Google has added a new metadata field to the Search Analytics API, making it easier for developers and SEO professionals to identify when they’re working with incomplete or still-processing data.
The update introduces new transparency into the freshness of query results, an improvement for marketers who rely on up-to-date metrics to inform real-time decisions.
The metadata field appears when requests include the dataState parameter set to all or hourly_all, enabling access to data that may still be in the process of being collected.
Two metadata values are now available:
Both values help clarify whether recent metrics can be considered stable or if they may still change as Google finalizes its processing.
This enhancement allows you to better distinguish between legitimate changes in search performance and temporary gaps caused by incomplete data.
To help reduce the risk of misinterpreting short-term fluctuations, Google’s documentation states:
“All values after the first_incomplete_date may still change noticeably.”
For those running automated reports, the new metadata enables smarter logic, such as flagging or excluding fresh but incomplete data to avoid misleading stakeholders.
All timestamps provided in the metadata field use the America/Los_Angeles time zone, regardless of the request origin or property location. Developers may need to account for this when integrating the data into local systems.
The new metadata is returned as an optional object and doesn’t alter existing API responses unless requested. This means no breaking changes for current implementations, and developers can begin using the feature as needed.
To take full advantage of this update:
Google also reminds users that the Search Analytics API continues to return only top rows, not a complete dataset, due to system limitations.
This small but meaningful addition gives SEO teams more clarity around data freshness, a frequent pain point when working with hourly or near-real-time performance metrics.
It’s a welcome improvement for anyone building tools or dashboards on top of the Search Console API.
The metadata field is available now through standard API requests. Full implementation details are available in the Search Analytics API documentation.
Featured Image: Roman Samborskyi/Shutterstock
ADWEEK today officially launched the Marketing Vanguard membership program for CMOs, an invitation-only executive club rooted in ADWEEK’s editorial expertise and designed to provide access, intelligence, and influence for industry-leading, innovative, brand-side C-level marketers.
Founding Members include Emilie Cotter, CMO, Audi; Tim Ellis, CMO, NFL; George Felix, senior vice president and CMO, Chili’s; Stephanie Fried, executive vice president and CMO, McAfee; Krystal Hauserman, CMO, Consulting, NOYZ; Charisse Hughes, senior vice president and chief growth officer, Kellanova; Soyoung Kang, CMO, eos; Todd Kaplan, CMO North America, Kraft Heinz; Mark Kirkham, CMO, PepsiCo Beverages U.S.; Francine Li, CMO, Ipsy; Vineet Mehra, CMO, Chime; Jim Mollica, president of luxury audio and CMO, Bose Corp.; Maggie Schmerin, chief advertising officer, United Airlines; Marisa Thalberg, chief customer and marketing officer, Catalyst Brands; Mark Weinstein, CMO, Hilton; and more.
Membership is limited, requested by application, and includes a mix of events, content, networking, mentorship, and other offerings.
The three pillars of membership include:
While Marketing Vanguard membership is not category exclusive, it is open solely to brand-side CMOs or people with equivalent titles who are invited or selected to join by application or nomination. Carefully curated, it will include CMOs at both large multinationals and smaller, disruptive growth companies, as well as CMOs at B2C and B2B brands, creating an environment of different perspectives and strategies.
“With Marketing Vanguard membership, ADWEEK is going deep to support this influential, incredibly dynamic cohort of our audience, the leaders at the center of the industry: CMOs,” said Jenny Rooney, chief brand and community officer, ADWEEK. “CMOs face unique challenges and opportunities. Marketing Vanguard—powered by the editorial heft of our newsroom, pulling insights from our journalism to inform our discussions, programming, events, experiences, and education offerings—will deliver unmatched value at a time of unprecedented industry overhaul,” she said, adding that the Founding Members will help shape the offering. “This is a club built by CMOs, for CMOs.”
In February, ADWEEK hired Liz Kneebone as vice president of community programs and development to lead the creation of the membership initiative.
