Nexafin automatically detects your recurring bills and shows what's due this week, what's overdue, and what's coming up. You can connect bank, credit, and investment accounts across 12,000+ institutions or import CSV/PDF statements if you prefer not to link. Enjoy a 30-day free trial.

View startup

Nvidia’s RTX 60 series may have been pushed back to 2028 According to The Information (paywalled article), Nvidia has delayed its “Kicker” (RTX 50 SUPER) GPU lineup, citing memory shortages. As a knock-on effect, this change delays the next-generation of Nvidia GPUs, the RTX 60 series, until at least 2028. In December, Nvidia reportedly delayed […]

The post Nvidia delays next-gen RTX 60 series GPUs to 2028, report claims appeared first on OC3D.

Parano.ai delivers AI-assisted competitive intelligence that tracks competitors’ marketing, product updates, pricing, reviews, hires, funding, and website changes in real time. It sends executive summaries, change-detection comparisons, and tailored alerts to your inbox, Slack, or Microsoft Teams.

Set your competitors, fine-tune signals with granular filters, and receive daily or weekly digests for faster decisions. Pricing is per competitor with unlimited seats.

View startup

Google's John Mueller offered a simple solution to the question of whether a passage is indexed and is ready to rank.

The post Google Shows How To Check Passage Indexing appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

It has been only a few days since Apple's new AirTag 2 hit the store shelves. Yet, iFixIt is now out with a teardown of the device, revealing interesting insights about the coin-like tracker. iFixIt: Apple AirTag 2 still does not sport "tamper proof" speakers iFixIt's teardown of the AirTag 2 has revealed a few interesting aspects about the new device: For the benefit of those who might not be aware, the new AirTag's key specs include: The new AirTag is available at the same $29 price point. You can also buy a bundle of 4 for $99.

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/apple-airtag-2-speakers-still-not-tamper-proof-as-per-an-ifixit-teardown/

AT&T’s subpar service and customer service were quickly in the negative spotlight when a customer on Reddit explained his horrible experience with the U.S. carrier concerning an iPhone 17 Pro that was supposed to arrive brand new at the designated address. Unfortunately, not only was the box shipped with a broken factory seal, but the device also had a smudged display, clearly indicating it had been opened before. Naturally, the first instinct would have been to return the product, which would have been a simple process, right? Wrong, and after the customer endured the excruciating after-sales support, he was charged triple […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/customer-says-att-iphone-17-pro-had-broken-seal-was-charged-triple/

Resolut streamlines accounts receivable so you get paid on time and protect cash flow. Connect QuickBooks, orchestrate email, SMS, and phone reminders, and escalate with legal voice when needed, all without harming client relationships. The platform offers a dynamic billing portal with multiple payment options, automatic cash application, and AI-driven credit risk assessment. Use autopilot or co-pilot modes to balance automation with control, cut DSO, and eliminate administrative burdens across the full AR cycle.

View startup

Right now, there's a big air of mystery around MachineGames, and what its next project will be. The developer is mostly known for its take on the Wolfenstein series; its last game, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, meant it took several years off from the Wolfenstein franchise to make a different kind of excellent Nazi-punching adventure. But now that its treasure-hunting adventure is out, with its own DLC, and will soon be available on the Nintendo Switch 2, the question once again becomes: what's next for MachineGames? Presumably, what's next is Wolfenstein 3, and in a recent interview with […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/it-can-be-now-it-can-be-later-but-were-not-done-with-it-machinegames-will-make-wolfenstein-3-eventually/

Tesla's CEO is highly optimistic about the prospect of computing in space, as Musk believes Earth's energy constraints hinder the advancement of AI. Tesla's CEO Claims Energy Is a Problem On Earth, But in Outer Space, Chips Will Be the Next Constraint As the world of AI infrastructure advances, many experts argue that the 'dot-com' moment for this buildout will come when hyperscalers realize there isn't enough energy on the grid to sustain datacenter development, which would ultimately lead to a compute glut. Energy is a massive constraint that the AI bandwagon currently witnesses, given that it is argued that […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/elon-musk-says-the-current-pace-of-ai-expansion-will-force-the-need-for-orbital-data-centers/

One mechanic that Embark Studios uses to keep players engaged in ARC Raiders is the game's Expeditions, which are essentially a big reset for your Raider. Things like your Workshop, player level, skill points, blueprints, coins, quests, and stash upgrade progress all get reset, letting you start again with new rewards and buffs to make your next round of Topside visits all the more intriguing. What makes Expeditions interesting to complete (and what helps keep players logging onto ARC Raiders each day) is that you have a limited amount of time to prepare for them, with Expeditions running on a […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/arc-raiders-players-can-prepare-for-the-second-expedition-with-a-new-catch-up-mechanic-and-lowered-stash-value-requirements/

Sports is the most discussed topic on X, which makes it a key focus for Threads as well.

The chatbot, called "Kai", will be able to help you find info within the group chat stream. 

TikTok's updated its Co-Funded promotion option to help drive more sales.

The request stems from claims that Meta failed to act on teen safety advice.

For many local businesses, performance looks healthier than it is.

Rank trackers still show top-three positions. Visibility reports appear steady. Yet calls and website visits from Google Business Profiles are falling — sometimes fast.

This gap is becoming a defining feature of local search today.

Rankings are holding. Visibility and performance aren’t.

The alligator has arrived in local SEO.

The visibility crisis behind stable rankings

Across multiple U.S. industries, traditional local 3-packs are being replaced — or at least supplemented — by AI-powered local packs. These layouts behave differently from the map results we’ve optimized in the past.

Analysis from Sterling Sky, based on 179 Google Business Profiles, reveals a pattern that’s hard to ignore. Clicks-to-call are dropping sharply for Jepto-managed law firms.

When AI-powered packs replace traditional listings, the landscape shifts in four critical ways:

• Shrinking real estate: AI packs often surface only two businesses instead of three.
• Missing call buttons: Many AI-generated summaries remove instant click-to-call options, adding friction to the customer journey.
• Different businesses appear: The businesses shown in AI packs often don’t match those in the traditional 3-pack.
• Accelerated monetization of local search: When paid ads are present, traditional 3-packs increasingly lose direct call and website buttons, reducing organic conversion opportunities.

A fifth issue compounds the problem:

• Measurement blind spots: Most rank trackers don’t yet report on AI local packs. A business may rank first in a 3-pack that many users never see.

AI local packs surfaced only 32% as many unique businesses as traditional map packs in 2026, according to Sterling Sky. In 88% of the 322 markets analyzed, the total number of visible businesses declined.

At the same time, paid ads continue to take over space once reserved for organic results, signaling a clear shift toward a pay-to-play local landscape.

What Google Business Profile data shows

The same pattern appears, especially in the U.S., where Google is aggressively testing new local formats, according to GMBapi.com data. Traditional local 3-pack impressions are increasingly displaced by:

• AI-powered local packs.
• Paid placements inside traditional map packs: Sponsored listings now appear alongside or within the map pack, pushing organic results lower and stripping listings of call and website buttons. This breaks organic customer journeys.
• Expanded Google Ads units: Including Local Services Ads that consume space once reserved for organic visibility.

Impression trends still fluctuate due to seasonality, market differences, and occasional API anomalies. But a much clearer signal emerges when you look at GBP actions rather than impressions.

Mentions inside AI-generated results are still counted as impressions — even when they no longer drive calls, clicks, or visits.

Some fluctuations are driven by external factors. For example, the June drop ties back to a known Google API issue. Mobile Maps impressions also appear heavily influenced by large advertisers ramping up Google Ads later in the year.

There’s no way to segment these impressions by Google Ads, organic results, or AI Mode.

Even there, however, user behaviour is changing. Interaction rates are declining, with fewer direct actions taken from local listings.

Year-on-year comparisons in the US suggest that while impression losses remain moderate and partially seasonal, GBP actions are disproportionately impacted.

As a counterfactual, data from the Dutch market — where SERP experimentation remains limited — shows far more stable action trends.

The pattern is clear. AI-driven SERP changes, expanding Google Ads, and the removal of call and website buttons from the Map Pack are shrinking organic real estate. Even when visibility looks intact, businesses have fewer chances to earn real user actions.

Local SEO is becoming an eligibility problem

Historically, local optimization centered on familiar ranking factors: proximity, relevance, prominence, reviews, citations, and engagement.

