Agents utilizes standard HTTP content negotiation. If a client sends an Accept: text/markdown header, Cloudflare immediately converts the HTML response on-the-fly to Markdown format. The response, marked with Vary: accept, ensures caches store separate versions.
Cloudflare views this opt-in feature as a shift in content discovery and consumption, benefitting AI crawlers and agents with its structured text that requires less overhead.
They claim Markdown can reduce token usage by up to 80% compared to HTML, which is quite impressive!
Security concern. SEO consultant David McSweeney raised a concern, citing that Cloudflare’s Markdown for Agents feature might make AI cloaking incredibly simple because the Accept: text/markdown header tips off origin servers that the request is AI-related.
Regular requests deliver the usual content, but those for Markdown can trigger a unique HTML response that gets converted for AI consumption, McSweeney explained on LinkedIn.
The worry is that sites might inject hidden instructions, altered product data, or other machine-only content, creating a hidden “shadow web” for bots, unless the header is stripped before reaching the origin.
Google and Bing’s markdown smackdown. Here’s the kicker. Representatives from Google and Microsoft advised against creating separate markdown pages for large language models. Google’s John Mueller noted:
“Given that LLMs have always trained on and parsed normal web pages, it seems obvious they have no issues with HTML. Why serve a page that no end user sees? Plus, if they validate equivalence, why not stick to HTML?”
Microsoft’s Fabrice Canel added:
“Do you really want to double crawl load? We’ll check for similarity anyway. Non-user versions (like crawlable AJAX) are often neglected and broken. Human oversight fixes both user and bot views. Schemas help, and AI makes us even better at deciphering web pages. Less is more in SEO!”
Cloudflare’s feature doesn’t generate another URL but does create varied representations based on request headers.
The case against markdown. Technical SEO consultant Jono Alderson pointed out that once a machine-targeted representation exists, platforms must choose to trust it, verify it against the human version, or outright ignore it:
“Flattening a page to markdown doesn’t only remove clutter. It strips away judgment and context.”
“The instant you publish a machine-exclusive page representation, you craft a secondary candidate version of reality. Regardless of source promises or claims of identical content, a system now views two representations and must determine the true reflection of the page.”
Dig deeper. Why LLM-only pages aren’t the answer to AI search
Why we care. With Cloudflare’s advancements, AI ingestion might become more cost-effective and streamlined. But does serving distinct content to humans and crawlers verge on cloaking? Stay tuned…
Inspired by this post on Search Engine Land.
I recently discovered some fascinating insights into what’s really behind the 53% drop in SaaS AI traffic. It turns out, AI traffic isn’t actually collapsing—it’s just becoming more focused. While Copilot experiences a surge in in-workflow engagement, a significant 41% lands on search pages, all influenced by the ebbs and flows of Q4 budget cycles.
As the SaaS market navigates a downturn, driven largely by the emergence of autonomous AI agents like Claude Cowork, new data reveals a substantial 53% decline in AI-driven discovery sessions. This phenomenon has been dramatically labeled the “SaaSpocalypse” by Wall Street.
The overarching question of whether AI agents will eventually replace SaaS products looms larger than what this particular dataset can resolve. However, amidst the panic, the data offers clarity for SEO teams, highlighting key areas they should be monitoring closely.
Between November 2024 and December 2025, the SaaS sector experienced 774,331 sessions driven by large language models (LLM). Interestingly, ChatGPT was responsible for 82.3% of this traffic, yet Copilot’s remarkable growth tells a unique story.
Copilot started with a modest 148 sessions at the close of 2024, only to expand more than twentyfold by May 2025. From there, it averaged 3,822 sessions monthly from June through December, emerging as the second biggest AI referrer by year-end 2025.
This data indicates that while investor sentiment wiped out $300 billion from SaaS market caps over concerns about AI replacing enterprise software, the real driver of change is occupancy in the workflow. Copilot is flourishing because it seizes the moment of intent within a given task. By comparison, standalone AI tools suffered a steep 53% traffic drop, while workflow-embedded AI solutions saw an exponential 20x growth.
AI-led SaaS discovery predominantly directs users to internal search pages rather than directly to product or pricing pages. Over 320,615 sessions were directed to search results—surpassing blogs, pricing, and even product pages—reflecting potential LLM shortcomings rather than content superiority. Essentially, when LLMs lack direct answers, they lean on internal search as a fallback.
