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Beyond Recognition: LLMs Favor AI Agents & AI-Assisted Content (New Report)

It’s likely I write so much about AI in search because, well, between Google’s ubiquitous overviews and ChatGPT’s emerging rise as an alternative to Google and its most go-to function, search is the easiest entry for the masses to encounter AI.

And while Google doesn’t appear to penalize or reward pages for their use of AI when it comes to search rankings, a recent study found that large language models (LLMs) themselves do prefer content created by other LLMs.

 

The Substack AI Report

Based on our results, a typical AI-using publisher is 45 or over, more likely to be a man, and tends to publish in categories like Technology and Business. He’s not using AI to generate full posts or images. Instead, he’s leaning on it for productivity, research, and to proofread his writing. Most who use AI do so daily or weekly and have been doing so for over six months.

 

AI Bots Bombard Publisher Websites With ‘No Meaningful Value Exchange’

Unwanted AI scraping of publisher websites is placing a costly financial burden on publishers, according to one leading industry executive. Chris Dicker, chief executive of Candr Media Group and board member of the Independent Publishers Alliance, said that the publisher’s Trusted Reviews website was taken down multiple times on 16 August when it was scraped 1.6 million times in a day. This was up from a previous record of 1.2 million scrapes on the site a day earlier.

 

Swatting The Bots: Publishers Are The Most Likely Group To Block Them

It should come as no surprise that other businesses besides publishing are beset by AI bots scraping their sites. But media organizations are most likely to block the offenders, judging by a study from ImmuniWeb.

Steady Traffic Reports: Are AI Search Fears Actually Overblown?

As publishers consider the effects of AI on search — watching their own site analytics, hearing others’ stories, reading the statistics that at times tell multiple sides of the same story — another study has come out that appears to be saying, well, it might be much ado about nothing.

“New data from Chartbeat suggests that ‘search’ as a source of total traffic to major news publishers has remained stable over the last year,” writes Press Gazette’s Charlotte Tobitt of a study that looked at more than six years of traffic for just 565 news sites.

 

AI Google, OpenAI Narrative Shifts: What The Latest Data Reveals

Recent data has reignited debates over artificial intelligence (AI), showcasing moments where human reasoning and creativity surpass top AI models. Meanwhile, data from NP Digital shows most marketers are maintaining or seeing gains in site visits even as debates about AI Overviews stifling publishers rage on.

 

Half Of Journalists Use Generative AI, New Survey Shows

European journalists are increasingly using generative artificial intelligence tools in the newsroom despite concerns the technology could spur fake news and erode trust, a new survey shows. Just more than half of the 286 journalists surveyed in Belgium and the Netherlands said they used generative AI tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT …

 

The State Of Sales And Marketing Report  

Similar to the AI usage patterns we saw among salespeople, marketers also tend to employ the technology for content creation and other communication-related tasks. The top-ranked uses of AI are generating social media posts (62%), ad copy (58%) and blog articles (56%), followed by summarizing content (53%).

Sum And Substance: How Journalism, Earned Media Shape AI Search 

The recent State of Journalism report from Muck Rack highlighted the AI tools that are being used for journalistic work, from generative platforms and transcription tools to those built specifically for their newsrooms.

Now, a new report from Muck Rack is showing how much of a driver that journalistic work is for AI and its search citations, with 95% of links cited found to be non-paid coverage, 27% of which are journalistic content.

 

Google CTRs Are Crashing: Position #1 CTR Down 32% Post AI Overview Rollout

Google organic click-through rates for ranking position #1 dropped from 28% to 19% (32% decline) while that of position #2 dropped from 20.83% to 12.60% (39% decline) from 2024 to 2025. Organic click-through rates for positions #6 to #10 increased in 2025 by 30.63% in 2025 as compared to 2024.