Kneebone was previously vice president of the Sustainability Collective and global CMO Growth Council at the Association of National Advertisers (CMO).
In her nearly three years with the ANA, Kneebone organized gatherings of CMOs at events such as Cannes Lions and the IAA World Congress; helped increase membership in the Global CMO Growth Council by more than 100; and launched the ANA Sustainability Collective, which is now composed of more than 400 marketing practitioners dedicated to driving inclusive and sustainable business growth.
“The industry doesn’t need just another CMO community—it needs a resource that’s deeply connected to what’s happening now, as leaders make decisions that define the future of their brands in real time,” says Kneebone. “Marketing Vanguard offers a seat at the table with the executives who aren’t just reacting to change—they’re driving it.”
The result was looking past glyphs as pure aesthetics but symbols of curiosity and boldness. Rounding the forms of the ‘a’ and ‘g’, Olivia and her team designed the typeface to be friendly and approachable, echoing the accessible nature of Penguin’s books. Subtle flicks in other letters add a sense of movement and liveliness, meanwhile, small details in the glyph set offer observant readers moments of delight, such as curvy characters such as ‘2’, ‘G’ or ‘?’ following the same form as a penguin’s wings.
Committed to Penguin’s reader-first goals, the complete character set includes four weights in both roman and italic styles, comprising 530 glyphs that support over 600 languages, creating space for ultimate accessibility. “Type designers have a unique chance to make inclusivity part of the default approach rather than an exception. It’s another design consideration – one that can inspire better solutions,” says Olivia. “That was at the core of why Penguin wanted to customise Inclusive Sans. The brand was built on the idea of making books accessible to everyone, and that mission still feels relevant today.” Olivia’s high-spirited typeface sets the precedent for other designers to usher in a new age of accessible fonts and visual identities that represent all. The more people who have access to knowledge, stories and reading, the more of an impact they can have on the world.
“This project has been incredibly humbling and rewarding. Even now, it feels surreal to have contributed to a brand with such an important typographic and literary history,” says Olivia. From Penguin’s titanic archives to modern typeface applications, Olivia and her team have transformed the tried and true into the proud and new, offering the world new perspectives in the art of typography. “The most meaningful part was knowing that this typeface will help make reading more accessible and enjoyable for more people,” says Olivia. “It’s a rare opportunity to design something that can have a lasting, positive impact.”
Google’s John Mueller and Martin Splitt discussed the question of whether AI will replace the need for SEO. Mueller expressed a common-sense opinion about the reality of the web ecosystem and AI chatbots as they exist today.
The context of the discussion was about SEO basics that a business needs to know. Mueller then mentioned that businesses might want to consider hiring an SEO who can help navigate the site through its SEO journey.
Mueller observed:
“…you also need someone like an SEO as a partner to give you updates along the way and say, ‘Okay, we did all of these things,’ and they can list them out and tell you exactly what they did, ‘These things are going to take a while, and I can show you when Google crawls, we can follow along to see like what is happening there.’”
It was at this point that Martin Splitt asked if generative AI will make having to learn SEO obsolete or whether entering a prompt will give all the answers a business person needs to know. Mueller’s answer was tethered to how things are right now and avoided speculating about how things will change in a year or more.
Splitt asked:
“Okay, I think that’s pretty good. Last but not least, with generative AI and chatbot AI things happening. Do you think there’s still a value in learning these kind of things? Or can I just enter a prompt and it’ll figure things out for me?”
Mueller affirmed that knowing SEO will still be needed as long as there are websites because search engines and chat bots need the information that exists on websites. He offered examples of local businesses and ecommerce sites that still need to be found, regardless of whether that’s through an AI chatbot or search.
He answered:
“Absolutely value in learning these things and in making a good website. I think there are lots of things that all of these chatbots and other ways to get information, they don’t replace a website, especially for local search and ecommerce.
