Summarize with AI
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and legibility.
Introductions
Coral Norman: This webinar is going to be a whole lot of information. Cory wrote a pretty awesome blog article about the Google I/O announcements recently, so he’s got a lot of good info. This one will be a lot of me chiming in here and there, and mostly Cory giving the info. He’s also in Japan, so we’re very grateful for him joining us — one in the morning his time.
Good afternoon-ish, everybody. For those who don’t know me, I’m Coral Norman, director of digital media here at Pink Dog Digital. Gina is having some technical difficulties this morning — she’s on vacation and her Wi-Fi isn’t working the way she expected. So we’re going to roll on, and Cory and I will take over until she can get her Wi-Fi sorted out. No big deal — she just chimed in on the chat, so I’m sure we’ll hear from her there as she’s able to.
The main purpose of this webinar is to discuss the recent Google I/O announcements. These were pretty big — we sent out an email about it, so everybody kind of knows what’s going on. But this is a big deal coming from Google, and mostly what it centered around this year, which will shock absolutely nobody, was AI, and how search is going to be a lot more AI-focused and a little less of the traditional search we’re used to.
Cory brought up the recap, and we knew we needed to talk about it. We had a different webinar planned for this month originally, but this wasn’t something we wanted to let just live out there without discussing it. This is going to affect businesses from small B2B companies to huge e-commerce companies, so we’re going to see a lot of changes as we go through this.
Cory is going to walk you through what happened at the event, and then I’ll give you some information on what that means for your market going forward, and how to figure out the best ways to pivot and change as these things happen. We’ll also have the floor open for questions — anybody who’s been in here before knows we’re more than happy to answer questions as we go. Neither Cory nor I are huge fans of just talking at people, so please drop any questions you have in the chat and we’ll answer as we go.
I’m going to turn this over to Cory to introduce himself and start giving some information on Google I/O — what it is, what happened, and where we’re headed.
Cory Wasielczyk: Thanks, Coral. If you don’t know me, my name is Cory Wasielczyk, and I’m a digital media strategist here at Pink Dog. I work mostly with PPC campaigns, SEO, and AI — I wear a lot of different hats at this agency, which I’m very happy about.
Google I/O 2026 | Big Changes to Google Search
Google I/O is Google’s annual developer conference, basically. A lot of what they discuss is really geared toward programmers and developers, but there are also a lot of announcements made that are relevant for people who aren’t techies — small business owners and consumers of Google’s products — because the changes Google makes to their products affect the entire ecosystem.
As Coral mentioned, this year was all about AI, which isn’t really new since the last few years have been about AI. I believe 2024 is when they announced the Search Generative Experience, which ended up becoming Gemini, and last year was the announcement of AI Mode. So AI has really been a focus for Google for the last several years.
This year was no exception, but it also felt a little different, because what they put forth was a radical reimagining of the search experience — I believe the biggest change to search since Google started 25 years ago. That’s the way Google CEO Sundar Pichai framed it: the biggest update to search in their history. So it’s not something they’re going to throw around lightly. Anything they announce with that framing is going to be big.
In addition to Google I/O, there was also Google Marketing Live, which is more geared toward the advertising side. Some of what we’ll talk about today will also be drawn from the Marketing Live talk. But we’ll start with the big one — the Search changes.
The way they presented it, they were going to make a big change to the search box itself. If you go to Google now, you’ll see the search box looks a little different than it used to. There’s now a prominent AI Mode button, a plus sign where you can add images, and you can change the AI model. It looks almost like a ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude search box — and that’s by design, because Google wants their search product to function more like an AI product.
Liz Reid, who’s the vice president of Search for Google, was quoted: “Before, the search box was a contained space, and now it’s totally reimagined with AI.”
What that means is search is now what they call multimodal — you can give search any input: an image, a long prompt, a short prompt, anything, and get information based on that.
AI Mode is becoming much more prevalent. I know there was a lot of fear that AI Mode would become the default for Google. I’d always said Google wasn’t going to make it the default until they could monetize it, because there’s too much money in search ads — it’s too much of their revenue source. Then, during Marketing Live, they announced they were piloting and launching ads in AI Mode. So, proving me wrong.
Regardless, if you put a query into Google search and press enter like normal, you’ll still get the regular search experience. But the intention behind having a big AI Mode button right there at the search box is that they expect people to click the button and go straight to AI Mode. That’s the direction we’re headed in.