Today, another layer sits above all of them: eligibility.

Many businesses fail to appear in AI-powered local results not because they lack authority, but because Google’s systems decide they aren’t an appropriate match for the specific query context. Research from Yext and insights from practitioners like Claudia Tomina highlight the importance of alignment across three core signals:

• Business name
• Primary category
• Real-world services and positioning

When these fundamentals are misaligned, businesses can be excluded from entire result types — no matter how well optimized the Google Business Profile itself may be.

How to future-proof local visibility

Surviving today’s zero-click reality means moving beyond reliance on a single, perfectly optimized Google Business Profile. Here’s your new local SEO playbook.

The eligibility gatekeeper

Failure to appear in local packs is now driven more by perceived relevance and classification than by links or review volume.

Hyper-local entity authority

AI systems cross-reference Reddit, social platforms, forums, and local directories to judge whether a business is legitimate and active. Inconsistent signals across these ecosystems quietly erode visibility.

Visual trust signals

High-quality, frequently updated photos, and increasingly video, are no longer optional. Google’s AI analyzes visual content to infer services, intent, and categorization.

Embrace the pay-to-play reality

It’s a hard truth, but Google Ads — especially Local Services Ads — are now critical to retaining prominent call buttons that organic listings are losing. A hybrid strategy that blends local SEO with paid search isn’t optional. It’s the baseline.

What this means for local search now

Local SEO is no longer a static directory exercise. Google Business Profiles still anchor local discoverability, but they now operate inside a much broader ecosystem shaped by AI validation, constant SERP experimentation, and Google’s accelerating push to monetize local search.

Discovery no longer hinges on where your GBP ranks against nearby competitors. Search systems — including Google’s AI-driven SERP features and large language models like ChatGPT and Gemini — are increasingly trying to understand what a business actually does, not just where it’s listed.

Success is no longer about being the most “optimized” profile. It’s about being widely verified, consistently active, and contextually relevant across the AI-visible ecosystem.

Our observations show little correlation between businesses that rank well in the traditional Map Pack and those favored by Google’s AI-generated local answers that are beginning to replace it. That gap creates a real opportunity for businesses willing to adapt.

In practice, this means pairing local input with central oversight.

Authentic engagement across multiple platforms, locally differentiated content, and real community signals must coexist with brand governance, data consistency, and operational scale. For single-location businesses with deep community roots, this is an advantage. Being genuinely discussed, recommended, and referenced in your local area — online and offline — gets you halfway there.

For agencies and multi-location brands, the challenge is to balance control with local nuance and ensure trusted signals extend beyond Google (e.g., Apple Maps, Tripadvisor, Yelp, Reddit, and other relevant review ecosystems). The real test is producing locally relevant content and citations at scale without losing authenticity.

Rankings may look stable. But performance increasingly lives somewhere else.

The full data. Local SEO in 2026: Why Your Rankings are Steady but Your Calls are Vanishing

Convly is a solution that allows users to manage Microsoft Teams messages directly from Slack. It lets them stay in Slack while handling Teams direct messages, group chats, and meeting conversations. Convly supports formatted text, message edits and deletions, replies, images, and file sharing. It is useful for companies that use Slack while working with clients or partners on Teams, for organizations where different departments rely on different collaboration tools, and in M&A contexts where multiple platforms coexist. By bridging Slack and Microsoft Teams, Convly provides a practical way to maintain consistent communication across two widely used collaboration platforms.

View startup

Google has started a Discover core update. The rollout may take up to two weeks, with expansion to more countries and languages later.

The post Google Releases Core Update Targeting Discover Feed appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Today, The Verge's Tom Warren has published some updates on the Xbox schedule for this year. In 2026, the Xbox brand celebrates its 25th anniversary, and Microsoft is trying to launch games in four of its biggest franchises: Forza Horizon, Halo, Gears, and Fable. We already know the date of Playground's Forza Horizon 6, which will be released on May 19, 2026, as announced during the recent Xbox Developer Direct 2026. Warren adds that his sources indicate Halo Studios (formerly known as 343 Industries) is targeting a Summer release for Halo Campaign Evolved, the single-player remake of the 2001 game […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/xbox-2026-schedule-halo-summer-kiln-april-new-controller/

Google wowed tech enthusiasts back in late 2025 when it made the Quick Share function for Pixel 10 devices compatible with Apple's AirDrop, allowing seamless file transfers between Android and iOS and ecosystems. Now, as per the comments from a Google bigwig, that seamless interplay is coming to a lot more devices in 2026. Google bringing the seamless interplay between Quick Share and Apple's AirDrop to a lot more Android devices this year We noted back in November 2025 that Google reverse-engineered AirDrop without any apparent input from Apple, essentially finding a workaround for seamless file transfers between Pixel 10 […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/google-confirms-compatibility-with-apples-airdrop-coming-to-android-phones-other-than-pixels/

Last week, as part of a flurry of showcases Blizzard Entertainment announced to start 2026, the studio hosted a World of Warcraft: State of Azeroth showcase, which dug into the roadmap the company has for the long-running MMORPG in 2026. Following that showcase, in an interview with The Game Business, game director Ion Hazzikostas and executive producer and vice president Holly Longdale went further into what they envision for the future of World of Warcraft, and the "bigger vision" they have for the franchise. It's clear that Blizzard has a lot coming for World of Warcraft. The game's next major […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/we-firmly-believe-our-best-years-are-ahead-of-us-blizzard-has-a-bigger-vision-for-world-of-warcraft/

X is offering a $1 prize for the winning entry. 

Google has released the February 2026 Discover core update, which focuses specifically on how content is surfaced in Google Discover.

• “This is a broad update to our systems that surface articles in Discover,” Google wrote.

Google said the update is rolling out first to English-language users in the U.S. and will expand to all countries and languages in the coming months. The rollout may take up to two weeks to complete, Google added.

What is expected. Google said the Discover core update will improve the “experience in a few key ways,” including:

• Showing users more locally relevant content from websites based in their country.
• Reducing sensational content and clickbait.
• Highlighting more in-depth, original, and timely content from sites with demonstrated expertise in a given area, based on Google’s understanding of a site’s content.

Because the update prioritizes locally relevant content, it may reduce traffic for non-U.S. websites that publish news for a U.S. audience. That impact may lessen or disappear as the update expands globally.

More details. Google added that many sites demonstrate deep knowledge across a wide range of subjects, and its systems are built to identify expertise on a topic-by-topic basis. As a result, any site can appear in Discover, whether it covers multiple areas or focuses deeply on a single topic. Google shared an example:

• “A local news site with a dedicated gardening section could have established expertise in gardening, even though it covers other topics. In contrast, a movie review site that wrote a single article about gardening would likely not.”

Google said it will continue to “show content that’s personalized based on people’s creator and source preferences.”

During testing, Google found that “people find the Discover experience more useful and worthwhile with this update.”

Expect fluctuations. With this Discover core update, expect fluctuations in traffic from Google Discover.

• “Some sites might see increases or decreases; many sites may see no change at all,” Google said.

Rollout. Google said it is “releasing this update to English language users in the US, and will expand it to all countries and languages in the months ahead. “

Why we care. If you get traffic from Google Discover, you may notice changes in that traffic in the coming days. Google recommends that if you need guidance, Google has “general guidance about core updates applies, as does our Get on Discover help page” in those help documents.

ASROCK implements “comprehensive internal reviews” in response to reports of CPU failures ASROCK has released an official statement in response to recent reports of AMD Ryzen 9000 CPU failures on their AM5 motherboards. The company claims that they have started a “comprehensive internal reviews and rigorous verification processes”. Additionally, they have been working in “seamless […]

The post ASROCK issues official statement on recent AMD Ryzen 9000 CPU failures appeared first on OC3D.

CapFrameX is a free Windows tool for capturing and analyzing PC gaming performance, with an emphasis on frame times, FPS behavior, and smoothness metrics like 1% and 0.1% lows.