 

The Rise of AI Search Archetypes

Our research [shows] people prefer different platforms for different needs. … Conversational AI is favored for summarized answers (46%), creative ideas (39%), product and service details (45%), and how-to guidance (44%). Search engines still lead for product/service details (70%) and business info (63%). Social media dominates for reviews (48%) — as do traditional search engines through means like Google reviews. 

 

2025 Organic Search Engine Trends

Marketers are adapting to AI overviews. Their focus now? Clear, scannable content that answers questions upfront. Structured data, brand mentions, and conversational formats are more important than ever. The goal isn’t just to rank. It’s to show up in the spots users see first.

Overcoming Silos: How To Best Access And Build Confidence In Interdepartmental Data

Recently, the Marketing Manager blog has been writing about data-confidence. Specifically, how marketers with that sense of confidence were three times more likely to see revenue growth, with those who’ve seen significant growth in the last year also three times more likely to launch campaigns in under 15 days.

A separate study — entitled The State of Data Confidence, from Collibra — shows what can happen when the confidence isn’t there, specifically for the roughly two of every five who lack data confidence “largely because they can’t trust what they can’t see.”

“Data lives in too many places — and worse, by too many rules,” the report says. “Different systems. Different definitions. Different owners. This creates redundant work, misaligned insights and missed opportunities.”

 

Google Users Are Less Likely To Click On Links When An AI Summary Appears In The Results

A Pew Research Center report published this spring analyzed data from 900 U.S. adults who agreed to share their online browsing activity. About six-in-ten respondents (58%) conducted at least one Google search in March 2025 that produced an AI-generated summary. Additional analysis found that Google users were less likely to click on result links when visiting search pages with an AI summary compared with those without one. For searches that resulted in an AI-generated summary, users very rarely clicked on the sources cited.

 

Small-Business Owners In The Know: How They Should Target Gen Z, Other Groups

Consumers love small businesses, and 36% plan to shop at them more this year, while 59% will maintain the same levels as last year, according to The 2025 Small Business Marketing Guide from Vistaprint, conducted by Wix. And small-business owners (SBOs) are gearing up to meet them. They are planning to invest more in traditional marketing (14%), digital marketing (34%), a balance of both (33%), [or] no changes planned (19%).

 

Invisible Influence: Unlocking the Power of Hidden Buyers

In today’s crowded marketplace, high-quality, memorable thought leadership isn’t just a nice-to-have — it’s a critical lever for earning trust, creating differentiation, and winning deals.

Search Spend Trends: How GenAI Is Reshaping Ad Spend

The rapid upheaval around Search — specifically with Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and other generative AI platforms producing more and more zero-click results — has been obvious to users.

Now, signs are starting to show the effect on advertising spend as well.

The recently released 2025 H2 Market Report from Mediaocean found that half of the marketers surveyed are maintaining their Search spend, up from 40% in November 2023, while only 42% are planning on increasing their Search spend, down from 55% during that same time.

 

AI Overviews Cutting Publisher Clickthrough Rates By 50%, New Report Finds

Publishers are seeing a per-query clickthrough rate loss of almost 50% when AI Overviews appears, according to a new study. The research, by AI search and SEO platform Authoritas, measures the impact of AI Overviews on UK publishers’ web traffic, assessing the clickthrough decline across both mobile and desktop.

 

OpenAI’s AI Job Impact Predictions from 2023 Were Scary Accurate, According to Microsoft

Waaay back in the ancient year of 2023, OpenAI published a list of predictions of what jobs will be the most impacted from AI. Well, Microsoft just analyzed 200K real AI conversations to see what people actually use AI for at work. Ethan Mollick pointed out this wild overlap between what experts thought would happen and what’s actually happening. The 2023 paper predicted which jobs AI would affect most, and Microsoft’s data confirms it — with correlation so high it’s almost suspicious. The punchline: Those predictions were 90% accurate.

Top jobs targeted by AI: Interpreters and translators (basically doomed), customer service reps, writers and journalists (ouch).

