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Strike Up A Conversion: AI Search Traffic Converting Better Than Traditional Search

Last week, I wrote about how AI search, specifically being cited in an AI Overview, has led to both more organic and paid clicks than not being cited at all (to the tune of 35% and 91% more, respectively).

Microsoft’s Clarity blog recently took the research a step further within its own data, finding that not only are AI-driven traffic and clicks increasing, but so too are conversion rates.

 

AIO Impact on Google CTR

In January we hypothesized that AI Overviews will significantly affect CTRs for both organic and paid search and that the impact will vary based on (1) the query type and (2) AI Overview citations. This was absolutely confirmed. And that impact is even more severe than we predicted. AIOs dramatically impact CTRs, and citation matters. 

 

How Humans Decide

On average, channels containing OSE [owned, shared, and earned] touchpoints are nearly 3x more powerful than paid media alone in converting someone from bias to purchase. Communications planning must therefore include ‘influence’ as a planning metric, and quantify the impact of OSE touchpoints. The result should be integrated OSEP (owned, shared, earned, and paid) influence plans that involve the full range of influential touchpoints, not just paid-media reach plans. 

 

Politico Journalists Fight Back Over AI Tools That Published ‘Glaring Errors’

Journalists at Politico … have won a ruling over the rollout of AI tools as a nationwide News Not Slop campaign was launched. … The dispute centered around a “Live Summaries” feature used during the 2024 Democratic Convention and a Capitol AI Report-Builder tool available for Politico Pro subscribers.

Trust Issues: New Data Reveals Sharp Decline In Trust In National News

To say that most Americans trust national news for information should, in a perfect world, not be a matter of concern or something that needs to be quantified.

But here we are, not only aware that technically most (56%) U.S. adults trust news organizations, according to recent Pew Research Center numbers, but that that percentage is down from 11% earlier this year and from 20% when Pew first posed the question nearly a decade ago.

 

Study Claims 9% Of U.S. Newspaper Articles At Least Partly AI Generated

Researchers from the University of Maryland used AI detector Pangram to analyze 186,000 articles published online by 1,500 national and local newspaper brands between June and September 2025. They concluded that “approximately 9% of newly-published articles are either partially or fully AI-generated.”  … AI use was found to be “much higher” in smaller local outlets compared to large national newspapers. 

 

MIT Just Built A Digital Twin Of Every American Worker — And the Results Are Sobering

MIT and Oak Ridge National Laboratory just released Project Iceberg, a massive simulation that tracked 151 million US workers across 32,000 skills and 923 occupations to figure out which jobs AI can already automate today. The findings = AI can technically replace 11.7% of the American workforce right now… affecting $1.2 trillion in wages. That’s not a prediction for 2030. That’s what’s possible with current technology.

 

The ROI Meter: How Brands Measure Return On Investment

Despite challenges, marketers appear to be confident in their ability to measure return on investment (ROI). It varies by geography — but only slightly, judging by a new study from Nielsen titled The Marketing ROI Blueprint: Unlocking the full value of marketing investments. 

Consumer Concerns Growing Over AI Copying Local News Stories (New Report)

Perhaps it’s reassuring that the concerns about AI stealing the work of journalists is shared by those outside the journalism industry. 

More than three-quarters of consumers (76%) say they’re concerned about AI stealing or reproducing local news stories, with half (51%) telling OnMessage Inc. they’re “very concerned.”

 

Do We Need Humanlike AI? Experts Say It Depends

Given the growing concerns over anthropomorphic AI, we asked our panel to react to the following provocation: Responsible AI governance requires questioning the necessity of overly humanlike agentic AI systems. Nearly 80% of our panelists agree or strongly agree with the statement, arguing that responsible AI governance is not just about how a technology is designed or deployed but also about when it should be deployed. 

 

Holiday Shoppers Using AI Are Open To Buy Through It

Nearly four in 10 consumers participating in the 2025 Holiday Shopping Report from First Insight note they intend to use AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude to assist in their holiday shopping, and 68% of them plan to go from browsing to buying directly within the platform — compared with 42% of shoppers who plan to do the same on social media.

 

The Small Business Holiday Outlook 2025: Your Guide to Winning the Make-or-Break Season

When it comes to getting the word out and driving action, our report confirms where you need to focus your limited marketing budget. Nearly 40% of SMBs told us social media marketing is the most impactful channel for holiday marketing. This significantly outweighs email marketing (18%).

Navigating The News: Why Credibility Is Key In The Age Of Audience Skepticism

Be it from traditional media sources, social-media sources, or word-of-mouth sources, news finds a way. 

And as new research from Ipsos, Muck Rack, and VaynerX shows, audiences aren’t afraid to be skeptical.

“Today’s audiences are buried in click bait and sensationalized headlines, but when something feels off, they don’t hesitate to fact-check,” says the report which found a majority of consumers are taking in news multiple times a day and only a third trust it most or all of the time. “When confronted with a news story that feels questionable, 44% of consumers say their first instinct is to fact-check on their own.”

