Anthropic is drawing the line against advertising in AI chatbots. Claude will remain ad-free, the company said, even as rival AI platforms experiment with sponsored messages and branded placements inside conversations.

• Ads inside AI chats would erode trust, warp incentives, and clash with how people actually use assistants like Claude (for work, problem-solving, and sensitive topics), Anthropic said in a new blog post.

Why we care. Anthropic’s position removes Claude, and its user base of 30 million, from the AI advertising equation. Brands shouldn’t expect sponsored links, conversations, or responses inside Claude. Meanwhile, ChatGPT is about to give brands the opportunity to reach an estimated 800 million weekly users.

What’s happening. AI conversations are fundamentally different from search results or social feeds, where users expect a mix of organic and paid content, Anthropic said:

• Many Claude interactions involve personal issues, complex technical work, or high-stakes thinking. Dropping ads into those moments would feel intrusive and could quietly influence responses in ways users can’t easily detect.
• Ad incentives tend to expand over time, gradually optimizing for engagement rather than genuine usefulness.

Incentives matter. This is a business-model decision, not just a product preference, Anthropic said:

• An ad-free assistant can focus entirely on what helps the user — even if that means a short exchange or no follow-up at all.
• An ad-supported model, by contrast, creates pressure to surface monetizable moments or keep users engaged longer than necessary.
• Once ads enter the system, users may start questioning whether recommendations are driven by help or by commerce.

Anthropic isn’t rejecting commerce. Claude will still help users research, compare, and buy products when they ask. The company is also exploring “agentic commerce,” where the AI completes tasks like bookings or purchases on a user’s behalf.

• Commerce should be triggered by the user, not by advertisers, Anthropic said.
• The same rule applies to third-party integrations like Figma or Asana. These tools will remain user-directed, not sponsored.

Super Bowl ad. Anthropic is making the argument publicly and aggressively. In a Super Bowl debut, the company mocked intrusive AI advertising by inserting fake product pitches into personal conversations. The ad closed with a clear message: “Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude.”

• The campaign appears to be a direct shot at OpenAI, which has announced plans to introduce ads into ChatGPT.
• Here’s the ad:

Claude’s blog post. Claude is a space to think

OpenAI responds. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted some thoughts on X. Some of the highlights:

• “…I wonder why Anthropic would go for something so clearly dishonest. Our most important principle for ads says that we won’t do exactly this; we would obviously never run ads in the way Anthropic depicts them. We are not stupid and we know our users would reject that.
• “I guess it’s on brand for Anthropic doublespeak to use a deceptive ad to critique theoretical deceptive ads that aren’t real, but a Super Bowl ad is not where I would expect it.
• “Anthropic serves an expensive product to rich people. We are glad they do that and we are doing that too, but we also feel strongly that we need to bring AI to billions of people who can’t pay for subscriptions.
• “We will continue to work hard to make even more intelligence available for lower and lower prices to our users.”

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The U.S. Justice Department and a coalition of states plan to appeal a federal judge’s remedies ruling in the Google search antitrust case.

The appeal challenges a decision that found Google illegally monopolized search but stopped short of imposing major structural changes, such as forcing a divestiture of Chrome or banning default search deals outright.

What’s happening. The DOJ and state attorneys general filed notices of appeal yesterday, challenging U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta’s September remedies ruling, Bloomberg and Reuters reported.

• Mehta ruled in August 2024 that Google unlawfully maintained its search monopoly through default search agreements with Apple, Samsung, and other device makers. Those deals cost Google more than $20 billion a year and blocked rivals from key distribution channels.
• After a second remedies trial in 2025, Mehta rejected the government’s request to force Google to divest Chrome or prohibit payments for default search status. Instead, he ordered Google to rebid its default search and AI app contracts annually.

Why we care. The appeal means we still don’t know how much Google will keep controlling where search gets placed. And that control basically decides who wins traffic. If stricter fixes happen, it could change default search settings, open the door to rival search engines, and shift how people use search across devices.

Yes, but. The DOJ and states haven’t detailed their legal arguments. Court filings didn’t specify which parts of the ruling they will challenge, though attention is expected to focus on Chrome and Google’s default search deal with Apple.

What to watch. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is expected to hear the case later this year. For now, it’s business as usual for Google — though its most important contracts now face annual review, and the risk of tougher remedies remains firmly on the table.

What they’re saying. David Segal, Yelp’s vice president of public policy, welcomed the appeal. In a statement shared with Search Engine Land, Yelp said the trial court’s remedies do not go far enough to restore real competition in search:

• “Unfortunately, the measures put forth in the trial court’s remedy decision are unlikely to restore competition — for instance, it allows for Google to continue to pay third parties for default placement in browsers and devices, which was the primary mechanism by which Google unlawfully foreclosed competition to begin with.
• “Internet users, online advertisers and others who rely on and seek to compete in the industry deserve a level playing field with more, higher quality, and fairer search options — and the need for a more competitive space is all the more clear as Google seeks to leverage its vast power over the web, especially search indexing and ranking, to come to dominate the GenAI space.”

Google may finally be starting to address a popular SEO and AI visibility “tactic”: self-promotional “best of” listicles. That’s according to new research by Lily Ray, vice president, SEO strategy and research at Amsive.

Across several SaaS brands hit hard in January, a pattern emerged. Many relied heavily on review-style content that ranked their own product as the No. 1 “best” in its category, often updated with the current year to trigger recency signals.