This scenario isn’t detrimental but points to a crawlability issue that can be rectified; it underscores the importance of well-structured, indexable search pages. Smart design strategies can ensure that your internal search feature becomes an effective API for AI agents.
Seasonal work cycles also play a role. SaaS AI traffic hits its zenith in July, attributable to active work cycles and available Q3 budgets, before waning through Q4 due to holiday pauses and budget limitations, following typical B2B purchase patterns.
For SEO teams out there, it’s crucial to concentrate efforts not merely based on traffic numbers but on penetration rates and landing page relevance. Consider tracking AI traffic by page type, ensuring indexability of search results, and structuring both pricing and blog content to be LLM-friendly by making crucial data visible and accessible.
In essence, AI discovery is here to stay, but to thrive in this evolving landscape, SaaS companies must enhance their visibility. Those who invest in transparent, crawlable, and comparison-centric content now are setting themselves apart in a competitive space.
Inspired by this post on Search Engine Land.
As someone deeply involved in marketing, I know how crucial it is to have access to accurate and comprehensive company information. That’s why when our marketing team uses Profound to upload Knowledge Bases, it gives us a single source of truth for company-specific data.
This capability empowers us, as agents, to provide the right context about your brand every time we execute a marketing action on your behalf. This streamlined approach ensures consistency and accuracy in representing your brand.
Inspired by this post on Try Profound Blog.
A quick five-minute video can offer more data to a large language model than many blog posts. Here’s how I can enhance my brand’s visibility for AI data retrieval.
With OpenAI’s significant deal with Disney, web scraping is undergoing a transformation. This agreement lets OpenAI employ high-fidelity, human-verified cinematic content to minimize AI inaccuracies.
These opportunities enhance my brand’s visibility and recognition, as AI models crave high-quality data. Video becomes a crucial asset for my brand in this evolving landscape.
Here’s why video is becoming the AI’s truth source and how I can leverage it to defend my brand’s identity.
Brand drift in AI occurs when an AI doesn’t have specific data about my brand, leading it to piece together my brand’s story from generalized information.
This interpolation risks creating misleading brand narratives. Imagine a situation where an AI inaccurately describes my SaaS company’s product features because it lacks precise data.
Streamer.bot faced a similar issue, with AI-generated instructions that were confidently incorrect, creating unnecessary confusion and workload.
Even local businesses are affected. A restaurant owner reported repeated inaccuracies shared by Google AI about their menu in an article.
Providing a canonical truth source, like video, prevents AI from distorting my brand’s message.
Authoritative videos carry significant semantic value, offering detailed transcripts and visual proof that establish a solid truth source, helping avoid misinformation from any other platforms.
Videos pack high data with nuance, offering multiple layers of communication through visuals, sound, and text.
Studios such as Berlin-based Impolite produce high-quality videos to help brands retain their identity, preventing brand drift by offering rich data sources for AI.
For instance, Karman’s “The Space That Makes Us Human” project showcases expert-led video that serves as an authentic truth source for brands.
Authenticity now acts as a crucial technical signal. Verification ensures that AI models can trust the provenance of a video.
Real-world footage is the ultimate high-trust data source. AI-generated videos typically lack the real-world’s dynamic intricacies.
Organizations like the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) and the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) enhance digital content transparency.
These entities allow brands to digitally sign videos, establishing a trustworthy indicator for AI models versus unsigned content.
Similarly, I can understand more about media verification, establishing an unbroken chain of evidence from creation to consumption.
On LinkedIn, a “CR” mark on media indicates its origin and editing history, boosting content authority and authenticity.
Google’s integration of C2PA signals ensures AI-related policies are reflected in search and ads, maintaining accurate representation and disclosure.
In content marketing, adopting C2PA helps me safeguard against misinformation, acting as a quality assurance measure.
If necessary, I can utilize Sony’s camera authenticity solutions to embed real-time digital signatures in media, proving it’s genuine and trustworthy.
C2PA-compliant editing tools allow me to create a manifest detailing all edits and tools used, preserving the content’s integrity.
A cryptographic seal verifies the content’s integrity, alerting AI to broken data chains, ensuring only accurate information is spotlighted.
Given the content overload today, traditional verification methods struggle, but verified subject matter experts (SMEs) stand out as credible sources online.