So, especially if you’re a local business, maybe it’s fine if a chatbot mentions your business name and tells people how to get there. Maybe that’s perfectly fine, but oftentimes, they do that based on web content that they found.
Having a website is the basis for being visible in all of these systems, and for a lot of other things where you offer a service or something, some other kind of functionality on a website where you have products to sell, where you have subscriptions or anything, a chat response can’t replace that.
If you want a t shirt, you don’t want a description of how to make your own t-shirt. You want a link to a store where it’s like, ‘Oh, here’s t-shirt designs,’ maybe t-shirt designs in that specific style that you like, but you go to this website and buy those t-shirts there.”
Martin acknowledged the common sense of that answer and they joked around a bit about Mueller hoping that an AI will be able to do his job once he retires.
That’s the context for this part of their conversation:
“Okay. That’s very fair. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, so you think AI is not going to take it all away from us?”
And Mueller answers with the comment about AI replacing him after he retires:
“Well, we’ll see. I can’t make any promises. I think, at some point, I would like to retire, and then maybe AI takes over my work then. But, like, there’s lots of stuff to be done until then. There are lots of things that I imagine AI is not going to just replace.”
Something that wasn’t discussed is the trend of AI within content management systems. Many web hosts and WordPress plugins are already integrating AI into the workflow of creating and optimizing websites. Wix has already integrated AI into their workflow and it won’t be much longer until AI makes a stronger presence within WordPress, which is what the new WordPress AI team is working on.
Will AI ever replace the need for SEO? Many easy things that can be scaled are already automated. However, many of the best ideas for marketing and communicating with humans are still best handled by humans, not AI. The nature of generative AI, which is to generate the most likely answer or series of words in a sentence, precludes it from ever having an original idea. AI is so locked into being average that if you ask it to pick a number between one and fifty, it will choose the number 27 because the AI training binds it to picking the likeliest number, even when instructed to randomize the choice.
Listen to Search Off The Record at about the 24 minute mark:
Featured Image by Shutterstock/Roman Samborskyi
Mel Robbins is a New York Times bestselling author, former CNN legal analyst, and a globally recognized expert in personal development. Her “Let Them Theory” offers a simple but powerful mindset: when others doubt, criticize or question you, let them. It’s not about giving up — it’s about staying focused on what matters. In the noise of modern marketing, that kind of clarity is more valuable than ever.
Robbins’ “Let Them” mindset isn’t about giving up or tuning out. It’s about refusing to waste energy on distractions. Let them doubt you, let them post, let them make noise. Your job isn’t to react but to stay focused on what drives results within your control.
In a world of shrinking budgets, rising pressure, and GenAI headlines, it’s easy for marketers to fall into the trap of chasing what everyone else is doing. But what if you flipped that? What if comparison became a tool — not a trigger?
This mindset shift reshaped how I work.
As Mel says, “Let them shine. Let it sting. Then get to work.”
You’re comparing — and you’re doing it wrong.
Every time a competitor launches something flashy or earns top-tier media coverage, you spiral. You second-guess your roadmap. You copy, chase, overthink. You treat their win like your loss, and waste time reacting instead of investing in what works.
That’s not strategy. That’s self-sabotage.
High-performing marketers do things differently: they don’t avoid comparison — they use it strategically.
When they see a strong move, they don’t shrink. They reverse-engineer it.
Dig deeper: Marketing can’t own the results without a say in the strategy
“Why did it work?”
“What can we learn?”
“How do we make it sharper, simpler, more us?”
They know most marketing teams don’t suffer from a lack of ideas — they suffer from distraction.
Constant pivots. Half-finished launches. Conflicting KPIs. Outdated attribution. A leadership team wanting dozens of webinars, top-brand case studies, and 30% pipeline growth — all at once.
While the average team gets caught in chaos, these marketers stay focused.
They build test-driven playbooks.
They align with sales early.
They anchor to KPIs that ladder to business outcomes — converted leads, pipeline, revenue, or all three.