Other big changes to search: with AI being so interwoven into the product, we’re seeing more and more AI Overviews, and AI Overviews and AI Mode are kind of combining into one product. If you have an AI Overview in your search results and click for more information, it automatically sends you to AI Mode, where you can ask follow-up questions. Search is going to have memory retained across sessions — an evolution of what we’ve already seen with search history, but a lot more robust, functioning more like an AI/LLM product. You’re going to be able to ask search follow-up questions if you have them.
Agentic Systems Introduced | Key Figures on AI in Google
Another big thing they pushed was agentic features — AI that can actually do tasks for you. A lot of this was geared toward developers; they previewed an entire operating system built around their AI systems. But the relevant thing for us is that with AI agentic systems coming, you can set up alerts for flight tickets, concert tickets, sneaker drops, all sorts of commercial things. And the big thing is you’re going to have direct links in these AI outputs that people can use to take action, or have their agent complete the action for them.
Right now, a lot of these changes are being piloted for AI paid members — AI Pro and AI Ultra are the two higher tiers of Google’s AI paid plans. Some of them are already live — the search box changes are currently live. But this is the direction we’re headed, and it’s only a matter of time before these systems roll out to the general public.
So what’s the takeaway for a business? Ranking at the top of Google just isn’t what it used to be. We’ve talked about this before in these webinars — the concept of zero-click search and how much that’s increased over the years. But it’s really taking off now. AI Mode has, according to Google, over 1 billion monthly users, and the number of queries is doubling every quarter since it launched last year. AI Overviews has over 2.5 billion monthly active users. The Gemini app has over 900 million.
AI Overviews trigger on about 58% of queries total, up from 14% about a year ago — at either the beginning of 2025 or the end of 2024. For local queries, AI Overviews are now triggering on about 40% of queries. And if there’s an AI Overview present, the click-through rate for position one drops from 27% to 11%. That’s a pretty sizable decrease, and it necessitates a fundamental rethinking of how you approach your online presence.
I’ll flip this back over to Coral to talk more about AI Mode.
Gina Ramsey: Let’s pause for a second and see if there are any questions, because you just went through a lot of technical information, and the audience may not be as familiar with it as we are. Jeremy has a question, and I already answered it in chat. Does anyone else have questions about the terminology or functionality Cory mentioned?
CW: A lot of what they showed off at this conference was pretty crazy — you can have the AI Overview generate entire diagrams and tables just through prompting it. It’s getting to be more and more like Gemini or Claude.
GR: Eileen asked if agentic features are currently just for paid users…
CW: Yes, it’s currently for the two highest paid tiers. I believe it’s for Gemini users; it’s a little confusing because they have so many different AI products that all run on Gemini. For this summer it’s just those two paid tiers, but they’ll likely be rolling it out more broadly by the end of the year.
GR: I think it’s Pro and Ultra — $100 a month and $200 a month plans, which is significantly higher than any of the other paid LLMs out there.
AI Mode’s Growth | Impact of AI on Small Business Sites
CN: I do want to build on what Cory said, because this is where it gets practical for you, Jeremy. The main thing to note is that AI Mode isn’t just an experiment at this point: it’s coming. For some people it’s already fully rolled out; for others, it’s headed our direction very soon. Not the default yet, but it’s going to be.
We’ve already been seeing all the AI features in search, AI Overviews and so on, any time you search for things. We’ve been talking about this for a while, and the ways we optimize for AI and how it’s going to affect search over time. We’ve been seeing click-through rates on websites drop for a while, and we’ve been answering questions for our clients about this for quite a bit, so it’s not something that’s particularly new or surprising for us.
There are a few things you can do to show up in AI Mode, because that’s the goal at this point: to show up there so people find you. We don’t want to completely reinvent the wheel when it comes to your internet presence. It’s not that you don’t need a website anymore; it’s going to be a little different. The website is still critical — it’s still number one, because the majority of what AI pulls is coming from your website if someone is asking about you specifically. So you want your website set up properly so it answers the questions people are asking, and the content is good.
You won’t see as many click-throughs to your website, and one of the big things we’ve been telling clients is to look at conversions over click-throughs as you do reporting. A lot of times, when people get to your website through AI Mode or search, they’re more qualified leads, so we’re seeing higher conversion rates. That’s one thing to note as website clicks drop off a little.
Content’s Role in AI Visibility | How to Approach Content Creation
The main thing you want to be doing is showing really good expertise in your industry. Content is king — that’s not going to change. But the most critical thing is showing expertise in your area. You want really good quality content: not super generic, not super boring, and especially not written specifically by AI, because Google will ding you for that. You can use AI as a base, but we recently did a case study on our website comparing content written entirely by AI, content written by AI and a human, and content written specifically by a human. Every time, the human content outperformed on both clicks and engagement, then AI-and-human, then AI last. So make sure you’re putting out really quality human content with good information.