By pairing expert insights with video evidence, brands provide AI with authentic, non-replicable authority that audiences trust.
Incorporating video as central content captures nuanced details, giving birth to high-quality content across various media platforms.
Repurposing video into text, images, audio, and social media content builds an authority loop, increasing the probability of data retrieval by AI models.
I should predict where AI might misrepresent my brand and utilize verified expert voices and video documentation to address potential misinformation.
It remains vital for me to focus on context over mere compliance in brand building through high-fidelity, cryptographically signed video, safeguarding identity and authenticity.
The mandate is simple: Record reality. Ensuring I provide a verifiable video record prevents AI from creating false narratives about my brand.
Inspired by this post on Search Engine Land.
As I look ahead to 2026, Google’s innovative strides in AI are truly reshaping digital advertising and commerce. Thanks to the leadership of Vidhya Srinivasan, VP/GM of Ads & Commerce, AI is significantly enhancing the shopping and advertising landscape, making it more efficient and personalized for everyone involved.
Key Trends:
Creators to commerce: In my experience, YouTube is increasingly becoming a go-to platform for discovery, largely because creators act as influential tastemakers. AI plays a pivotal role in pairing the right creators with brands, transforming influence into tangible business outcomes.
Search ads evolve: With conversational and visual searches gaining popularity, AI Mode is revolutionizing ads to seamlessly integrate into the user’s discovery process. Innovative formats like sponsored retail listings and Direct Offers are crafted to assist users in their shopping journey while offering brands meaningful conversion opportunities.
Agentic commerce arrives: Through Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), AI-driven shopping experiences are becoming standardized. This advancement allows users to browse, purchase, and finalize transactions effortlessly. Early adopters like Etsy and Wayfair have already started using this system, with giants like Shopify, Target, and Walmart soon joining the bandwagon.
AI-powered creative and performance: I’m thrilled to see how tools powered by Gemini 3 are enhancing creative production and campaign optimization. Generative platforms like Nano Banana and Veo 3 help advertisers produce high-quality assets swiftly, while AI Max boosts reach and performance.
Trust as a foundation: It’s reassuring to know that each advancement prioritizes privacy and security. Strong data management practices, alongside transparent ad personalization, are founded on Google’s legacy of trust.
Why we care: 2026 is poised to be a groundbreaking year, with AI enhancing every facet of the consumer journey. With cutting-edge tools like Gemini 3, Nano Banana, Veo 3, and AI Mode, brands like mine can efficiently create superior content, target the perfect audience, and seamlessly convert interest into purchases during search and discovery.
The advent of agentic commerce through UCP presents a novel approach, connecting advertisers to consumers at critical purchasing moments, all while preserving trust and transparency.
The big picture: The year 2026 heralds an expansive era for digital commerce and advertising, where the fusion of speed, personalization, and AI-driven insights eliminates barriers, facilitating smoother transitions from discovery to purchase while keeping trust paramount.
Dig Deeper: Discover what’s next in digital advertising and commerce by 2026
Inspired by this post on Search Engine Land.
Is this the new technical SEO frontier? This question is top of mind for many of us as Google has recently unveiled an early preview of WebMCP, a protocol shaping the way AI agents engage with websites. According to André Cipriani Bandarra from Google, “WebMCP aims to provide a standard way for exposing structured tools, ensuring AI agents can perform actions on your site with increased speed, reliability, and precision.”
WebMCP offers developers the capability to communicate with LLMs through our websites about the specific actions that various buttons and links should initiate. With this protocol, websites can publish a “Tool Contract” using the new browser API, navigator.modelContext. This means rather than leaving the AI to guess, our websites can present a structured list of functions, like buyTicket(destination, date), allowing the AI to execute these functions directly.
Structured interactions for the agentic web. WebMCP introduces two new APIs enabling browser agents to act on behalf of users:
These APIs serve as a crucial bridge, making our websites “agent-ready” and facilitating more reliable and high-performance agent workflows compared to raw DOM actuation.
Use cases that Google has put forward highlight how AI agents can tackle complex tasks efficiently and confidently for users:
How to access the preview. If you’re interested in trying out WebMCP, you can apply for the preview through this link.