As NVIDIA's cloud service GeForce NOW celebrates its sixth anniversary, with a new batch of games set to join the service, a new batch of games are also getting support for NVIDIA's DLSS 4 with Multi-Frame Generation, including the critically acclaimed Masocore from Team Ninja that will arrive on PC and PS5 tomorrow, Nioh 3. While the full game won't be available until tomorrow, February 6, 2026, if you haven't already, you can download the Nioh 3 demo to get yourself prepared for the full release. The demo and the full game both support NVIDIA DLSS 4 with Multi-Frame Generation. […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/nioh-3-sea-of-remnants-and-vampires-bloodlord-rising-add-support-for-nvidia-dlss-4-with-multi-frame-generation/

Today, Guerrilla Games has finally unveiled its upcoming online co-op action game: Horizon Hunters Gathering. Announced over four years ago, the game indeed features the stylized, slightly cartoonish look players got a glimpse of in early 2023 with the footage leak. It's undoubtedly a big departure from the main series' trademark highly realistic visuals, and it remains to be seen whether it will resonate with fans. Visually, at least, the MMORPG Horizon Steel Frontiers, in development at NCSoft, certainly looks more similar to the main games. Anyway, first and foremost, Guerrilla's Game Director Arjan Bak reassured fans that they're not going to stop […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/horizon-hunters-gathering-guerrilla-cartoonish-coop-game/

If the report is true, then we will have to wait a few more months before seeing the next-gen gaming handhelds powered by newer Intel chips. Intel Reportedly Delays Panther Lake for Gaming Handhelds to Q2 2026; Two SKUs with 12 and 10 Xe3 Cores Supposedly in the Making Not long ago, Intel's VP and GM, Robert Hallock, confirmed that dedicated Panther Lake SoCs for gaming handhelds will be released this year. While Robert didn't share any details on the launch, the prominent leaker "Golden Pig Upgrade" suggested the launch at the end of Q1 2026. The leaker said in […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/intel-gaming-handheld-specific-panther-lake-chips-rumoredly-delayed-to-second-quarter-2026/

Apple might release the iPhone 17e in a matter of days, if the latest rumors from the Cupertino giant's labyrinthine supply chain are anything to go by. Apple iPhone 17e reportedly launching on February 19 According to the rumors circulating within Apple's case and accessory manufacturing circles, the Cupertino giant might launch the iPhone 17e via a press release on Thursday, February 19. Do note that Apple typically launches new products on Mondays or Tuesdays, with Wednesdays also seeing occasional launches. As such, a Thursday launch is quite aberrant for Apple. It is for this reason that we would urge […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/supply-chain-rumors-suggest-apple-iphone-17e-might-launch-on-february-19/

Samsung’s Heat Pass Block (HPB) is currently applied to the Exynos 2600 and is an excellent implementation to help lower temperatures and improve thermal resistance by 16 percent. With reports doing the rounds that other chipset makers will also adopt this technology to their SoCs, the latest rumor now claims that Qualcomm will be implementing it in its Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro and Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 later this year. Looking at the high clock speeds achieved by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, the thermal limitations of passive coolers like vapor chambers are already being reached, requiring more […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/qualcomm-to-use-samsung-heat-pass-block-technology-for-snapdragon-8-elite-gen-6/

Today's Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase event had a lot of announcements that were exciting for players who don't have any other console or device to play games on besides a Nintendo Switch 2, because most of the biggest announcements were about games already available elsewhere coming to the Switch 2. Three of those bigger ports all came from Bethesda, as Bethesda Game Studios boss Todd Howard appeared to reveal that Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, and Fallout 4: Anniversary Edition are all coming to Nintendo Switch 2 in 2026. Two out of three […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/a-trio-of-bethesda-ports-are-coming-to-nintendo-switch-2-in-2026-fallout-4-indiana-jones-and-oblivion-remastered/

Most PPC teams still build campaigns the same way: pull a keyword list, set match types, and organize ad groups around search terms. It’s muscle memory.

But Google’s auction no longer works that way.

Search now behaves more like a conversation than a lookup. In AI Mode, users ask follow-up questions and refine what they’re trying to solve. AI Overviews reason through an answer first, then determine which ads support that answer.

In Google Ads, the auction isn’t triggered by a keyword anymore – it’s triggered by inferred intent.

If you’re still structuring campaigns around exact and phrase match, you’re planning for a system that no longer exists. The new foundation is intent: not the words people type, but the goals behind them.

An intent-first approach gives you a more durable way to design campaigns, creative, and measurement as Google introduces new AI-driven formats.

Keywords aren’t dead, but they’re no longer the blueprint.

The mechanics under the hood have changed

Here’s what’s actually happening when someone searches now.

Google’s AI uses a technique called “query fan out,” splitting a complex question into subtopics and running multiple concurrent searches to build a comprehensive response.

The auction happens before the user even finishes typing.

And crucially, the AI infers commercial intent from purely informational queries.

For instance, someone asks, “Why is my pool green?” They’re not shopping. They’re troubleshooting.

But Google’s reasoning layer detects a problem that products can solve and serves ads for pool-cleaning supplies alongside the explanation. While the user didn’t search for a product, the AI knew they would need one.

This auction logic is fundamentally different from what we’re accustomed to. It’s not matching your keyword to the query. It’s matching your offering to the user’s inferred need state, based on conversational context. 

If your campaign structure still assumes people search in isolated, transactional moments, you’re missing the journey entirely.

Dig deeper: How to build a modern Google Ads targeting strategy like a pro

What ‘intent-first’ actually means

An intent-first strategy doesn’t mean you stop doing keyword research. It means you stop treating keywords as the organizing principle.

Instead, you map campaigns to the why behind the search.

• What problem is the user trying to solve?
• What stage of decision-making are they in?
• What job are they hiring your product to do?

The same intent can surface through dozens of different queries, and the same query can reflect multiple intents depending on context.

“Best CRM” could mean either “I need feature comparisons” or “I’m ready to buy and want validation.” Google’s AI now reads that difference, and your campaign structure should, too.

This is more of a mental model shift than a tactical one.

You’re still building keyword lists, but you’re grouping them by intent state rather than match type.

You’re still writing ad copy, but you’re speaking to user goals instead of echoing search terms back at them.

What changes in practice

Once campaigns are organized around intent instead of keywords, the downstream implications show up quickly – in eligibility, landing pages, and how the system learns.

Campaign eligibility

If you want to show up inside AI Overviews or AI Mode, you need broad match keywords, Performance Max, or the newer AI Max for Search campaigns.

Exact and phrase match still work for brand defense and high-visibility placements above the AI summaries, but they won’t get you into the conversational layer where exploration happens.

Landing page evolution

It’s not enough to list product features anymore. If your page explains why and how someone should use your product (not just what it is), you’re more likely to win the auction.

Google’s reasoning layer rewards contextual alignment. If the AI built an answer about solving a problem, and your page directly addresses that problem, you’re in.

Asset volume and training data

The algorithm prioritizes rich metadata, multiple high-quality images, and optimized shopping feeds with every relevant attribute filled in.

Using Customer Match lists to feed the system first-party data teaches the AI which user segments represent the highest value.

That training affects how aggressively it bids for similar users.

Dig deeper: In Google Ads automation, everything is a signal in 2026

The gaps worth knowing about

Even as intent-first campaigns unlock new reach, there are still blind spots in reporting, budget constraints, and performance expectations you need to plan around.

No reporting segmentation

Google doesn’t provide visibility into how ads perform specifically in AI Mode versus traditional search.

You’re monitoring overall cost-per-conversion and hoping high-funnel clicks convert downstream, but you can’t isolate which placements are actually driving results.

The budget barrier

AI-powered campaigns like Performance Max and AI Max need meaningful conversion volume to scale effectively, often 30 conversions in 30 days at a minimum.

Smaller advertisers with limited budgets or longer sales cycles face what some call a “scissors gap,” in which they lack the data needed to train algorithms and compete in automated auctions.

Funnel position matters

AI Mode attracts exploratory, high-funnel behavior. Conversion rates won’t match bottom-of-the-funnel branded searches. That’s expected if you’re planning for it.

It becomes a problem when you’re chasing immediate ROAS without adjusting how you define success for these placements.

Dig deeper: Outsmarting Google Ads: Insider strategies to navigate changes like a pro

Where to start

You don’t need to rebuild everything overnight.

Pick one campaign where you suspect intent is more complex than the keywords suggest. Map it to user goal states instead of search term buckets.

Test broad match in a limited way. Rewrite one landing page to answer the “why” instead of just listing specs.

The shift to intent-first is not a tactic – it’s a lens. And it’s the most durable way to plan as Google keeps introducing new AI-driven formats.

Google Search is entering an “expansionary moment,” fueled by longer queries, more follow-up questions, and rising use of voice and images. That’s according to Alphabet’s executives who spoke on last night’s Q4 earnings call.

