Live curated AI and search news feed

Back in March 2026 Google said they were going to let merchants upload customer loyalty data via the GMC API and now it's officially in the documentation.

"Customer Match via Merchant API: You can upload your customer loyalty data, such as user identifiers and loyalty tiers, to *enable personalized experiences on free listings* via Merchant API."

The help doc also has multiple examples of what the "personalized experiences" can look like on both paid and free listings, which is what I was curious about. Basically there are highlighted lower prices/free shipping offers for members visible.

Well that was fast! Google's June 2026 Spam update concluded today - it rolled out over 2 days & 1 hour.

YouTube Shorts is 5 years old! They're updating the Shorts experience:

• Clear Screen mode temporarily hides icons/text so you can just watch the video
• 2x playback speed available
• Mute more easily: tap screen to pause, tap mute icon
• :heart: replaces :+1:
• No more "dislike" button. Use the "Not interested" or "Don't recommend this channel" controls instead

Google is rolling out agency Admin & Standard roles in Merchant Center for Agencies:

• Agencies can designate Agency Admins with master controls & Standard Users with limited permissions
• Agency Admins can apply custom labels to client accounts to group them by brand, vertical, or team
• Agencies can grant/remove access to client accounts from a central hub

Here's the documentation on how it works & how to set it up (includes a YT video)

There's a new Google Small Business Bulletin about how to connect your GBP with Gemini and what to do after. Also covers "business notebooks" in Gemini: how to create and use them.

For me the best part is the availability note saying this will eventually roll out to Google Workspace accounts! When it was initially announced they said it was only for single-location businesses (i.e. one Google account <--> one Google Business Profile, not agency friendly)

Google published new documentation detailing how Search generative AI control works

ChatGPT updated GBT-5.5 Instant saying it:

• Is better at identifying the underlying goal behind a question and carrying context across multiple turns
• Follows complex instructions more reliably
• Adapts more effectively when users add constraints/clarification to the original prompt
• Makes better use of location context for relevant shopping/local queries

Now that we are starting to see Generative AI search reports in GSC, it's time to anticipate and answer the questions clients will have. Since the only metric is impressions, it would be nice to know what counts.

A Bluesky user named Nicola Agius tagged John Mueller asking:

> 1. Does total impressions include AI impressions?

> 2. If your article isn't shown, but your icon is on the main feed combined card, is that an impression?

> 3. If your article has been grouped in a cluster, but your icon doesn't show in the main feed, is that an impression?

> 4. Does total impressions include X posts?

JM's reply:

> The impressions are based on links to your site being shown in AI Overviews / AI Mode. I don't know if just a favicon would be linked, but if it's linked to a page on your site, that would count. If something needs to be "activated" to see the link, it would only count when users do that.

Is it just me, or is that answer confusing? Does it mean that when you see +1 or +4 in an AI Mode citation, that only the first link in that "citation pack" gets an impression recorded in their GSC report? Does it mean that of the 19 total sites cited in the sidebar citation container, only the first 3 get an impression recorded because the other 16 need to be "activated" to see the link? That seems to be what he is saying.

It would be nice if Google updated the documentation for this new report with some crystal clear visual examples of what does and doesn't count as an impression. There's a link to submit feedback on this report if you feel inspired.

GSC's Page indexing report is delayed by 2 weeks, showing the last update as 6/22/26 (I checked and am seeing the same thing). This has happened before and been resolved before. Just good to know it's a thing lots of people are seeing, not an issue with your specific GSC account.

Just spotted the first Generative AI report in a real-life Google Search Console account (not just somebody else's screenshot)! It's not in all of them that we have access to (and it definitely doesn't include all the metrics we need), but the stateside rollout is officially underway.

June 2026 Google Spam Update started today

Ahrefs has a new chat assistant named Agent B. You can ask it to analyze data, run API queries, or use Ahrefs tools for you. It's free for all plans while it's in Beta. Click the question mark hovering in the lower right corner to enable it if you want!

SparkToro now has an MCP Server so you can connect your account to Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini. Then you can run reports, compare audiences, make personas, create visuals, and lots more SparkToro stuff inside your favorite AI tool.

