Welcome to Search With Sean: Weekly Digital Marketing News – your weekly breakdown of SEO, AI, digital marketing, and search trends shaping the industry right now.

Co-Hosts

Laura Iancu – https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-iancu-seo/

Stanislav Farkas – https://www.linkedin.com/in/stanislav-farkas-fastraveller/

Episode Overview

This episode covers major shifts across AI, search, media trust, and digital marketing - from AI-powered journalism workflows and regulatory pressure on Google, to declining trust in news and the growing use of AI in everyday decision-making like healthcare.

Key Topics Covered

- Announcement of Search With Sean Live 2, a charity-driven online event where speakers across SEO, AI, and digital marketing contribute talks, with applications closing mid-August and a planned September stream

- AI-powered journalism workflows around major events (e.g. World Cup coverage), where articles are pre-written using templates and rapidly edited when real-world events occur

- The role of speed vs human input in modern publishing, and concerns about whether AI reduces editorial quality or enhances efficiency

- UK CMA proposals around Google Search regulation, including transparency, ranking fairness, advance notice of core updates, and debate over whether implementation timelines are realistic

- Tension between increased transparency and the risk of enabling manipulation of search systems

- Record-low global trust in news media, with Reuters Institute data showing declining trust and increased reliance on social and video platforms

- Rising use of AI tools for health-related queries, including reported negative outcomes and particularly high-risk use in mental health contexts

- Why people are increasingly turning to AI for healthcare support due to limited access, delays, and pressure on traditional medical systemsThe growing trust gap between institutions (news, healthcare, media) and AI systems providing “synthetic reassurance”

- AI becoming embedded in cultural and marketing moments, including Messi x ChatGPT collaborations and large-scale World Cup advertising campaigns

- Critique of AI marketing claims and “AI visibility” reporting, particularly short-term growth narratives that may not reflect long-term outcomes

- SEO industry discussion around declining performance signals, CTR changes, and indexing behaviour that prioritises only high-value content

- GrowthX and “Mountain AI” style examples used to highlight volatility in AI-driven growth case studies

- Research showing differences in JavaScript rendering across AI assistants, impacting what content is actually visible when models ground responses

- Key finding that many AI systems used in Europe do not execute JavaScript, meaning rendered content may not exist to them

- llms.txt research showing adoption is increasing, but the vast majority of files are never actually requested

This episode is supported by SEO Gets – the easiest way to analyse and report on your Google Search Console & GA4 data.

Try it here: https://seogets.com/Use code search10 for 10% off

About Search With Sean Live 2 - https://www.searchwithsean.com/search-with-sean-live-2026

Welcome to Search With Sean: Weekly Digital Marketing News. Your weekly breakdown of SEO, AI, digital marketing, and search trends shaping the industry right now.

Co-Hosts

Laura Iancu – https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-iancu-seo/

Christian Goodrich - https://www.linkedin.com/in/cargoodrich/

In this week’s episode, we look into some of the most important shifts happening across AI, search, and digital marketing – from model safety concerns and enterprise AI risks, to Google’s aggressive push to bring Gemini into mainstream culture, and what that means for the future of search behaviour.

We start with a deep discussion around Claude’s latest model developments, including the contrast between “safer” public-facing versions like Fable and more advanced internal systems like Mythos. The conversation explores the growing gap between AI capability and public release constraints, and what that means for security, governance, and business risk.

From there, we move into one of the biggest underlying themes of the episode – AI security and organisational readiness. We discuss how quickly companies are adopting AI tools without clear guardrails, and how “vibe coding” and rapid AI-assisted development could introduce hidden vulnerabilities into live environments, from small businesses to enterprise SaaS platforms.

We also explore how different AI models are being used interchangeably across teams (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini), and why lack of structured policy is becoming a major risk factor for data exposure and compliance issues.

Next, we look at Google’s marketing strategy for Gemini, including its high-visibility World Cup advertising campaign. This sparks a wider discussion around platform dominance, consumer behaviour, and whether AI adoption is now being driven less by choice and more by exposure at scale.

We then move into Google Discover’s new “search profiles” update, which gives publishers and creators a more structured way to present content across Google surfaces. We explore whether this could meaningfully shift visibility dynamics or if it risks repeating past experiments that failed to gain traction.