• In other words: Google Search is shifting toward AI-driven experiences, with more conversations happening inside Google’s own interfaces.

Why we care. AI in Google Search is no longer an experiment. It’s a structural shift that’s changing how people search and reshaping discovery, visibility, and traffic across the web.

By the numbers. Alphabet’s Q4 advertising revenue totaled $82.284 billion, up 13.5% from $72.461 billion 2024:

• Google Search & other: $63.073 billion (up 16.7%)
• YouTube: $11.383 billion (up 8.7%)
• Google Network: $7.828 billion ( down 1.5%)

Alphabet’s 2025 fiscal year advertising revenue totaled $294.691 billion, up 11.4% from $264.590 billion in 2024:

• Google Search & other: $224,532 billion (up 13.4%)
• YouTube: $40.367 billion (up 11.7%)
• Google Network: $29.792 billion ( down 1.9%)

AI Overviews and AI Mode are now core to Search. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said Google pushed aggressively on AI-powered search features in Q4, highlighting how central they’ve become to the product.

• “We shipped over 250 product launches, within AI mode and AI overviews just last quarter,” Pichai said.

This includes Google upgrading AI Overviews to its Gemini 3 model. He said the company has tightly linked AI Overviews with conversational search.

• “We have also made the search experience more cohesive, ensuring the transition from an AI Overview to a conversation in AI Mode is completely seamless,” Pichai said.

AI is driving more Google Search usage. Executives repeatedly described AI-driven search as additive, saying it boosts overall usage rather than replacing traditional queries.

• “Search saw more usage in Q4 than ever before, as AI continues to drive an expansionary moment,” Pichai said.

Engagement rises once users interact with AI-powered features, Google said.

• “Once people start using these new experiences, they use them more,” Pichai said.

Changing search behavior. Google shared new data points showing how AI Mode is changing search behavior — making queries longer, more conversational, and increasingly multimodal.

• “Queries in AI Mode are three times longer than traditional searches,” Pichai said.

Sessions are also becoming more conversational.

• “We are also seeing sessions become more conversational, with a significant portion of queries in AI Mode, now leading to a follow-up question,” he said.

AI Mode is also expanding beyond text.

• “Nearly one in six AI mode queries are now non-text using voice or images,” Pichai said.

Google highlighted continued distribution of visual search capabilities, noting that:

• “Circle to Search is now available on over 580 million Android devices,” Pichai said.

Gemini isn’t cannibalizing Search. As the Gemini app continues to grow, Google says it hasn’t seen signs that users are abandoning Search.

• “We haven’t seen any evidence of cannibalization,” Pichai said.

Instead, Google said users move fluidly between Search, AI Overviews, AI Mode, and the Gemini app.

• “The combination of all of that, I think, creates an expansionary moment,” Pichai said.

AI is no longer an experimental layer in search. It’s actively mediating how customers discover, evaluate, and choose local businesses, increasingly without a traditional search interaction. 

The real risk is data stagnation. As AI systems act on local data for users, brands that fail to adapt risk declining visibility, data inconsistencies, and loss of control over how locations are represented across AI surfaces.

Learn how AI is changing local search and what you can do to stay visible in this new landscape. 

How AI search is different from traditional search

We are experiencing a platform shift where machine inference, not database retrieval, drives decisions. At the same time, AI is moving beyond screens into real-world execution.

AI now powers navigation systems, in-car assistants, logistics platforms, and autonomous decision-making.

In this environment, incorrect or fragmented location data does not just degrade search.

It leads to missed turns, failed deliveries, inaccurate recommendations, and lost revenue. Brands don’t simply lose visibility. They get bypassed.

Business implications in an AI-first, zero-click decision layer 

Local search has become an AI-first, zero-click decision layer.

Multi-location brands now win or lose based on whether AI systems can confidently recommend a location as the safest, most relevant answer.

That confidence is driven by structured data quality, Google Business Profile excellence, reviews, engagement, and real-world signals such as availability and proximity.

For 2026, the enterprise risk is not experimentation. It’s inertia.

Brands that fail to industrialize and centralize local data, content, and reputation operations will see declining AI visibility, fragmented brand representation, and lost conversion opportunities without knowing why.

Paradigm shifts to understand 

Here are four key ways the growth in AI search is changing the local journey:

• AI answers are the new front door: Local discovery increasingly starts and ends inside AI answers and Google surfaces, where users select a business directly.
• Context beats rankings: AI weighs conversation history, user intent, location context, citations, and engagement signals, not just position.
• Zero-click journeys dominate: Most local actions now happen on-SERP (GBP, AI Overviews, service features), making on-platform optimization mission-critical.
• Local search in 2026 is about being chosen, not clicked: Enterprises that combine entity intelligence, operational rigor by centralizing data and creating consistency, and on-SERP conversion discipline will remain visible and preferred as AI becomes the primary decision-maker.

Businesses that don’t grasp these changes quickly won’t fall behind quietly. They’ll be algorithmically bypassed.

Dig deeper: The enterprise blueprint for winning visibility in AI search

How AI composes local results (and why it matters)

AI systems build memory through entity and context graphs. Brands with clean, connected location, service, and review data become default answers.

Local queries increasingly fall into two intent categories: objective and subjective. 

• Objective queries focus on verifiable facts:
  • “Is the downtown branch open right now?”
  • “Do you offer same-day service?”
  • “Is this product in stock nearby?”
• Subjective queries rely on interpretation and sentiment:
  • “Best Italian restaurant near me”
  • “Top-rated bank in Denver”
  • “Most family-friendly hotel”

This distinction matters because AI systems treat risk differently depending on intent.

For objective queries, AI models prioritize first-party sources and structured data to reduce hallucination risk. These answers often drive direct actions like calls, visits, and bookings without a traditional website visit ever occurring.

For subjective queries, AI relies more heavily on reviews, third-party commentary, and editorial consensus. This data normally comes from various other channels, such as UGC sites.  

Dig deeper: How to deploy advanced schema at scale

Source authority matters

Industry research has shown that for objective local queries, brand websites and location-level pages act as primary “truth anchors.”

When an AI system needs to confirm hours, services, amenities, or availability, it prioritizes explicit, structured core data over inferred mentions.

Consider a simple example. If a user asks, “Find a coffee shop near me that serves oat milk and is open until 9,” the AI must reason across location, inventory, and hours simultaneously.

If those facts are not clearly linked and machine-readable, the brand cannot be confidently recommended.

This is why freshness, relevance, and machine clarity, powered by entity-rich structured data, help AI systems interpret the right response. 

Set yourself up for success

Ensure your data is fresh, relevant, and clear with these tips:

• Build a centralized entity and context graph and syndicate it consistently across GBP, listings, schema, and content.
• Industrialize local data and entities by developing one source of truth for locations, services, attributes, inventory – continuously audited and AI-normalized.
• Make content AI-readable and hyper-local with structured FAQs, services, and how-to content by location, optimized for conversational and multimodal queries.
• Treat GBP as a product surface with standardized photos, services, offers, and attributes — localized and continuously optimized.
• Operationalize reviews and reputation by implementing always-on review generation, AI-assisted responses, and sentiment intelligence feeding CX and operations.
• Adopt AI-first measurement and governance to track AI visibility, local answer share, and on-SERP conversions — not just rankings and traffic.

Dig deeper: From search to answer engines: How to optimize for the next era of discovery

The evolution of local search from listings management to an enterprise local journey

Historically, local search was managed as a collection of disconnected tactics: listings accuracy, review monitoring, and periodic updates to location pages.

That operating model is increasingly misaligned with how local discovery now works.

Local discovery has evolved into an end-to-end enterprise journey – one that spans data integrity, experience delivery, governance, and measurement across AI-driven surfaces.

Listings, location pages, structured data, reviews, and operational workflows now work together to determine whether a brand is trusted, cited, and repeatedly surfaced by AI systems.

Introducing local 4.0

Local 4.0 is a practical operating model for AI-first local discovery at an enterprise scale. The focus of this framework is to ensure your brand is callable, verifiable, and safe for AI systems to recommend. 

To understand why this matters, it helps to look at how local has evolved:

• Local 1.0 – Listings and basic NAP consistency: The goal was presence – being indexed and included.
• Local 2.0 – Map pack optimization and reviews: Visibility was driven by proximity, profile completeness, and reputation.
• Local 3.0 – Location pages, content, and ROI: Local became a traffic and conversion driver tied to websites.
• Local 4.0 – AI-mediated discovery and recommendation: Local becomes decision infrastructure, not a channel.