• Here's the MCP link
• Here's the documentation

Shopify is launching AI-powered Campaign Autopilot integrated in Shopify admin. Yes it's for ads (across multiple channels, with more on the way) but if you do SEO for a client with a Shopify website who uses this and you have access, you could see what kind of messaging is working best with the target audience, and which categories/products are being pushed, which can inform adjacent organic strategy like accompanying comparison/how-to-choose guides, FAQs that address common problems/confusions, etc.

Now MS Clarity can show you when bots don't follow your robots.txt rules. They added more reports in the Bot Analytics dashboard for disallowed URL requests plus trendline and filters for non-compliant bot activity.

YouTube announced some new insights tools (built with Gemini) to help both creators and agencies:

• Google Ads Insights Finder (what's popular & trending on YouTube)
• Brand pulse metrics (select ones) integrated into Insights Finder
• Insights APIs for partners (info about creators & audiences to help agencies to media planning)
• Demand Gen campaign tips - Gemini will supply creative insights like what visuals would improve performance

Google published new documentation for Subscription Linking. They have a subscription linking API for news publishers that lets Google users link to their paid subscriptions (such as The NYT) to their Google Account. That way, articles from the publication you pay for/subscribe to can show up in Google Search, News, and Discover and you can just read them no matter what device you're on, as long as you're in the Google Account that's linked.

The new documentation specifies how publishers can enable subscription linking in different Google products: Search, AI Mode/AIO, generative AI features in Discover, and Gemini.

I don't think this is relevant to any of our clients right now, but it's another reminder of how personalized search/discovery results can be.

Google added a new section to GBP documentation about a new *Collected info* section in business profiles. I checked a random handful of GBPs we have access to and didn't see it, but helpful to be aware of.

When Google calls/texts a business to get business details, the info they gather will be put into Collected info where the business owner can review and confirm or delete it.

ChatGPT updated their scheduled tasks feature:

• New 'Scheduled' page in sidebar for managing all tasks
• "All tasks are faster and more reliable"
• You can schedule tasks for specific times or choose broad windows like "evening"
• 'Monitoring tasks' can search the web and check connected apps, and only notify you if something's worth reporting

It's rolling out over 2 weeks, starting yesterday. I'm not seeing it yet. But you can go directly to chatgpt.com/scheduled in the meantime.

Google updated site migration documentation to add new recommendations for using the Change of Address tool in Search Console:

• No need to use it if you're just moving your site from HTTP to HTTPS
• Make sure to submit all domain variations & subdomains if you're moving your site from one domain to another

Anthropic upgraded Claude Design:

• Import your brand's design specs & the whole team can create on-brand designs
• Create branded designs, slides, whatever, by prompting
• Work stays synced between Claude Design & Claude Code, start in either
• Export designs as various file types or send to Canva/other tools

Documentation links:

• Developer's guide to setting up your brand design system
• Getting started guide for the rest of us

Andre Alpar ran a test to see if 12 different AI assistants render JS or not.

Smart setup: each assistant got a unique, secret, never-linked URL. The page's raw HTML had a "decoy code" and the real code was injected with JS. Each page also had a unique string that returned only if the page was actually fetched (to sniff out lying/hallucinating assistants).

The results:

• All of the US assistants read raw HTML *only* (including GEMINI and all the big ones)
• The Chinese assistants (DeepSeek, ERNIE, Quen, Kimi) and Mistral render JavaScript

If you've got important content that you want available to AI assistants, make sure it's in the source HTML! At least for now.

Microsoft launched Copilot Cowork - it's an agentic system that does tasks for you across all the MS 365 apps and Edge (and you can use plugins). The Copilot app has a new toggle so you can switch between chat & cowork.

• Announcement of general availability & "we're a more cost effective option" pitch
• Copilot Cowork release blog with milestones, launches, updates
• Product page with plans, demo, FAQ, etc

Bing announced new AI visibility insights in Bing WMT:

• Intents
• Topics
• Citation share
• Compare

Can confirm I'm seeing these in the AI Performance report already! Intents, Topics & Citation share are new columns in the grounding query/pages table. Compare is a new bubble filter by the date picker so you can compare a previous time period to the current one.

Meta announced AI Mode for Facebook, and new editing cqpabilities for photos.

Google updated its one-month-old documentation on optimizing for generative AI search already, to emphasize this point:

Google ignores LLMS.txt files (and similar) so you can create new "machine readable files" if you want, but it won't help or harm anything in terms of Google Search, because Google Search doesn't use them.