 

The 2025 B2B Marketing Edge: How Data-Confident Marketers Are Accelerating Growth

Data confidence and revenue growth are closely linked. Marketers who trust the data they use are 3x more likely to see revenue growth. This group also sees more desirable outcomes in pipeline growth, optimization of ROI, and time-to-market.

Bad Data Blues: The Impact Data-Quality Issues Have On CRM Functionality, Bottom Lines, And More

No matter how advanced and intuitive CRMs become, they aren’t immune to bad data or the ensuing garbage in, garbage out consequences.

New research from Validity highlights exactly how much of a negative impact bad data can have, with 37% of the CRM users surveyed saying revenue loss has been a direct consequence of poor data quality.

 

The State of Journalism 2025

77% of journalists are using AI tools. ChatGPT is the most widely adopted tool amongst journalists with 42% saying they have used it for work in the last year. Transcription and writing tools are the next most popular, pulling 40% and 35% respectively.

 

There’s Only One Way The News Industry Will Win In The AI Era: Together

Imagine if your best friend told you that he was going to chuck in his job because he’d acquired some magic beans that he was going to plant and — well you know the rest. But that has been the story of newspapers and the internet. 

 

Direct Mail Magnet: Gen Z And Millennials Especially Like It

It’s time to look at the precursor to email and just about every digital channel — good, old-fashioned direct mail. Younger consumers in particular prefer the channel, according to State of Direct Mail 2025: Consumer Insights Edition, a study from Lob. … Email is the channel most tightly integrated with direct mail.

C-Suite Caution: Is AI Adoption Giving Execs Relief … Or More ROI Pressure?

From a user-standpoint, AI tools continue to evolve into indispensable means of improving work and finding efficiencies. 

A recent survey of C-suite executives by Icertis, however, asks whether that proliferation of AI is creating “relief or more pressure,” as nearly half (46%) said a top concern of theirs is pressure to show ROI on AI investments.

 

Where Do UK ‘Decision Makers’ Get Their News? Publishers, Social Media And AI

Nearly half of UK adults have used AI tools to stay up to date with news and current affairs, according to new research by communications agency Portland. In a major survey it found that 47% of UK adults had used tools such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini to better understand current events. When it comes to ‘decision makers’ (those in senior jobs and leadership positions) the proportion using AI tools to access news rose to 81%.

 

Art Of Personal Incentives In The AI Age

Among respondents at organizations surveyed by Harvard Business Review and sponsored by Talon.One, once they started personalizing promotions and discounts, about 62% say they have seen increased sales as a result. … Forty-seven percent said [it’s] increased customer loyalty, and 44% say it has delivered a better customer experience. 

 

How High-Performing Teams Are Accelerating Marketing Cycles

Yes, marketers are stressed. But the good news? Most of those surveyed also see AI as a potential solution to alleviating that stress. Almost three-quarters of respondents believe that AI can accelerate growth by at least 10%. … While most of those surveyed see AI as a tool for efficiency (66%), just as many marketers also see it as a tool for growth (67%).

Overreach By AI Overviews? Newly Filed Publishers’ Complaint Points To ‘Significant Harm’

You really don’t need to see others’ research and reports to understand that Google’s launch of AI Overviews has had an effect on clicks.

All you need is your own two eyes, watching Google kick back search results that increasingly show less and less clickable links, with traditional organic results buried further and further down the page. Or have a quick glance at your own traffic, likely down considerably as search summaries with zero-click results directly address the matters that had once kept you at the top of the search mountain.

As smart publishers evolve their SEO strategies into GEO strategies, some are going even further, standing up en masse and filing an antitrust complaint against the Big Tech titan.

 

34% of U.S. adults have used ChatGPT, about double the share in 2023

The share of Americans who have used ChatGPT, an AI chatbot released in November 2022, has roughly doubled since summer 2023. Today, 34% of U.S. adults say they have ever used ChatGPT, according to a Pew Research Center survey. … In two years, the share of employed adults who say they use ChatGPT for work has risen by 20 percentage points to 28%.