Local 4.0 is a new operating model for AI-first local discovery at enterprise scale. The focus is on understanding, verifying, and recommending based on consumer intent.  

• Understandable by AI systems (clean, structured, connected data).
• Verifiable across platforms (consistent facts, citations, reviews).
• Safe to recommend in real-world decision contexts.

In an AI-mediated environment, brands are no longer merely present. They are selected, reused, or ignored – often without a click. This is the core transformation enterprise leaders must internalize as they plan for 2026.

Dig deeper: AI and local search: The new rules of visibility and ROI

The local 4.0 journey for enterprise brands

Step 1: Discovery, consistency, and control

Discovery in an AI-driven environment is fundamentally about trust. When data is inconsistent or noisy, AI systems treat it as a risk signal and deprioritize it.

Core elements include:

• Consistency across websites, profiles, directories, and attributes.
• Listings as verification infrastructure.
• Location pages as primary AI data sources.
• Structured data and indexing as the machine clarity layer.

Why ‘legacy’ sources still matter

Listings act as verification infrastructure. Interestingly, research suggests that LLMs often cross-reference data against highly structured legacy directories (such as MapQuest or the Yellow Pages).

While human traffic to these sites has waned, AI systems utilize them as “truth anchors” because their data is rigidly structured and verified.

If your hours are wrong on MapQuest, an AI agent may downgrade its confidence in your Google Business Profile, viewing the discrepancy as a risk.

Discovery is no longer about being crawled. It’s about being trusted and reused. Governance matters because ownership, workflows, and data quality now directly affect brand risk.

Dig deeper: 4 pillars of an effective enterprise AI strategy 

Step 2: Engagement and freshness 

AI systems increasingly reward data that is current, efficiently crawled, and easy to validate.

Stale content is no longer neutral. When an AI system encounters outdated information – such as incorrect hours, closed locations, or unavailable services – it may deprioritize or avoid that entity in future recommendations.

For enterprises, freshness must be operationalized, not managed manually. This requires tightly connecting the CMS with protocols like IndexNow, so updates are discovered and reflected by AI systems in near real time.

Beyond updates, enterprises must deliberately design for local-level engagement and signal velocity. Fresh, locally relevant content – such as events, offers, service updates, and community activity – should be surfaced on location pages, structured with schema, and distributed across platforms.

In an AI-first environment, freshness is trust, and trust determines whether a location is surfaced, reused, or skipped entirely.

Unlocking ‘trapped’ data

A major challenge for enterprise brands is “trapped” data, which is vital information, often locked behind PDFs, menu images, or static event calendars.

For example, a restaurant group may upload a PDF of their monthly live music schedule. To a human, this is visible. To a search crawler, it’s often opaque. In an AI-first era, this data must be extracted and structured.

If an agent cannot read the text inside the PDF, it cannot answer the query: “Find a bar with live jazz tonight.”

Key focus areas include:

• Continuous content freshness.
• Efficient indexing and crawl pathways.
• Dynamic local updates such as events, availability, and offerings.

At enterprise scale, manual workflows break. Freshness is no longer tactical. It’s a competitive requirement.

Dig deeper: Chunk, cite, clarify, build: A content framework for AI search

Step 3: Experience and local relevance

AI does not select the best brand. It selects the location that best resolves intent.

Generic brand messaging consistently loses out to locally curated content. AI retrieval is context-driven and prioritizes specific attributes such as parking availability, accessibility, accepted insurance, or local services.

This exposes a structural problem for many enterprises: information is fragmented across systems and teams.

Solving AI-driven relevance requires organizing data as a context graph. This means connecting services, attributes, FAQs, policies, and location details into a coherent, machine-readable system that maps to customer intent rather than departmental ownership.

Enterprises should also consider omnichannel marketing approaches to achieve consistency.   

Dig deeper: Integrating SEO into omnichannel marketing for seamless engagement

Step 4: Measurement that executives can trust

As AI-driven and zero-click journeys increase, traditional SEO metrics lose relevance. Attribution becomes fragmented across search, maps, AI interfaces, and third-party platforms.

Precision tracking gives way to directional confidence.

Executive-level KPIs should focus on:

• AI visibility and recommendation presence.
• Citation accuracy and consistency.
• Location-level actions (calls, directions, bookings).
• Incremental revenue or lead quality lift.

The goal is not perfect attribution. It’s confidence that local discovery is working and revenue risk is being mitigated.

Dig deeper: 7 focus areas as AI transforms search and the customer journey in 2026

Why local 4.0 needs to be the enterprise response

Fragmentation is a material revenue risk. When local data is inconsistent or disconnected, AI systems have lower confidence in it and are less likely to reuse or recommend those locations.

Treating local data as a living, governed asset and establishing a single, authoritative source of truth early prevents incorrect information from propagating across AI-driven ecosystems and avoids the costly remediation required to fix issues after they scale.

AI-mediated discovery is now the default – and local 4.0 gives enterprises control, confidence, and competitiveness by aligning data, experience, and governance into the AI discovery flywheel.

This isn’t about chasing trends; it’s about ensuring your brand is accurately represented and confidently chosen wherever customers discover you next.

Dig deeper: How to select a CMS that powers SEO, personalization and growth

Local 4.0 is integral to the localized AI discovery flywheel

AI-mediated discovery is becoming the default interface between customers and local brands.

Local 4.0 provides a framework for control, confidence, and competitiveness in that environment. It aligns data, experience, and governance around how AI systems actually operate through reasoning, verification, and reuse.

This is not about chasing AI trends. It’s about ensuring your brand is correctly represented and confidently recommended wherever customers discover you next.

Nvidia reportedly makes a 30% cut to its planned GPU supply in China A report on Board Channels has claimed that Nvidia is reducing its supply of GPUs by 30% in China. Currently, it is unknown how Nvidia’s GPU supply is impacted in other regions. If this report is true, Nvidia’s supply of GPUs may […]

The post Nvidia makes heavy cuts to GPU supply in China – Report appeared first on OC3D.

Vitalityfit is an independent comparison portal for over-the-counter medicines, cosmetics, and health products in Germany. It aggregates daily prices from over 50 verified online pharmacies and shops, allows you to order directly with merchants, and helps you save 20–30% on average. You can search by product, ingredient, or symptom, track multiple items with a wishlist, and browse guides to buy safely. Vitalityfit launched in 2019 and is free to use on the web and mobile apps (iOS and Android).

View startup

Runo is a running metronome that turns your target cadence into an audible beat so you can maintain pace without looking at your wrist. Set exact steps per minute from 120 to 220, layer the beat over music or podcasts, and review run history to track cadence trends. Runo syncs with Strava, connects to Bluetooth heart rate monitors, and includes an Apple Watch app with optional haptic cues. You can train with friends on leaderboards and build a consistent stride that improves efficiency and reduces injury risk.

View startup

After it was rumoured to appear during today's Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase, once the showcase started, it didn't take too long for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth to appear, with a new trailer showcasing the second entry in the FFVII Remake Trilogy on Nintendo Switch 2, and a release date, with it arriving almost precisely as predicted: on June 3, 2026. Two weeks ago, the reliable insider NateTheHate pointed to Final Fantasy VII Rebirth arriving on Nintendo Switch 2 and Xbox Series X/S sometime this year. Following that, yesterday, ahead of today's Partner Showcase, NateTheHate pointed to Rebirth appearing at today's […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/final-fantasy-vii-rebirth-arrives-on-nintendo-switch-2-this-june/

NVIDIA's plans for this year's consumer GPU launches are unclear, but a new report says the RTX 50 SUPER series won't launch at all. NVIDIA's Consumer GPU Plans Are Currently Under Jeopardy, Driven by Memory Supply Constraints The DRAM supply shortage has forced GPU manufacturers to revise their roadmaps, leading to significant disruptions in many future launches. At this year's CES, we saw no talk about next-gen consumer GPUs at all, and the main reason is simply that getting the necessary chips has become difficult. Now, according to The Information, NVIDIA has "no plans" to launch a new GPU this […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/nvidia-reportedly-wont-launch-the-rtx-50-super-series-this-year/