And yes, they borrow great ideas — but never mindlessly.
They don’t reinvent the wheel every time. They refine the wheel until it flies.
Feeling jealous of a competitor’s latest campaign? Good.
That’s your future self sending a signal.
Jealousy isn’t weakness — it’s information. It’s your brain saying: this matters.
So pause and ask: What exactly is triggering me?
Dig deeper: AI can’t create meaning — that’s still marketing’s job
Is it the clarity? The traction? The creative risk?
Then ask: Am I doing the work that moves me toward that — or just doing what’s expected?
When these marketers feel envy, they don’t scroll — they study.
They break it down. They rebuild it — sharper, smarter, more aligned to their goals.
Comparison isn’t a threat. It’s a shortcut to what matters.
So when your boss forwards that “viral campaign” and says, “Why aren’t we doing this?” — let them.
When your CEO forwards that Forbes list and asks, “Why aren’t we on it?” — let them ask.
When your budget shrinks and your KPIs still grow — let them demand more.
You don’t need to react to every trend or justify every ask. You need to lead.
The best marketers don’t chase. They architect. They measure what matters. They borrow what works. And they ignore what distracts.
Let them post. Let them win. Let them rush.
You stay focused. You outperform.
Your job isn’t to panic every time someone else makes noise.
It’s to stay focused long enough to make something better.
Let them have their moment.
Then pass them — by building what lasts.
Contributing authors are invited to create content for MarTech and are chosen for their expertise and contribution to the search community. Our contributors work under the oversight of the editorial staff and contributions are checked for quality and relevance to our readers. MarTech is owned by Semrush. Contributor was not asked to make any direct or indirect mentions of Semrush. The opinions they express are their own.
Simon Lee is an educator and creature art director for feature films and games who has lectured all over the world and taught professional artists for over a decade. Here tells us how becoming a father at 38 moved him to become a professional artist, and how his art career has shaped his evolution as a person.
If you’re inspired by Simon’s art and want to upgrade your kit, check out our guides for the best art supplies and sketchbooks for artists. For a more portable option, take a look at the best drawing tablets for artists on the go.
Simon Lee: I was born in Beijing, China, and lived there until I was 10. Then I lived in Hong Kong for another 10 years before settling in the United States. My art is closely related to my life, so every cultural influence that I was ever exposed to has shaped my artistic language and expression.
(Image credit: Simon Lee)
SL: My art has always been a response to my life, so in a way art itself was least influential to me. Experience has always been the key driving force in the evolution of my art.
SL: I’m a self-taught artist. I started sculpting on my own at age five, but growing up in a traditional Chinese family, the notion of becoming a full-time artist never entered my mind. I went to business school in college and majored in marketing. When I was 38 years old, I became a dad, and that was the wake-up moment for me to decide to truly value my passion and become a professional artist.
My first project as a professional was as a concept designer for Guillermo del Toro, which started a decade-long explosion of self-reflective artistic growth and discoveries. In a way, the artwork that triggered all that was my child, the best creation I could ever create.
(Image credit: Simon Lee)
SL: My first paid commission was a resin model created for the Shiflett Brothers. I did it when I was still a web designer and hobbyist sculptor. It was a representation of who I was at the time. I see all of my artwork that way: an almost photographic record of a moment in time from my artistic journey.
SL: I used to take days, weeks, and sometimes months to create a single piece. Now I can create something in minutes. I don’t see my art as a singular being but rather as parts of a flowing stream. So the older artworks show where I was, and the current ones show where I am. I don’t place too much attention on my work, but rather on what my art is telling me about my life.
(Image credit: Simon Lee)
SL: For me, living is living. By diving deeper into my art, I delved deeper and deeper into my life. In my world, becoming better in one requires being better in the other. I can honestly say my art has made me a much better person.
SL: My advice would be to keep an open mind. To get better at art, you’d need to look outside of art. Expand your horizon, for art is both a reflection and a reaction to life.