What’s happening. After the December 2025 core update, Google search results showed increased volatility throughout January, according to Barry Schwartz. Google hasn’t announced or confirmed any updates this year, but the timing aligns with steep visibility losses at several well-known SaaS and B2B brands. According to Ray:

• In multiple cases, organic visibility dropped 30% to 50% within weeks. The losses were not domain-wide. They were concentrated in blog, guide, and tutorial subfolders.
• Those sections often contained dozens or hundreds of self-promotional listicles targeting “best” queries. In most cases, the publisher ranked itself first. Many of the articles were lightly refreshed with “2026” in the title, with little evidence of meaningful updates.
• “Presumably, these drops in Google organic results will also impact visibility across other LLMs that leverage Google’s search results, which extends beyond Google’s ecosystem of AI search products like Gemini and AI Mode [and AI Overviews], but is also likely to include ChatGPT,” Ray wrote.

Why we care. Self-promotional listicles have been a shortcut for influencing rankings and AI-generated answers. If Google is now reevaluating how it treats this content, any strategies built around “best” queries are in danger of imploding.

The gray area. Ranking yourself as the “best” without independent testing, clear methodology, or third-party validation has been considered (by most) to be a sketchy SEO tactic. It isn’t explicitly banned, but it definitely conflicts with Google’s guidance on reviews and trust.

• Google has repeatedly said that high-quality reviews should show first-hand experience, originality, and evidence of evaluation. Self-promotional listicles often fall short, especially when bias is not disclosed.

Yes, but. Self-promotional listicles likely weren’t the only factor impacting organic visibility. Many affected sites also showed signs of rapid content scaling, automation, aggressive year-based refreshes, and other tactics tied to algorithmic risk.

• That said, the consistency of self-ranking “best” content among the hardest-hit sites suggests this signal could now carry more weight, especially when used at scale.

What to watch. Whether self-promotional listicles earn citations and organic visibility. Google rarely applies changes evenly or instantly.

• If this volatility reflects updates to Google’s reviews system, the direction is clear. Content designed primarily to influence rankings, rather than to provide credible and independent evaluation, is becoming a liability.
• For brands chasing visibility in search and AI, the lesson is familiar: SEO shortcuts work until they don’t.

The analysis. Is Google Finally Cracking Down on Self-Promotional Listicles?

AI-powered search gutted LinkedIn’s B2B awareness traffic. Across a subset of topics, non-brand organic visits fell by as much as 60% even while rankings stayed stable, the company said.

• LinkedIn is moving past the old “search, click, website” model and adopting a new framework: “Be seen, be mentioned, be considered, be chosen.”

By the numbers. In a new article, LinkedIn said its B2B organic growth team started researching Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) in early 2024. By early 2025, when SGE evolved into AI Overviews, the impact became significant.

• Non-brand, awareness-driven traffic declined by up to 60% across a subset of B2B topics.
• Rankings stayed stable, but click-through rates fell (by an undisclosed amount).

Yes, but. LinkedIn’s “new learnings” are more like a rehash of established SEO/AEO best practices. Here’s what LinkedIn’s content-level guidance consists of:

• Use strong headings and a clear information hierarchy.
• Improve semantic structure and content accessibility.
• Publish authoritative, fresh content written by experts.
• Move fast, because early movers get an edge.

Why we care. These tactics should all sound familiar. These are technical SEO and content-quality fundamentals. LinkedIn’s article offers little new in terms of tactics. It’s just updated packaging for modern SEO/AEO and AI visibility.

Dig deeper. How to optimize for AI search: 12 proven LLM visibility tactics

Measurement is broken. LinkedIn said its big challenge is the “dark” funnel. It can’t quantify how visibility in LLM answers impacts the bottom line, especially when discovery happens without a click.

• LinkedIn’s B2B marketing websites saw triple-digit growth in LLM-driven traffic and that it can track conversion from those visits.
  • Yes, but: Many websites are also seeing triple-digit (or more) growth in LLM-driven traffic. Because it’s an emerging channel. That said, this is still a tiny amount of overall traffic right now (1% or less for most sites).

What LinkedIn is doing. LinkedIn created an AI Search Taskforce spanning SEO, PR, editorial, product marketing, product, paid media, social, and brand. Key actions included:

• Correcting misinformation that showed up in AI responses.
• Publishing new owned content optimized for generative visibility.
• Testing LinkedIn (social) content to validate its strength in AI discovery.

Is it working? LinkedIn said early tests produced a meaningful lift in visibility and citations, especially from owned content. At least one external datapoint (Semrush, Nov. 10, 2025) suggested that LinkedIn has a structural advantage in AI search:

• Google AI Mode cited LinkedIn in roughly 15% of responses.
• LinkedIn was the #2 most-cited domain in that dataset, behind YouTube.

Incomplete story. LinkedIn’s article is an interesting read, but it’s light on specifics. Missing details include:

• The exact topic set behind the “up to 60%” decline.
• Exactly how much click-through rates “softened.”
• Sample size and timeframe.
• How “industry-wide” comparisons were calculated.
• What tests were run, what moved citation share, and by how much.

Bottom line. LinkedIn is right that visibility is the new currency. However, it hasn’t shown enough detail to prove its new playbook is meaningfully different from doing some SEO (yes, SEO) fundamentals.

LinkedIn’s article. How LinkedIn Marketing Is Adapting to AI-Led Discovery