 

Calling On Creators: Almost A Third Now Self-Publish Their Own Work

The publishing field is swarming with creators who do not write for legacy outlets, judging by The State of Creator Journalism 2025, a study from Muck Rack. Of those surveyed, 34% independently publish news, commentary or other content under their own name outside of a traditional media organization.

 

America’s Deepening Need For Human Connection In An AI-Driven World

The new research, fielded through Critical Mass Media for iHeartMedia, found that 82 percent of respondents worry about AI’s societal impact, and 9 in 10 believe it’s important to know the media they consume is created by a real person. Most respondents long to feel “human” again through deep, meaningful relationships, but simultaneously feel overwhelmed by their phones, hindering the ability to pursue these connections. These conflicting sentiments are driving new consumer behavior.

 

The State of Social Media Marketing

45% of marketers said they use AI for social media, and that number climbs to 53% among those posting multiple times a day. The heavier the posting load, the more likely teams are to rely on AI.

‘A New Normal’ — What Advertisers Should Know As Media Inflation Rate Stabilizes

The World Federation of Advertisers recently compared global media forecasts from last year to current forecasts, finding a somewhat stabilized +4% inflation rate that settles media “into a new normal of moderate but persistent inflation, mirroring the wider economy.”

“The headline rate also hides a number of starker contrasts between regions and channels,” WFA says, “highlighting opportunities for advertisers to identify smarter ways to invest their ad budgets.”

According to MediaPost’s reporting on the WFA Members-only report, U.S. advertisers have seen a half-point rise to a 3.8% inflation rate this year, with that number expected to reach 4.0% next year.

 

AI Writing Hasn’t Overwhelmed The Web Yet

New articles generated by AI briefly outnumbered those written by humans online, but the two are now roughly equal, per a new report from SEO firm Graphite. … Researchers have long feared that if AI-made content online overwhelms human-created material, large language models could choke on their own exhaust and collapse.

 

Data Watch: Consumers Trust Few Firms To Protect Their Identity

Marketers should not delude themselves that consumers have faith in their privacy protections. Only 14% of consumers fully trust global brands with their identity data, especially in this age of artificial intelligence (AI), according to Bridging The Trust Gap. In The Age of AI, a study by Ping Identity. A mere 7% in the study said they have full trust in the organizations that manage their data. 

 

Nearly Half Of US Marketers Plan To Invest In Mmm Over The Next Year

27.6% of US brand and agency marketers found MMM to be the most reliable marketing measurement methodology, according to the same July survey from EMARKETER and TransUnion. … With an increasingly fragmented digital environment, brands and agencies are looking for dependable measurement solutions, especially as marketing teams come under more pressure to prove ROI.

Why SMB-Media Partnerships Don’t Last, And How To Fix Them

Even the healthiest of relationships experience an occasional hurdle or hiccup along the way, and the relationships between SMBs and media partners are no different.

What a recent survey tries to get to the bottom of, however, is why those ad/media relationships simply “don’t last very long,” with high-churn rates despite overwhelming satisfaction.

 

Exposure or Risk? How SMBs See AI Crawlers

While appearing in AI search results can elevate a business by helping them become more discoverable, many are worried about protecting their proprietary data. As a result, business leaders are split: while 72% express concern about AI crawlers visiting their sites, 62% also report that the impact has been positive.

 

The State Of Social Media In 2025

Across all demographics, today’s consumers are most concerned with brands posting (but not disclosing) AI-generated content, and companies mishandling their data. Gen Z and Millennials, however, are more likely to rank AI content disclosure as their top concern, more so than data security.

 

35% Of CMOs Are Stuck In AI Pilot Purgatory, New Research Reveals

While 95% of CMOs report positive returns from AI implementation in commerce media campaigns, only 17% use AI as a foundational capability across their marketing operations. … More than a third are stuck in what the research calls “pilot purgatory,” where AI shows promise in some channels but fails to reach enterprise-wide adoption.

Don’t Blame AI: Is Google Algorithm Update The Reason For Lost Search Traffic?

Ask around about AI’s effect on search results, and you’ll hear most publishers talk about what feels like drastic drops in traffic and visibility.

According to new research from the UK, that feeling is more than just anecdotal. But AI isn’t the main culprit to blame.

“Around six in ten of the UK’s biggest news websites have seen a drop in their visibility in Google search results in 2025 so far,” writes Press Gazette’s Charlotte Tobitt, highlighting what appears to be the result of an algorithm update that Google implemented in June. 

 

How People Think About AI’s Role In Journalism And Society

There is a clear ‘comfort gap’ between AI- and human-led news. On average, only 12% are comfortable with news made entirely by AI; this rises to 21% with a ‘human in the loop’, 43% when a human leads with some AI help, and 62% for entirely human-made news (an increase of 4 percentage points since 2024).

 

AI Companies Steal Publisher Traffic Then Undermine Trust By Getting Answers Wrong

The dangers of using generative AI platforms to surface news information have been highlighted in a devastating new report by the European Broadcasting Union and the BBC. … Using a variety of news related questions, the research analysed the accuracy of answers given by the leading AI companies scraping news content: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Microsoft’s Copilot and Google’s Gemini. The research points to a generally corrosive impact of AI answer engines on the news ecosystem.