SL: There is no absolute good or bad; that’s always relative to the person you’re talking to. For me, the industry just is, and my place in it. It’s like an ocean: there’s no good wave or bad wave, just waves. The question really is whether we can ride the waves. I certainly can.
(Image credit: Simon Lee)
SL: All of them; they’re all an extension of me. Just like I identify with all my fingers, they all serve a purpose.
SL: To continue growing as a person. Education doesn’t end with school graduations or begin with class enrolments. I learn every day about life and myself. I have the technical skills to express myself artistically and use my art to communicate my emotions constantly. I want to keep growing and share my discoveries with as many people as I can.
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Meta announced that it will implement stronger measures against accounts sharing “unoriginal” content on Facebook.
This marks the second major platform policy update in days following YouTube’s similar announcement about mass-produced and repetitive content.
Meta revealed it has removed approximately 10 million profiles impersonating large content creators, and taken action against 500,000 accounts involved in “spammy behavior or fake engagement”.
Meta’s announcement closely follows YouTube’s monetization update, which clarified its stance on “inauthentic” content.
Both platforms are addressing the growing problem of accounts profiting from reposting others’ work without permission or meaningful additions.
According to Meta, accounts that repeatedly reuse someone else’s videos, photos, or text posts will lose access to Facebook’s monetization programs and face reduced visibility across all content.
Facebook is also testing a system that adds links on duplicate videos to direct viewers to the original creator.
Here’s an example of what that will look like on a reposted video:
Screenshot from: creators.facebook.com/blog/combating-unoriginal-content, July 2025.
Meta stated in its official blog post:
“We believe that creators should be celebrated for their unique voices and perspectives, not drowned out by copycats and impersonators.”
Both Meta and YouTube distinguish between unoriginal content and transformative content, like reaction videos or commentary.
Meta emphasizes that content becomes problematic when creators repost others’ material without permission or meaningful enhancements, such as editing or voiceover.
YouTube creator liaison Renee Richie offered a similar clarification ahead of its own update, stating:
“This is a minor update to YouTube’s long-standing YPP policies to help better identify when content is mass-produced or repetitive”.
Neither platform bans AI-generated content outright. However, their recent updates appear designed to address a wave of low-quality, automated material that offers little value to viewers.
YouTube affirms that creators may use AI tools as long as the final product includes original commentary or educational value, with proper disclosure for synthetic content.
Meta’s guidelines similarly caution against simply “stitching together clips” or relying on recycled content, and encourage “authentic storytelling.”
These concerns implicitly target AI-assisted compilations that lack originality.
For content creators, the updates from Meta and YouTube reinforce the importance of originality and creative input.
Those who produce reaction videos, commentary, or curated media with meaningful additions are unlikely to be affected. They may even benefit as spammy accounts lose visibility.
On the other hand, accounts that rely on reposting others’ content with minimal editing or variation could see reduced reach and loss of monetization.
To support creators, Meta introduced new post-level insights in its Professional Dashboard and a tool to check if a page is at risk of distribution or monetization penalties. YouTube is similarly offering guidance through its Creator Liaison and support channels.
To maintain monetization eligibility, Meta recommends:
Meta and YouTube’s updates indicate a wider industry move against unoriginal content, especially AI-generated “slop” and content farms.
While the enforcement rollout may not affect every creator equally, these moves indicate a shift in priorities. Originality and value-added content are becoming the new standard.
The era of effortless monetization through reposting is being phased out. Moving forward, success on platforms like Facebook and YouTube will depend on creative input, storytelling, and a commitment to original expression.
Featured Image: Novikov Aleksey/Shutterstock
Last week may have ushered in the first moments of a shift in balance among the holding companies.
WPP named its new CEO — breaking barriers along the way by naming the first female holdco CEO ever in Microsoft executive Cindy Rose — just a day after revealing that its first half 2025 earnings are scarier than a Stephen King horror novel.