There’s also recency bias, a big part of AI. Basically, the more recent your content is, the more likely Google is to rank you in these AIs. ChatGPT has recency bias too, and a bunch of the other AIs do as well. They want to see up-to-date, recent content that’s also completely relevant to the user. So the more you can do that, the more likely people are to find you in AI. It’s going to be a little less about keywords and a little more about credibility at this point.
You don’t just want to focus on website content — yes, that’s number one, that’s where you start — but the next big piece is making sure you’re showing up in reviews, getting plenty of Google reviews from your clients, and being on social media, so there are other places these AIs can reference and pull information from you. Basically, the more places you are on the web, the better. Make sure you’re out there with good information, that people are leaving reviews, that you’re soliciting reviews from clients who’ve had good experiences, and that you’re continuing to tell your story genuinely with quality content that answers questions.
Third Party Citations
Being published in other publications, appearing on podcasts and webinars, press releases — those are all really important, especially if the venue has high domain authority and high authority with the AI platforms. It’s really time to start thinking outside the box about how, when, and where you’re crafting content.
GR: Can I interrupt?
CN: Yes, please do.
GR: I saw Vicki in the room. Being published in other publications, on podcasts and webinars, press releases: those kinds of things are all really important, especially if the venue has high domain authority and high authority with the AI platforms. It’s really time to start thinking outside the box on how, when, and where you’re crafting content. LinkedIn and Reddit are becoming very important venues for your content to appear.
CN: Substack, too. If you’re not exploring some of these other areas, you’re really missing the boat on opportunities to appear.
As Christine pointed out, LinkedIn is changing its algorithm to serve up more personalized content — 100% correct, we’ve been reading a lot about that lately. As that’s happened, social media is also becoming more important to Google AI, because it’s referencing those. The more places you appear, the more you get referenced. You want to put out information that makes you a thought leader and shows you’re associated with this business — that’s how you’re going to get found at this point. When people ask AI something like, “What’s the best duct cleaning company in Maryland?” it’s going to reference social media, reviews, and websites — all of those things are how you end up showing up for queries like that.
How to Do Reddit as a Business Without Getting Insta-Banned
GR: Jeremy asked about Reddit and what strategies work there. I’ll let Cory and I address it more specifically, but I can say: carefully, very carefully. If you go in like a bull in a china shop, the Reddit community will destroy you. There needs to be a strategy and a thought process, and you need to understand that community. If you jump in and start self-promoting, you’re done.
Reddit isn’t something we take lightly around here, because it’s a very aggressive community. It’s important that you’re providing authentic content and are really careful. The more authentic content you can post without promoting your business, the better you’ll do. People will show up naturally if they think you’re giving good information, but you cannot go in there promotion-heavy.
CN: I have a call with Reddit this afternoon, so I’ll have more information based on that — figuring out what we can do to work with them and with the brands we work with. In the Reddit community, you need to answer as a person. I don’t think starting threads is the way to go — I think joining in as a contributor is. They’re quick to notice people trying to start a thread for self-promotion. But you’ve got to be active, because if a thread already has 82 million answers and you’re just jumping in saying the exact same thing, you’re not adding to the conversation in a constructive way.
Cory, you probably have the most experience with Reddit in this group — do you have anything to add?
CW: It really is about being helpful. For Jeremy’s use case, I’d say just be helpful — you’ve got a lot of experience and good information you can share with people, so just share it. Don’t worry too much about trying to promote the business; if you try to do that, you’ll get banned before you know it. Go to the subreddits related to your industry, find people who have questions you can give them good information on. That’s how you build karma and credibility on the platform, and ultimately that’s how you bring business to your website. People will see that you’re trustworthy and worthy of their business. It sounds easy, but it’s tough — it relies on a lot of knowledge and experience to do well.
CN: It requires some nuance, making sure you’re answering with experience and knowledge and not promotion. It’s very important to be nuanced in there.
All of this is tough, and there’s a lot to it. AI has its pros and cons for businesses — it’s changing the way businesses have to show up. That’s part of the reason we do these webinars, so we can give you the information and help you figure out next steps. There’s a lot to digest, especially as AI is changing the landscape in general.
In the meantime, Cory is going to talk a little bit about Ask YouTube.
Claim and Optimize Your Google Business Profile
CW: Before that, I’m going to go a little off-script and talk about Google Business Profiles, because I think it’s important to emphasize how important having one is. If you’re a local business with a location, or even a service area, Google Business Profile is a Google product — so if Google AI is looking for reliable, reputable sources for its outputs, Google Business and Google Maps is a very good place to get that information.