Apple's upcoming low-cost MacBook is one of the year's most anticipated consumer devices. And, in what constitutes a nod to the ongoing memory crisis, the device will feature reduced RAM to preserve its low retail price. Apple's low-cost MacBook to retail at between $699 and $799 As per the reporting by Taiwan's Mirror Daily, Apple's upcoming low-cost MacBook is expected to sport the A18 Pro chip, the same SoC that powers the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max, and remains comparable to the M1 chip in performance. Surprisingly, and in what likely constitutes a nod to the constrained memory supply, […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/apples-low-cost-macbook-to-sport-a-reduced-8gb-ram-as-memory-crisis-bites-and-a-price-of-between-699-and-799/

As part of the company's third-quarter financial results, which revealed that the PS5 has sold over 92.2 million units as of December 31, 2025, and that Ghost of Yotei's launch sales managed to surpass the sales of Ghost of Tsushima, we also got an update from Sony's chief financial officer Lin Tao about how the company is handling the ongoing memory shortage crisis. The answer, which will delight anyone who was perhaps planning to pick up a PS5 in 2026, is that Sony has defended itself against the shortages - for now. "As for securing a supply of memory, we […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/sony-memory-shortages-ps5-ps5-pro/

NVIDIA's GeForce NOW cloud gaming service is turning six this month. As you might recall, it launched right as the COVID-19 pandemic started spreading globally in February 2020. The service has undoubtedly greatly improved over the last few years, convincing more publishers to bring their games to the cloud and also continuously improving the backend technology to raise the bar for cloud gaming, as they did a few months ago with the RTX Blackwell upgrade. NVIDIA took the opportunity to confirm that GFN users have streamed over one billion hours of gameplay to date. Given the ongoing memory shortage, it […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/geforce-now-turns-six-users-streamed-over-1b-hours-to-date/

The inner display belonging to the iPhone Fold is one of the most complex pieces present in Apple’s first foldable smartphone, with the technology giant previously reported to be experiencing technical problems in eliminating the crease, which is an area that was earlier said to have been addressed by the company. As the firm explores Ultra-Thin Glass (UTG) panels of varying thickness, a fresh report states that Apple is also mulling the use of a polyimide film (PI) placed on top of this glass to improve scratch resistance. Assuming this is what the Cupertino firm is planning, the iPhone Fold will be […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/iphone-fold-being-explored-with-polyimide-film-for-utg-for-better-scratch-resistance/

SpaceX is fast becoming a pivotal cornerstone of Elon Musk's almost unbounded space-related ambitions. Just last week, the mega-billionaire effected the $250 billion acquisition of xAI by SpaceX, bestowing a valuation of $1 trillion on SpaceX in the process and unlocking the preliminary stages of AI datacenters in space. Yet, Elon Musk's ambitions vis-à-vis SpaceX continue to grow, and might soon encompass a dedicated Starlink phone. SpaceX might launch a dedicated Starlink phone to corner the market for satellite-connected devices As per a report from Reuters, SpaceX is mulling the launch of a dedicated Starlink phone, quoting three different sources […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/spacex-tipped-to-launch-its-own-starlink-phone-as-elon-musks-ambitions-grow-ever-bolder/

The company has started investigations to mitigate Ryzen 9000 CPU failures on AMD AM5 motherboards. ASRock Starts Internal Reviews and "Rigorous" Verifications for Ryzen 9000; BIOS Optimizations are Also Being Carried Out If you have been reading our reports on Ryzen 9000 series CPUs, you might be aware that most deaths happened on ASRock motherboards. While 800 series motherboards remain the number one killer of Ryzen 9000 CPUs, some reports have also surfaced on the 600 series motherboards. Ryzen 9000 CPU failures aren't uncommon, and it's not just limited to ASRock motherboards, but in comparison with other vendors, ASRock's AM5 […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/asrock-issues-official-statement-regarding-ryzen-9000-series-cpu-failures-on-its-am5-motherboards/

Right now, it’s hard to find a marketing conversation that doesn’t include two letters: AI.

SEOs, strategists, and marketing leaders everywhere are asking the same question in different ways:

• How do we use AI to cut manpower, streamline work, move faster, and boost efficiency?

Much of that thinking makes sense. If you run a business, you can’t ignore a tool that turns hours of grunt work into minutes. You’d be foolish to try.

But we’re spending too much time asking, “Can AI do this?” and not enough time asking, “Should AI do this?”

Once the initial excitement fades, some uncomfortable questions show up.

• If every title tag, meta description, landing page, and blog post comes from AI, where does differentiation come from?
• If every outreach email, proposal, and report is machine-generated, what happens to trust?
• If AI agents start talking to other AI agents on our behalf, what happens to judgment, creativity, and the human side of business?

This isn’t anti-AI. I use AI. My team uses AI. You probably do, too.

This is about using AI well, using it intentionally, and not automating so much that you accidentally automate away the things that make you valuable.

What ‘automating too much’ looks like in SEO

The slippery part of automation? It rarely starts with big decisions. It starts with small ones that feel harmless.

First, you automate the boring admin. Then the repetitive writing. Then the analysis. Then client communication. Then, quietly, decision-making.

In SEO, “too much” often looks like this:

• Meta titles and descriptions generated at scale, with barely any review.
• Content briefs created by AI from SERP summaries, then passed straight to an AI writer for drafting.
• On-page changes rolled out across templates because “the model recommended it.”
• Link building outreach written by AI, sent at volume, and ignored at volume.
• Reporting that is technically accurate but disconnected from what the business actually cares about.

If this sounds harsh, that’s because it happens fast.

The promise is always “we’ll save time.” What usually happens is you save time and lose something else. Most often, you lose the sense that your marketing has a brain behind it.

The sameness problem: if everyone uses the same tools, who wins?

This is the question I keep coming back to.

If everyone uses AI to create everything, the web fills up with content that looks and sounds the same. It might be polished. It might even be technically “good.” But it becomes interchangeable.

That creates two problems:

• Users get bored. They read one page, then another, and it’s the same advice dressed up with slightly different words. You might win a click. You’ll struggle to build a relationship.
• Search engines and language models still need ways to tell you apart. When content converges, the real differentiators become things like:
  • Brand recognition.
  • Original data or firsthand experience.
  • Clear expertise and accountability.
  • Signals that other people trust you.
  • Distinct angles and opinions.

The irony?

Heavy automation often strips those things out. It produces “fine” content quickly, but it also produces content that could have come from anyone.

If your goal is authority, being indistinguishable isn’t neutral. It’s a liability.

When AI starts quoting AI, reality gets blurry

This is where things start to get strange.

We’re already heading into a world where AI tools summarize content, other tools re-summarize those summaries, and someone publishes the result as if it’s new insight. It becomes a loop.

If you’ve ever asked a tool to write a blog post and it felt familiar but hard to place, that’s usually why. It isn’t creating knowledge from scratch. It’s remixing patterns.

Now imagine that happening at scale. Search engines crawl pages. Models summarize them. Businesses publish new pages based on those summaries. Agents use those pages to answer questions. Repeat.

Remove humans from the loop for too long, and you risk an internet that feels like it’s talking to itself. Plenty of words. Very little substance.

From an SEO perspective, that’s a serious problem. When the web floods with similar information, value shifts away from “who wrote the neatest explanation” and toward “who has something real to add.”

That’s why I keep coming back to the same point. The question isn’t “can AI do this?” It’s “should we use AI here, or should a human own this?”

The creativity and judgment problem

There’s a quieter risk we don’t talk about enough.

If you let AI write every proposal, every contract, every strategy deck, and every content plan, you start outsourcing judgment.

You may still be the one who clicks “generate” and “send,” but the thinking has moved somewhere else.

Over time, you lose the habit of critical thinking. Not because you can’t think, but because you stop practicing. It’s the same way GPS makes you worse at directions. You can still drive, but you stop building the skill.

In SEO, judgment is one of our most valuable assets. Knowing:

• What to prioritize.
• What to ignore.
• When a dip is normal and when it is a warning sign.
• When the data is lying because the tracking is broken.

AI can support decisions, but it can’t own them. If you automate that away, you risk becoming a delivery machine instead of a strategist. And authority doesn’t come from delivery.

The trust problem: clients do not just buy outputs

Here’s a reality check agency owners feel in their bones.

Clients don’t stay because you can do the work. They stay because they:

• Trust you.
• Feel looked after.
• Believe you have their best interests at heart.
• Like working with you.