In the hiring and skills space, we break down findings from Moz research into the AI search skills employers actually want. Despite the AI hype, the data shows that traditional SEO fundamentals, analytics, and measurement still dominate hiring requirements, with AI skills acting as a supplement rather than a replacement.

We also explore what this means for professionals trying to demonstrate AI capability on CVs, and how real-world application (automation, tooling, measurable outcomes) is becoming more valuable than surface-level buzzwords.

The episode then moves into a broader industry debate around publishers and AI training data, including the growing pushback against scraping via systems like Common Crawl. We discuss the tension between content creators, platforms, and AI systems, and whether new licensing or control frameworks are inevitable.

Finally, we reflect on the wider implications of AI adoption – including concerns around AI-generated content quality (“AI slop”), sustainability, carbon footprint, and whether the industry is moving faster than its ability to regulate, secure, and responsibly scale these systems.

This episode is supported by SEO Gets – the easiest way to analyse and report on your Google Search Console & GA4 data.Try it here: https://seogets.com/Use code search10 for 10% off.

In this month’s Round-Up episode, we cover the most important developments in SEO, AI, search, and digital marketing.

Hosted by Sean Barber, alongside co-hosts Amanda Walls (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandajwalls/), Laura Iancu (https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-iancu-seo/), and Stanislav Farkas (https://www.linkedin.com/in/stanislav-farkas-fastraveller/), we look at the May 2026 Core Update, Google's latest AI announcements, ChatGPT advertising expansion, AI citation research, local search developments, and what these changes mean for marketers moving forward.

Key Themes:

Google Search & Core Updates

Google's May 2026 Core Update launched alongside Google I/O, making ranking fluctuations difficult to attribute. Early observations suggest a renewed emphasis on traditional SEO fundamentals, intent alignment, and content quality, while AI Mode has now surpassed 1 billion monthly users.

Google I/O & The Future of Search

Google unveiled some of its biggest search changes in years, including Gemini 3.5 Flash becoming the default AI Mode model, background information agents, universal shopping carts, and Generative UI experiences that can build tools and applications directly within Search. The updates continue Google's shift from a search engine to an answer and action platform.

AI Search & Citation Research

New research revealed that only 11% of domains are cited consistently across major AI platforms, highlighting the importance of tracking visibility beyond a single model. Product pages, comparison content, and listicles continue to perform strongly, while AI citations are becoming increasingly disconnected from traditional top-ranking organic results.

ChatGPT Ads & Paid Media

OpenAI's self-serve Ads Manager is now expanding internationally, with ChatGPT advertising launching in markets including the UK. The team discusses early adoption, reporting challenges, attribution concerns, and how AI advertising could reshape paid media strategies over the coming years

.Technical SEO & Search Tools

Google officially retired FAQ rich results, although FAQ content remains valuable for users and AI systems. The episode also covers WordPress 7.0 security concerns, Search Console reporting changes, and Google's testing of conversational AI search experiences within YouTube.

Local SEO & AI Discovery

Ask Maps is now becoming a mainstream experience, while Google Business Profiles, reviews, and local business data are playing a bigger role in AI-generated recommendations. The discussion explores how local SEO is evolving as AI becomes increasingly embedded into discovery journeys.

Search Advertising & Attribution Challenges

Google is now placing ads directly within AI Overview responses, while advertisers face new questions around broad match targeting, measurement, and maintaining high-intent traffic. The panel discusses what these changes could mean for both advertisers and agencies.

Google Antitrust & Search Competition

The team examines Google's ongoing antitrust challenges, including proposed search engine choice screens and the potential impact on market share. Alternative search platforms such as DuckDuckGo also feature in the discussion as competition continues to grow.

AI's Impact on Society & The Future of Search

From Pope Leo XIV's warnings about AI to Gartner's prediction that organic search traffic could decline by 50% by 2028, the episode closes with a broader discussion on how AI is changing user behaviour, search habits, and the future of the web.

Thank you to our partner, SEO Gets, the easy-to-use analytics and reporting tool for your GSC & GA4 data. Be sure to check out the tool and use code search10 for 10% off: https://seogets.com/