At the same time, as Omnicom and Interpublic Group approach the final stages of the former acquiring the latter, the slow but steady brain drain continues — with Omnicom set to lose a key architect of its Omni orchestration platform right when Omni is about to absorb IPG’s data assets and tools, housed in Acxiom and Kinesso. And although Omnicom moved immediately to ensure a smooth transition on that front, the timing isn’t ideal for either company, as two different massive data and tech systems have to learn to integrate.
So, is the industry — as embodied through WPP and Omnicom’s moves — about to embark on the sea change everyone agrees needs to happen? That the holdco model, as it has been executed for the last 20 years, now feels archaic and creaky, and needs major shakeups to transform? In the case of WPP, it’s a bold move bringing in an outsider to run the business, and whether it pans out or not remains to be seen. And in the case of Omnicom, absorption of a whole other holdco is going to challenge it like never before — but also increase its chances of becoming the big dog in the yard.
Let’s look at WPP, with the handoff from the Mark Read era to the Cindy Rose era officially underway. Read, regarded as equal parts cold fish and straight shooter, ends his tenure on a downtrodden financial note.
“We now anticipate H1 like-for-like revenue less pass-through costs to decline by -4.2% to -4.5%, with a decline of -5.5% to -6.0% in Q2, which, although impacted by one-off factors, is below our expectations,” read a statement from the holdco last week — it will officially release results for H1 on Aug. 7. Forecasting for H2 is no better, as the statement has adjusted revenue from flat/-2% to -3/-5% for the year.
While not surprising since WPP lost more clients than it gained, the results call into question how much it should be focusing on a wholesale redo rather than getting its core business back on track — not an easy feat in an ever-changing marketplace.
Read tried to address this very notion the day before Rose’s hire was announced. “Our focus remains on ensuring the right balance between investing in the business for the long-term and continuing to reduce structural costs, while taking appropriate actions to respond to the current trading environment,” he said in WPP’s trading update.
“On the one hand, you know the old agency model is a relic, right? But there’s still something to it — there’s still something to that Rolodex, that [Omnicom COO] Daryl Simm has, or whoever else has done those jobs and knows those challenges, which I wouldn’t underestimate,” said one executive who’s worked on the agency side, the media side and the consultancy side. “I wish [Rose] luck, and she may be super successful at it. But I think there is an element of people who really understand the client pain points and can articulate that. Maybe she’s a fast learner and she’ll get it right away. Or maybe there’s enough other legacy WPP people that compensate for that, and it’s a non-issue. But that would be something I’d watch for.”
Given WPP’s still-dismal state of financial affairs, now might not be the right time for a technocrat, said the observer. “This is clearly a tough time for WPP — does this help transform them and help them get back on the front foot for those pitches? I don’t know the answer, but clearly someone who knows the pitch process and can execute it is required.”
Jay Pattisall, vp and senior agency analyst at Forrester, agreed Rose has her work cut out for her, but points to her operational acumen as what’s needed to put into action the moves Read has made to prepare for a turnaround and transformation.
“It’ll be a tricky needle to thread, in some respects, being able to balance the the need to transform and modernize WPP with its current services, construct and model,” said Pattisall. “They’ve got to reconcile the fact that the company will be smaller but smarter because of automation, and then they’ll need to facilitate that automation. The way that they work will need to continue to transform to be more platform-centric and solution centric, as opposed to just hours up against a scope.”
Changing remuneration anywhere in the holding company world will be the trickiest task of all, Pattisall added, because it’s going to require both agency and client to adapt to most likely an outcomes-based model, and that carries all manner of fiscal uncertainty, which is the bane of any CFO or procurement exec.
As for Omnicom and IPG, both companies have kept plans so close to the vest, it’s hard to see where they are headed. They’ve had to keep it that way out of fear of governmental roadblocks being put in place, most of which have seemingly been cleared in the U.S. but not as much on a global level. That hasn’t stopped some executives at both companies from departing — perhaps the result of restlessness combined with uncertainty.