It’s business, but it’s still human.

When you automate too much of the client experience, your service can start to feel cheap. Not in price, but in care.

• If every email sounds generated, clients notice.
• If every report is a generic summary with no opinion, clients notice.
• If every deliverable looks like it came straight from a tool, clients start asking why they are paying you instead of the tool.

The same thing happens in-house. Stakeholders want confidence. They want interpretation. They want someone to say, “This is what matters, and this is what we should do next.”

AI is excellent at producing outputs. It isn’t good at reassurance, context, or accountability. Those are human services, even when the work is digital.

The accuracy and responsibility problem

If you automate content production without proper oversight, eventually you’ll publish something wrong.

Sometimes it’s small. A definition that is slightly off. A stat that is outdated. A recommendation that doesn’t fit the situation.

Sometimes it’s serious. Incorrect medical advice. Legal misinformation. Financial guidance that should never have gone live.

Even in low-risk niches, accuracy matters. When your content is wrong, trust erodes. When it’s wrong with confidence, trust disappears faster.

The more you scale AI output, the harder quality control becomes. That is where automation turns dangerous. You can produce content at speed, but you may not spot the decay until performance drops or, worse, a customer calls it out publicly.

Authority is fragile. It takes time to build and seconds to lose. Automation increases that risk because mistakes don’t stay small. They scale.

The confidentiality problem that nobody wants to admit

This is the part that often gets brushed aside in the rush to “implement AI.”

SEO and marketing work regularly involves sensitive information—sales data, customer feedback, conversion rates, pricing strategies, internal documents, and product roadmaps. Paste that into an AI tool without thinking, and you create risk.

Sometimes that risk is contractual. Sometimes it’s regulatory. Sometimes it’s reputational.

Even if your AI tools are configured securely, you still need an internal policy. Nothing fancy. Just clear rules on what can and can’t be shared, who can approve it, and how outputs are reviewed.

If you’re building authority as a brand, the last thing you want is to lose trust because you treated sensitive information casually in the name of efficiency.

The window of opportunity, and why it will not last forever

Right now, there’s a window. Most businesses are still learning how to use AI well. That gives brands that move carefully a real edge.

That window won’t stay open.

In a few years, the market will be flooded with AI-generated content and AI-assisted services. The tools will be cheaper and more accessible. The baseline will rise.

When that happens, “we use AI” won’t be a differentiator anymore. It’ll sound like saying, “we use email.”

The real differentiator will be how you use it.

Do you use AI to churn out more of the same?

Or do you use it to buy back time so you can create things others can’t?

That’s the opportunity. AI can strip out the grunt work and give you time back. What you do with that time is where authority is built.

Where SEO fits in: less doing, more directing

I suspect the SEO role is shifting.

Not away from execution entirely, but away from being valued purely for output. When a tool can generate a content draft, the value shifts to the person who can judge whether it’s the right draft — for the right audience, with the right angle, on the right page, at the right time.

In other words, the SEO becomes a director, not just a doer.

That looks like this:

• Knowing which content is worth creating—and which isn’t.
• Understanding the user journey and where search fits into it.
• Building content strategies anchored in real business value.
• Designing workflows that protect quality while increasing speed.
• Helping teams use AI responsibly without removing human judgment.

If you’re trying to build authority, this shift is good news. It rewards expertise and judgment. It rewards people who can see the bigger picture and make decisions that go beyond “more content.”

The upside: take away the grunt work, keep the thinking

AI is excellent at certain jobs. And if we’re honest, a lot of SEO work is repetitive and draining. That’s where AI shines.

AI can help you:

• Summarize and cluster keyword research faster.
• Create first drafts of meta descriptions that a human then edits properly.
• Turn messy notes into a structure you can actually work with.
• Generate alternative title options quickly so you can choose the strongest one.
• Create scripts for short videos or webinars from existing material.
• Analyze patterns in performance data and flag areas worth investigating.
• Speed up technical tasks like regex, formulas, documentation, and QA checklists.

This is the sweet spot. Use AI to reduce friction and strip out the boring work. Then spend your time on the things that actually create differentiation.

In my experience, the best use of AI in SEO isn’t replacing humans. It’s giving humans more time to do the human parts properly.

Personalization: The dream and the risk

There’s a lot of talk about personalized results. A future where each person gets answers tailored to their preferences, context, history, and intent.

That future may arrive. In some ways, it’s already here. Search results and recommendations aren’t neutral. They’re shaped by behavior and patterns.

Personalization could be great for users. It also raises the bar for brands.

If every user sees a slightly different answer, it gets harder to compete with generic content. Generic content fades into the background because it isn’t specific enough to be chosen.

That brings us back to the same truth: unique value wins. Real expertise wins. Original experience wins. Trust wins.

Automation can help you scale personalization — but only if the thinking behind it is solid. Automate personalization badly, and all you get is faster irrelevance.

A practical way to decide what should be automated

So how do we move from “can AI do this?” to “should AI do this?”

The better approach is to decide what must stay human, what can be assisted, and what can be automated safely.

These are the questions I use when making that call:

• What happens if this is wrong? If the cost of being wrong is high, a human needs to own it.
• Is this customer-facing? The more visible it is, the more it should sound like you and reflect your judgment.
• Does this require empathy or nuance? If yes, automate less.
• Does this require your unique perspective? If yes, automate less.
• Is this reversible? If it’s easy to undo, you can afford to experiment.
• Does it involve sensitive information? If yes, tighten control.
• Will automation make us look like everyone else? If yes, be cautious. You may be trading speed for differentiation.

These questions are simple, but they lead to far better decisions than, “the tool can do it, so let’s do it.”

What I would and would not automate in SEO

To make this practical, here’s where I’d draw the line for most teams.

I’d happily automate or heavily assist:

• Early-stage research, like summarizing competitors, clustering topics, and extracting themes from customer feedback.
• Drafting tasks that a human will edit, such as meta descriptions, outlines, and first drafts of support content.
• Repetitive admin work, including documentation, tagging, and reporting templates.
• Technical helper tasks, like formulas, regex, and scripts—as long as a human reviews the output.

I would not fully automate:

• Strategy: Deciding what matters and why.
• Positioning: The angle that gives your brand a clear point of view.
• Final customer-facing messaging: Especially anything that represents your voice and level of care.
• Claims that require evidence: If you can’t prove it, don’t publish it.
• Client relationships: The conversations, reassurance, and trust-building that keep people with you.

If you automate those, you may increase output, but you’ll often decrease loyalty. And loyalty is a form of authority.

The real risk is not AI. It is thoughtlessness.

The biggest risk isn’t that AI will take your job. It’s that you use it in a way that makes you replaceable.

If your brand turns into a machine that churns out generic output, it becomes hard to care.

• Hard for search engines to prioritize.
• Hard for language models to cite.
• Hard for clients to justify paying for.

If you want to build authority, you have to protect what makes you different. Your judgment. Your experience. Your voice. Your evidence. Your relationships.

AI can help if you use it to create space for better thinking. It can hurt if you use it to avoid thinking altogether.

Human involvement

It’s easy to get excited about AI doing everything. Saving on headcount. Producing output 24/7. Removing bottlenecks.

But the more important question is what you lose when you remove too much human involvement. Do you lose:

• Differentiation?
• Trust?
• The ability to think critically?
• The relationships that keep clients loyal?

For most of us, the goal isn’t more marketing. The goal is marketing that works — for people we actually want to work with — in a way we can be proud of.

So yes, ask, “Can AI do this?” It’s a useful question.

Then ask, “Should AI do this?” That’s the one that protects your authority.

And if you’re unsure, start small. Automate the grunt work. Keep the thinking. Keep the voice. Keep the care.

That’s how you get the best of AI without automating away what makes you valuable.

As AI-driven bidding and automation transform paid media, first-party data has become the most powerful lever advertisers control.

In this conversation with Search Engine Land, Julie Warneke, founder and CEO of Found Search Marketing, explained why first-party data now underpins profitable advertising — no matter how Google’s position on third-party cookies evolves.

What first-party data really is — and isn’t

First-party data is customer information that an advertiser owns directly, usually housed in a CRM. It includes:

• Lead details.
• Purchase history.
• Revenue.
• Customer value collected through websites, forms, or physical locations.

It doesn’t include platform-owned or browser-based data that advertisers can’t fully control.