 

The Line For Business AI: Most Firms Are Not Getting The Full Benefit

Some brands are using AI to create their email, but it is doubtful that they are getting the full benefit of the technology, judging by a study from Zeta, titled It’s Time to Get Serious About AI’s Business Value, conducted by Forrester. Of the companies polled, 62% described their AI implementation as limited or moderate. 

 

2025 State of B2C Marketing

Many brands work with too many fragmented tools, while top performers invest in unified platforms. Al and CRM adoption is on the rise, but many brands lack the integrated data infrastructure to leverage their full capabilities.

The New Age Of Publishing: How AI Tools Are Empowering Diverse Creators

Publishers have always come in all shapes and sizes, but with easily-accessible tools and powerful software platforms putting publishing prowess in the hands of so many, the look of a “publisher” has never been more diverse.

A recent URLgenius survey with the commendable goal of “shining a bright light on the hustle, heart, and high-tech savvy of today’s creators” found that 43% found AI tools to be helping them streamline their workflow. And though 30% hadn’t noticed any impact, 23% said AI makes content creation more accessible and 21% said that content “increases competition.”

 

GenAI and How It’s Impacting U.S. Publishers

Generative AI is reshaping how consumers discover and consume news. As users shift from traditional search to tools like ChatGPT, they’re seeking faster, contextual answers to complex and evolving topics — from market trends to policy developments. As a result, news-related prompts on ChatGPT and zero-click search have surged, while organic traffic to publishers has declined. AI is changing how news is accessed while redefining distribution dynamics. Publishers must now adapt their strategies to stay visible and relevant across AI-powered platforms.

 

CMOs Pursue Productivity Gains As Marketing Budgets Stagnate

Fifty-nine percent of CMOs report they have insufficient budget to execute their strategy in 2025, down by five percentage points since 2024. Although budgets have failed to grow year-on-year, marketing leaders appear to be using their funds in a more productive way. 

 

Marketers Do Better When More People Work On Email

Email is a vital channel, but marketers need to invest in it, especially in personnel, judging by The State of Email 2025, a study by Litmus from Validity. Of the companies polled, 35% see an ROI of 36.1% or more and 9% get between 1:1 and 10:1. But many firms face hurdles in tracking ROI.

AI’s Potential As Digital Ad Spending Sees YoY Decreases

Last week, I wrote about how AI is revolutionizing how strategists approach their email marketing, emphasizing personalized campaigns over social media investments. 

As the Blaze report said, “The more AI-savvy a business becomes, the more they recognize that the unique advantages of AI align perfectly with channels that historically required too much manual effort for small businesses to leverage effectively.”

Looking then at the larger, general grouping of advertisers and marketers, as Nielsen has done with its recent “From Chaos To Clarity” report, it would appear there’s a lot still to be learned from AI.

 

How Audiences Think About News Personalisation In The AI Era

As newsrooms continue to experiment with AI technologies, many are setting their sights on tools to help tackle declining news engagement and growing news avoidance, especially among younger audiences, while also cultivating loyalty among those who already rely on them.

 

The State of SMS Marketing 2025: Adoption, AI Integration, and Future Outlook

AI is affecting every aspect of the world, and SMS marketing is not an exception, with 60.4% of companies actively using AI in their SMS campaigns. This is a result of a preference for personalized content and data-driven communication strategies, from both the industry and the customers.

 

Recession-Proof Marketing: How Small Businesses Are Shifting Social Media Strategy Amid Economic Uncertainty

While less AI-sophisticated businesses are doubling down on traditional social platforms like Facebook and Instagram, those with advanced AI capabilities are increasingly prioritizing personalized email campaigns — a surprising split that reveals how AI maturity is reshaping marketing priorities during economic turbulence.