Their note on the update reads:

> *What*: Added a note to the AI optimization guide clarifying Google Search's usage of llms.txt files.

> *Why*: To address questions from the community and clarify that while these files aren't needed for Google Search (and won't negatively or positively impact your visibility or rankings), it's fine if you want to maintain these files for other services or systems that use them.

Google is hosting a live workshop for small/local business owners & solopreneurs on how to use Gemini for business. It's one hour long and free but RSVP is required: https://rsvp.withgoogle.com/events/gbp_gemini

Google published new guidelines just for small businesses in Tennessee. This is in response to SB 2262, a new law passed in TN that will go into effect on July 1st. SB 2262 says that small business owners have the right to hold search engines accountable if their business is 'blacklisted' (deindexed) or if 25%+ of their online reviews disappear.

> *The search engine must provide a response to such request within five business days that includes an explanation of the action and justification for the action; the process, steps, and requirements necessary for the small business to appeal the action or be restored or re-indexed...*

The new documentation from Google encourages small business owners to get set up with Search Console, Google Business Profiles, and Google Merchant Center, and essentially tells them "this is how you can find out if your site is in violation of our policies"

Google Analytics announced three updates:

1. New “Source Group” field

New Source Group dimension cleans up various source values from major platforms.

So nstead of seeing multiple variations like:

• `facebook`
• `fb`
• `Meta-facebook`
• `instagram`
• `ig`

GA$ will consolidate them into standardized values like Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok. This will help advertisers compare performance across platforms more easily, especially if source naming was inconsistent because of UTMs, ad platforms, or campaign setup differences.

1. Updates to “Source Platform”

Google is also updating the existing Source Platform field so its classifications better align with the new Source Group field.

Third-party platforms like TikTok, Pinterest, Amazon, Meta Ads, OpenAI/ChatGPT & Perplexity will be classified more consistently alongside Google-owned inventory like YouTube, Search & Maps.

1. New hostname filter

Adding hostname filters in the Admin section under Data Filters allows GA users to exclude events from unapproved hostnames, for example traffic coming from a domain that shouldn't be sending data to the property.

(e.g. it will help keep junk, test, spam, copied-site, or misconfigured-domain data out of GA reports)

Reddit announced that starting today, users can use video in comments.

It's official - I'm seeing the GBP connector across some the GA4 accounts we have access to now! Admin → Product links

Here's the documentation.

I am noticing AI Mode autosuggests showing up when I search now

YouTube is bringing back in-app video sharing/messaging. It was available from 2017-2019 and then they took it away. Now it's back, but not available to Brand Accounts. But still helpful for brands to be aware of because video shares show up in YouTube Analytics and who knows if this will increase sharing (YouTube doesn't say if in-app shares & messages will show up differently in analytics, or if they'll influence the recommendations users see).

Since yesterday, Google Merchant Center is having an API issue. Product submissions & feed updates are delayed. Google is aware of it and working to resolve it, and they said submissions will automatically resume when the issue is fixed.

Gemini updates aimed at business owners are rolling out:

• Connect your Google Business Profile to Gemini with one tap. Then Gemini can analyse GBP insights, help respond to reviews, and post updates.
• Business notebooks in Gemini are a place where business owners can organize GBPs, website, chats, & sources to create a knowledge base about your business for analyzing trends, creating assets, brainstorming, etc

LinkedIn announced a new thing: their Creator Marketplace (rolling out this month) connects creators to brands & partnership opportunities. Invite-only for now, but they said they'll expand access over time. An invite gets you access to a new Monetization tab. Some other new moneymaking opportunities for LI creators are also coming, listed at the end of this announcement.

The much-hyped Claude Mythos 5 is here! Well, sort of. They're calling it "Fable 5: a Mythos-class model" that's safe for general use. For example, if you ask it a question about cybersecurity, a different model will respond. Free to try until June 23 and then it will cost more credits.

SparkToro published a new analysis based on Similarweb data. In the first 4 months of 2026, 68% of Google searches ended without a click.

Google published a PDF guide with best practices for GBP optimization. The info in it isn't surprising, but it's definitely easier to consume and understand compared to their documentation (ideal for sharing with clients if they want a resource like this).