Why we care. The advent of agentic experiences marks a significant shift in search and potentially SEO. Esteemed voices in the industry, such as Dan Petrovic and Glenn Gabe, have highlighted this as a pivotal transformation, comparable to the impact of structured data and described it as a big deal.
Exploring these cutting-edge protocols could be extremely valuable for anyone keen on staying at the forefront of SEO developments.
Inspired by this post on Search Engine Land.
When I opened Google Ads recently, I noticed something intriguing. Google is now directly promoting its AI Max feature right inside the campaign settings. This is a bold move, as it places advertisements for their own tools directly in front of advertisers like me.
What’s happening: I saw promotional messages for AI Max specifically for Search campaigns when accessing my campaign settings panel.
Why it matters to me. Seeing these ads within the platform highlights Google’s strategy to push AI adoption. It makes me wonder if this will nudge advertisers like myself towards tools that minimize manual input, potentially reshaping how I manage campaigns.
Encountering ads in a platform that’s already a paid advertising service is quite unprecedented. It feels like a subtle shift towards more aggressive product adoption strategies by Google.
The big picture from my perspective. Although Google often rolls out AI features, actively promoting them within our regular workflows is a more assertive step towards encouraging us to adopt new features.
What I should watch for. I’m curious if this promotional strategy will extend to other features within Google Ads and how other advertisers will react to seeing marketing within their management tools.
First observation. This notification was first spotted by Lead Gen PPC Specialist Julie Bacchini, who shared her experience on LinkedIn.
Inspired by this post on Search Engine Land.
Every week, I’m amazed by how 80 million people, just like you and me, are using Reddit’s search feature. During Reddit’s Q4 2025 earnings call, they highlighted this incredible surge in usage following a pivotal transformation. They seamlessly integrated their core search with AI-powered Reddit Answers, setting the stage for Reddit to be a platform where we can both initiate and complete our search journeys.
What struck me about this change is how Reddit executives addressed the shift in user behavior. People, including myself, are increasingly turning to community discussions to research and make decisions, rather than solely relying on traditional search engines. Reddit sees this as an opportunity to capture that intent within its platform, moving beyond just being a hub of outbound links.
Why this matters to us. It’s fascinating to consider how Reddit’s evolution affects our daily search habits. Brands need to recognize that visibility on this platform is as crucial as securing a spot on traditional search engines. It’s an exciting development, particularly for those of us who value Reddit’s unique contribution to information discovery.
Exploring Reddit’s ambitious plans. Steve Huffman, Reddit’s CEO, emphasized significant advancements through unifying keyword search with Reddit Answers. I love how this offers a seamless transition between typical search results and AI-driven insights within a single user-friendly interface.
Huffman expressed his vision of Reddit as an “end-to-end search destination,” where our curiosity about topics doesn’t just start but expands. It’s exciting to see such growth—more than 80 million of us flock to Reddit weekly, a leap from 60 million a year prior, to deeply explore our interests.
Reddit Answers is a game-changer. Spearheading much of this growth, Reddit Answers skyrocketed from 1 million to 15 million queries in the last year. Huffman noted its effectiveness with open-ended questions that invite diverse viewpoints—perfect for decisions about what to buy, watch, or try.
Moreover, Reddit is beta testing “dynamic agentic search results” which include media formats. It’s a move towards more engaging and interactive searches, something I’m thrilled to explore personally.
Search: A pivotal priority for Reddit. Huffman also revealed ongoing tests with new app layouts, prominently featuring an easily accessible search bar. This move reflects the platform’s intent to prioritize search experiences significantly.
COO Jennifer Wong sees tremendous opportunity in search and Answers, even as monetization strategies evolve. What resonates with me is her description of Reddit search as an “incremental and additive” engagement tool. It’s aligned with high-intent activities such as researching purchases—an insight into future consumer behavior shifts.
AI answers elevate Reddit’s importance. The platform’s integration with AI partners like Google and OpenAI is central to this narrative. It’s fascinating how Reddit content has become a primary source cited in AI-generated answers, showcasing its growing role in shaping information access.
There’s immense potential in steering users from AI answers into active Reddit communities to engage deeper in discussions. Imagine searching for “the best speaker” and not just reading a summary but diving into a vibrant community debate—that’s where Reddit shines.
Reddit earnings. If you’re interested, you can explore more about Reddit’s financial insights and strategic decisions in their recent report here.
Inspired by this post on Search Engine Land.