On the IPG side, Andrea Suarez just left her global CEO role at UM, as did Dimitri Maex from his global president role at Mediabrands, trimming its leaders by attrition. On the Omnicom side, there’s been some loss of investment executives, including former OMG head of investment Geoffrey Calabrese and OMD head of investment Kelly Metz. Slavi Samardzija’s upcoming departure as global CEO of Annalect signals potential change on the data and tech side. The end result is both holdcos seem to be organically trimming the rosters in preparation for what will in the end be a giant.
But how will all the tech and data assets from both holdcos fit when they come together? That remains one of the biggest wildcards and unknowns of a merged Omnicom/IPG. Samardzija was hugely respected within Omnicom for being a key architect of Omni, which some would say is the best operating platform of all the holdcos. Losing him at a time when Omni will be united with IPG’s data and tech assets feels like a risk for the holdco. But internally, execs there feel secure that Adam Gitlin who has operated at Samardzija’s side since 2016 as president of Annalect, will be able to fill his shoes ably.
Time will ultimately tell for both holdcos — WPP with its new leader, and Omnicom with its absorption of a longtime rival.
IPG’s media investment unit Magna and SSP Magnite surveyed 2,800 digital audio listeners to better gauge what drives successful programmatic audio campaigns. Digiday got first crack at examining the results, and there are some interesting findings. —Sam Bradley
They include:
“Linda’s farewell tweet is interesting to say the least, as she boldly claims success in ‘turning the company around’ and ‘restoring advertiser confidence’, neither of which is true. We are again witnessing the sadly popular playbook of loudly blowing your own trumpet, claiming successes that aren’t real, never admitting to mistakes, and blaming all setbacks on other people and external factors.”
— Ruben Schreurs, CEO of media management firm Ebiquity, on Linda Yaccarino’s departure from X as CEO.
When progression means managing a team you never wanted, what are your options? Katie Cadwell looks at leadership, agency culture and how to carve your own path in this week’s Creative Career Conundrums.
A new report from Adobe states that 77% of Americans who use ChatGPT treat it as a search engine.
Among those surveyed, nearly one in four prefer ChatGPT over Google for discovery, indicating a potential shift in user behavior.
Adobe surveyed 800 consumers and 200 marketers or small business owners in the U.S. All participants self-reported using ChatGPT as a search engine.
According to the findings, usage is strong across demographics:
Notably, 28% of Gen Z respondents say they start their search journey with ChatGPT. This suggests younger users may be leading the shift in default discovery behavior.
Adobe’s report indicates growing trust in conversational AI. Three in ten respondents say they trust ChatGPT more than traditional search engines.
That trust appears to influence behavior, with 36% reporting they’ve discovered a new product or brand through ChatGPT. Among Gen Z, that figure rises to 47%.
The top use cases cited include:
The most common reason people use ChatGPT for search is its ability to quickly summarize complex topics (54%). Additionally, 33% said it offers faster answers with fewer clicks than Google.
Respondents also report that AI results feel more personalized. A majority (81%) prefer ChatGPT for open-ended, creative questions, while 77% find its responses more tailored than traditional search results.
Adobe’s survey suggests businesses are already responding to the shift. Nearly half of marketers and business owners (47%) say they use ChatGPT for marketing, primarily to create product descriptions, social media copy, and blog content.
Looking ahead, two-thirds plan to increase their investment in “AI visibility,” with 76% saying it’s essential for their brand to appear in ChatGPT results in 2025.
To improve visibility in conversational AI results, marketers report the best-performing content types are:
These formats may align well with AI’s tendency to surface factual, instructive, and referenceable information.
Adobe’s findings highlight the need for marketers to adapt strategies as users turn to AI tools for product discovery.
Instead of replacing SEO, AI visibility can complement it. Brands tailoring content for conversational search may gain an edge in reaching audiences through personalized pathways.
Featured Image: Roman Samborskyi/Shutterstock