Why first-party data matters more than ever

Digital advertising has moved from paying for impressions, to clicks, to actions — and now to outcomes. The real goal is no longer conversions alone, but profitable conversions, according to Warneke.

As AI systems process far more signals than humans can handle, advertisers who supply high-quality customer data gain a clear advantage.

CPCs may rise — but profitability can too

Rising cost-per-clicks are a fact of paid media. First-party data doesn’t always reduce CPCs, but it improves what matters more: conversion quality, revenue, and return on ad spend.

By optimizing for downstream business outcomes instead of surface-level metrics, advertisers can justify higher costs with stronger results.

How first-party data improves ROAS

When advertisers feed Google data tied to revenue and customer value, AI bidding systems can prioritize users who resemble high-value customers — often using signals far beyond demographics or geography.

The result is traffic that converts better, even if advertisers never see or control the underlying signals.

Performance Max leads the way

Among campaign types, Performance Max (PMax) currently benefits the most from first-party data activation.

PMax performs best when advertisers move away from manual optimizations and instead focus on supplying accurate, consistent data, then let the system learn, Warneke noted.

SMBs aren’t locked out — but they need the right setup

Small and mid-sized businesses aren’t disadvantaged by limited first-party data volume. Warneke shared examples of success with customer lists as small as 100 records.

The real hurdle for SMBs is infrastructure — specifically proper tracking, consent management, and reliable data pipelines.

The biggest mistakes advertisers are making

Two issues stand out:

• Weak data capture: Many brands still depend on browser-side tracking, which increasingly fails — especially on iOS.
• Broken feedback loops: Others upload CRM data sporadically instead of building continuous data flows that let AI systems learn and improve over time.

What marketers should do next

Warneke’s advice: Step back and audit how data is captured, stored, and sent back to platforms, then improve it incrementally.

There’s no need to overhaul everything at once or risk the entire budget. Even testing with 5–7% of spend can create a learning roadmap that delivers long-term gains.

Bottom line

AI optimizes toward the signals it receives — good or bad. Advertisers who own and refine their first-party data can shape outcomes in their favor, while those who don’t risk being optimized into inefficiency.

Intel’s ARC B390 graphics chip delivers console-like performance in Alan Wake 2, despite using higher game settings Intel’s Panther Lake ARC B390 graphics chip has been benchmarked against Microsoft’s Xbox Series S in Alan Wake 2, with Digital Foundry reporting strong performance from Intel’s integrated graphics. At both 30W and 45W TDPs, Intel’s iGPU delivered […]

The post Intel Panther Lake graphics deliver console-like performance in Alan Wake 2 appeared first on OC3D.

TSMC is now looking to expand its fab operations in Kumamoto, Japan, as the chip giant now plans to introduce 3nm production lines, a massive upgrade from the previous plans. TSMC's Japan & US Projects Will Be On Par In Terms of Process Technologies Being Produced Within the Same Timeline The Taiwan chip giant has realized that expanding production in Taiwan alone won't do the job, given the gigantic node demand from the AI sector. More specifically, it is the advanced processes that are in significant demand by HPC customers, which is why production lines responsible for nodes like 3nm […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/tsmcs-japan-plans-are-now-looking-much-more-aggressive/

Starfield was the first unfortunate victim of Microsoft's acquisition of Bethesda, as the open-world space role-playing game was the first title from the studio in years to not hit a PlayStation console. However, things have changed a lot since the game's release, and with Microsoft's multiplatform pivot, it's only a matter of time until every previous Xbox console exclusive hits PlayStation 5. Now, after a rumored internal delay into 2026, it seems like the wait for Starfield to land on Sony's current-generation console is reportedly close to an end. In a new report shared today, Polish publication PPE revealed that […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/prepare-your-spaceships-starfield-is-reportedly-landing-on-playstation-5-in-april-2026/

Despite no official driver that supports Intel MFG on the Alchemist series, this user was able to turn it on using a quick copy-and-paste method. YouTuber Enables Intel Multi-Frame Generation on Arc A380 Using Simple Driver Modification; Unlocks Triple-Digit Frame Rates in Cyberpunk 2077 Intel's new XeSS3 Multi-Frame Generation feature has been announced for all the Arc GPUs, including the first generation of Arc graphics. However, the official driver for the older hardware hasn't been rolled out yet. It's a similar story for the Arc B series, which will soon get the XeSS 3 MFG support, but right now, users […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/intel-xess-3-multi-frame-generation-turned-on-intel-arc-a380-via-user-workaround/

Safely run even rm -rf / — all in your browser.

Discussion | Link

picAId turns ordinary property photos into professional-looking images. Upload photos from your phone and get enhanced results that improve lighting, color, and clarity for MLS and marketing. Agents and sellers save time and avoid expensive shoots while maintaining consistent, polished visuals across listings.

View startup

Nintendo is wasting no time in 2026. Following the successful launch of the Nintendo Switch 2 and its launch window games, the Japanese company returned with its Partner Showcase format to highlight the third-party titles coming to both the new hardware and the original Switch. Here's everything announced during the event, including new looks at new and already announced games and third-party port announcements. Official Livestream You can watch the full 30-minutes long Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase stream directly below. Every February 2026 Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase Announcement Orbitals The Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase opened with a new look at Orbitals, […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/watch-todays-nintendo-direct-partner-showcase-here-where-to-watch-and-what-to-expect/

Exactly a week after dropping the first 'Features Overview' video dedicated to the open world and story of Crimson Desert, developer Pearl Abyss has released the second entry in the series. The new video dives deep into the action/adventure RPG's combat mechanics and character progression ahead of its March 19, 2026 launch date. The showcase reveals a combat system designed around fluidity, expressiveness, and player choice, combined with progression paths that, according to the developers, will reward exploration and experimentation. At the heart of Crimson Desert's combat are weapon variety and seamless skill chaining. Players can wield an arsenal of […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/crimson-desert-second-features-overview-combat-depth-progression/

Smartphone chipset revenues for MediaTek crossed $10 billion for Q4 2025, with SoCs like the Dimensity 9500 and Dimensity 8500 contributing to those figures as the Taiwanese firm targets a wider adoption of its premium silicon. However, with this segment accounting for a whopping 59 percent of the total quarterly revenue, MediaTek could face some trouble down the road, as previous estimates have stated that the company will face a decline in chipset shipments in 2026, thanks to rising DRAM and NAND flash costs, but will still hold the top position this year over its rivals. A closer look at the […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/mediatek-q4-2025-smartphone-chipset-revenue-made-up-59-percent-of-total/

Sony has posted its own quarterly financial report, revealing that PS5 shipments have now reached 92.2 million units, up from 84.2 million units declared in the previous quarter. This means that Sony sold 8 million PlayStation 5 consoles in its fiscal Q3, a rather significant (-15.8%) decrease from Q3 2024. This is only slightly offset by marginally better PS5 shipments in Q1 and Q2 2025 compared to the previous year. Overall, in FY 2024, Sony had shipped 15.7 million units as of Q3, whereas this year, the total fiscal year sales to date amount to 14.4 million units, or -8.3%. […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/ps5-shipments-92-million-ghost-of-yotei-outsold-tsushima/

Compared to your typical action role-playing game, Nioh 3 is way more complex. Each of the weapons available in the game has extensive movesets that require multiple button combinations to accommodate the huge Martial Arts loadout that has now become typical for the series. While Nioh 3 streamlines the complexity of its predecessor's controls and button combinations, it adds unexpected mechanical challenges that make it difficult to consistently unleash Martial Arts set to specific motion and button combinations. Complete The Shogun's Preparation: change this setting ASAP to improve combat flow and ultimately make fighting enemies more enjoyable. Change the Controls to Type B ASAP […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/how-to/the-shoguns-preparation-change-this-setting-asap-in-nioh-3-to-improve-combat/

A platform for the world to vote on political leaders

Discussion | Link

Your All-in-one AI Copilot for MacOS

Discussion | Link

CLI control to monitor and work with Claude Code remotely

Discussion | Link

Native 4K output with extended video time with just a prompt

Discussion | Link

Full project management inside VS Code, Cursor & Windsurf

Discussion | Link

Your agent's personal remote computer and drive

Discussion | Link

Voice notes to LinkedIn and X viral content in seconds!

Discussion | Link

Built by Therapists, For Therapists

Discussion | Link

Turn code into visual docs, board context into code

Discussion | Link