Apple announced Siri AI, powered by Apple Intelligence. It's available for developer testing starting today, but won't be available to regular folks (as a beta) until later this year.

NotebookLM got updates today too:

• Better chatting, now runs on Gemini 3.5 and Antigravity & has more skills
• More output formats: png, svg, jpg, gif, PDF, docx, md, txt, json structured data, xlsx, pptx
• Now it can use Google Search to research stuff, you don't have to rely only on your added sources

Rolling out today to all Workspace business customers with AI Ultra/Expanded, and all regular users with AI Ultra, and then eventaully to everyone.

ChatGPT made some updates today, including:

• Interactive charts in answers (automatically or when asked for)
• TOC for convos with 5+ responses
• Full-screen editor for long-form writing + more related features
• Send an email right from your chat if you have it connected

Also some updates specific to iOS/Android, check out the full list here.

Bing now lets you opt out of AI-generated search results:

• Chrome extension
• Edge extension
• Search modifier: add -ai to your query

People asked why not just put a toggle on the SERP and a Bing rep said the extensions will help them better understand what people want out of new features "to figure out how to best integrate such functionality more generally into the product"

Google documentation updates today:

• New documentation for Google Search's guidance on using 3rd-party SEO tools, services & advice
• Additional guidance to the existing documentation 'Do you need an SEO?' suggesting how to evaluate recommendations you get from an SEO pro (second half, after the red warning box)

Schema.org has a new usage statistics dataset in collaboration with Google:

> This initiative, a collaboration between Google and the Schema.org community, aims to provide greater transparency into how different Types and Properties are being utilized by developers and publishers globally.

>

> The dataset, updated monthly, offers a high-level view of term usage across millions of domains. To maintain stability and respect privacy, counts are aggregated at the domain level and presented in popularity range buckets.

Here's the announcement with more context, and here's the documentation with more practical details.

Google Pay & Wallet are expanding:

• *Digital IDs in Google Wallet* expanding to more countries & with 'trusted private issuers' starting with Sparkasse Bank in Europe
• *Google Pay direct checkout* - available now for 'select merchants that use Airwallex' and soon those that use Adyen, with plans to scale with partners worldwide
• *Secure Payment Authentication feature updated* so merchants can meet regulatory requirements without adding friction to checkout

Good reminder to adhere to Google's guidelines for merchant reviews - Google asks reviewers if the business offers rewards in exchange for reviews.

OpenAI introduced a dreamy memory update for ChatGPT: "a significantly more capable and compute-efficient memory architecture built on top of dreaming"

"In contrast to saved memories, dreaming leverages a background process that allows ChatGPT to learn from many conversations and synthesize ChatGPT’s memory state in order to always provide the freshest, most relevant context to your conversations. Dreaming also makes it easier for memory to include context that occurs naturally in conversation, without relying on explicit requests to remember something."

Rolling out to Plus and Pro users in the U.S. Free, Go & more countries will get the memory upgrade over the next several weeks.

In their June news bulletin for small businesses, Google announced integration of Google Analytics & Google Business Profiles!

• Coming soon over the next few weeks
• Measure GBP calls, bookings, direction requests, website clicks & total interactions in GA4
• Setup: GA4 > Admin > Product Links > Select GBP & follow prompts
• Reports: new Google Business Profile section > Performance

Here's the documentation for it - keep your eyes peeled!

They also announced a new AI support agent in the GBP help center (currently rolling out).

Google announced Search profiles for creators:

• Creates a page where a creator's content is pulled in from different platforms (articles, videos, social posts)
• People can follow creators using their Search profile
• Profiles also have a 'Follow on Google' button - followers will see more of their content show up in Discover
• Creators can customize profiles with an avatar, bio, website link & social links
• A Search profile *could* get you a knowledge panel

The blog announcement is kind of vague and just says creators with a "sizable following" are eligible for now.

The documentation gets specific about requirements for creating a Search profile:

• You must have a minimum number of subscribers or followers on at least one content platform:

◦ YouTube:100,000

◦ Instagram:100,000

◦ X:100,000

◦ TikTok:300,000

• You must be at least 18 years old.
• Your content must meet Google's policy guidelines.

Here's where you can get started if you meet the requirements.