 

Data Snags: B2C Marketers Face Challenges In Unifying Sources

B2C marketers are still plagued by challenges in managing data across sources. For instance, 69% see data unification as a complex pain point. Yet 53% rate their data strategy as very effective  —  up from 46% last year.

Bot Traffic Jam: What Often-Unprotected Publishers Need To Know

AI scraping isn’t the only behind-the-scenes bot activity that publishers need to keep an eye on.

Of course, any business — publishing or otherwise — is susceptible to these bots, which DataDome calls “the most relentless threats to online businesses and a primary driver of digital fraud.”

In fact, according to its 2025 Global Bot Security Report, large language model (LLM) crawler traffic (usually associated with genAI training) has nearly quadrupled across its customer base, from 2.6% of all verified bot traffic in January to over 10% by August.

 

Rethinking Subscriber Growth; AI As The Publisher’s Edge

I believe AI can help publishers perform at scale. Rather than fear the risks associated with AI, how can we embrace it for the opportunities it presents? 

 

Good News/Bad News On Where Americans Are Getting Their News

At a time when many Americans no longer read newspapers, the percentage citing social-media apps as their regular source of news has been growing, according to new data from the Pew Research Center. In fact, X has the greatest percentage of users regularly getting their news there — 57% — although that is down slightly from a high of 59%.

 

Shared Goals, Separate Systems: Bridge The Gap Between Marketing And Customer Service With Unified Tools

Improving customer experience (CX) increases revenue while reducing customer-related expenses, making customer-centricity fundamental to operational strategy. Subsequently, marketing leaders are prioritizing more alignment and collaboration with CX and customer service to better understand and extend their reach across the customer lifecycle. However, organizational silos, different KPIs, and disconnected tools and data prevent long-term alignment, blocking business benefits.

The Future Of Advertising: How AI, Automation, Biometrics, And More Will Shape Tomorrow

Perhaps it’s because this decade arrived with such an epically sad-trombone pandemic-plagued plop, but it feels almost surreal to already be past the halfway point.  

What’s even more surreal, considering the rapid strides made in just the last few years with something like AI, is trying to predict what the next decade might bring. But that’s exactly what WPP Media has done for its Advertising In 2030 report. 

“One of the most striking changes in expert opinion in our updated study is the increased confidence in the applicability of generative AI as a creative tool, reflecting the major advances in AI since the beginning of the decade,” writes WPP Media’s Kate Scott-Dawkins of the new report.

 

Google Appears To Prioritize Global Newsbrands Over Local Ones For Breaking News Events

Barry Adams, a specialized SEO consultant for news publishers at Polemic Digital, told Press Gazette: “For critical breaking news events, Google’s Top Stories algorithms have a strong preference for news publishers that have a high degree of authority and trust. … For those kinds of news events, Google wants to make sure it shows articles from only the most reliable new sources. This sometimes means that local news providers miss out, as they lack the authority signals Google gives preference to.”

 

Pinching The Press: Struggling Newspapers Need More State Funding

Forgive us for being skeptical. Sure, something is better than nothing. But grants and tax cuts for newspapers are so easy to scrap when desperate legislatures are looking for money.

 

People Still Largely Prefer Humans To Create Content, Not AI

About three in four Americans want humans to create news and entertainment content, according to the Ipsos Consumer Tracker. Two in three want humans making their marketing and even art content.

Mind The Gap: AI Search Traffic May Be Rising, But Conversion-Efficiency Doesn’t Compare To Organic 

Even as AI’s takeover of search gets so much attention, it’s important to remember one of the insights made clear by BrightEdge’s recent research: AI referral traffic does not necessarily mean real-life conversions.

“AI search functions as a research channel, not a conversion channel,” says the BrightEdge report, which analyzed thousands of search queries and sites from January through August, only to find “near-zero direct conversions tracked.” 

Compared to organic search, which consistently saw between 1.2% and 1.4% conversion rates, AI search is seeing an “efficiency gap [that’s] actually increasing over time.”

 

AI Referral Traffic ‘Not Making Up For Search Losses’: How Publishers Can Respond

Growing referral traffic from AI is nowhere near making up for losses from search since the arrival of Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode, leading publishers have said. … Representatives … agreed there is no meaningful value exchange from AI bot traffic to websites and that publishers need to bolster themselves via the use of human experts and original content.

 

SMBs Are Doing More Than Ever. So Why Is Confidence Failing?

While you might be tempted to only use social media, tried-and-true channels, like email and SMS, are reemerging — delivering strong results with less cost and complexity. 44% of SMBs say email is their most effective channel — nearly double from last year.

 

Shoppers Trust GenAI More Than Brand Websites For Purchase Advice

Generative AI (genAI) is the second most preferred source for purchase recommendations among genAI users worldwide, with users nearly twice as likely to use genAI than retailer/brand websites or apps, according to January 2025 data from Accenture.