You’re going to want to make sure that if you’re a good fit for Google Business Profile, which I’d assume most of you are, that you have it claimed, all the information filled out, and that it’s accurate. According to statistics, consumers are 2.7x more likely to view a business as reputable if its Google Business Profile is complete, and a complete profile gets seven times more clicks than incomplete ones. This stat blew my mind — I know it’s only from 2022 and probably different now, but it was only four years ago: 58% of businesses don’t optimize for local search, and only 30% have a local SEO plan in place. So if you even just have a plan and start thinking about local search, you’re already better off than half the businesses out there. If you haven’t started, now’s a good time to.
Ask YouTube | Opportunity for Small Business to Embrace Video Content
Now, Ask YouTube — this one was really interesting. I know video is very tough for a lot of small businesses; it takes time and effort to produce. But if you’ve been thinking about starting a YouTube channel or sharing video content, this is a good opportunity. Instead of typing a search query into YouTube, getting a list of results, clicking on a video, and watching the beginning before you get to your answer, Google unveiled Ask YouTube, powered by the Gemini model. It lets you ask questions to YouTube, and the AI output includes links to specific YouTube videos that answer your question — and it doesn’t just give you the video, it drops you in at the exact moment the content creator talks about whatever’s related to your search query.
The example they gave in the I/O video: someone said, “I have a three-year-old who can ride a bike with training wheels, but now I want to teach her how to ride with pedals — how do I do that?” It brought up a list of videos with a written explanation, and showed the video four minutes in, right where it starts talking about how to do it. Pretty cool.
Right now it’s live for YouTube Premium members. We’ll see whether that ends up in the general YouTube product or stays a paid-only feature — they didn’t say. But what it means is that if you’ve been thinking about video content, it’s a good time to do it. There’s a framework for how to structure the video, the metadata, and so on. If you have videos already, make sure they’re set up and optimized properly — transcripts, chapter markers if you can, descriptions, and generally good content, just like you’d want on your blog.
CN: Yep, agreed.
I’ll also say, with YouTube, I’ve seen something similar in Google search — when a video comes up from YouTube, it drops me off right at the spot. It’s interesting they’re trialing it with paid YouTube subscribers, because I’ve definitely seen that happen in Google search already. A couple weeks ago, I went to mow my lawn with a riding mower for the first time and spilled a little gas on the outside of the mower — I’d never done this before, and my husband wasn’t home, so I looked it up: “If I start this mower with a little bit of gas on it, will it explode?” Luckily, the answer was no, and I didn’t explode. It dropped me off right in the right places — I’d also looked up how to turn the mower on, since it was a new John Deere tractor for me, and it dropped me exactly where I needed to be. It’s interesting they’re just starting to do that on YouTube specifically, since I’ve definitely seen it in Google search before — could be that it’s very specific to certain query types versus the general Gemini or search products.
Does anybody have questions about YouTube and how that works? Christine, I agree — for those who didn’t see that: if you have chapters in the video, it finds things better than if you don’t. Same with transcripts, and you should be adding transcripts to all your videos regardless, for a few reasons. They help with SEO, making it easier for AI to read the video, and they help with ADA compliance for people with disabilities — anybody using assistive technology for hearing finds transcripts really helpful.
Jeremy, optimal length depends on exactly where you’re putting the videos and what kind they are. For shorts, we’re looking at around 30 seconds or so typically; for longer videos, it really depends on the content. Some people want longer videos, like a webinar where we’re giving a lot of information; others want shorter. It’s dependent on the specific content and the goal. You’re obviously not going to do chapters on a two-minute video — there’s no need. But for something like this webinar, we’ll go in afterward and separate it by topic into chapters: the introduction, then the beginning of the I/O recap and AI Mode, and so on, so people can jump to whatever they want to hear.
GR: Dan asked whether you should make longer videos into 60-second shorts plus a supplemental search video. I’d recommend cutting things down into shorts — it’ll help you get more views, and it can drive people to watch the longer versions. It’s a great way to repurpose your content and get more value out of one piece. That’s something we’re working on right now — taking videos like this webinar and cutting them into smaller pieces with the important nuggets of information, for YouTube Shorts, TikTok, Reels, and other places, so we get more use out of that video. It also helps if people are looking for a very specific answer before that rolls out broadly — they can find the short, specific video, which is just easier. You don’t have to do several different storyboards and concepts — you shoot the footage, make the long-form video, then cut it into short form and use it again.
CW: In creative industries it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking every idea needs to be original, but really you just need a few good ideas and get them into as many formats as possible. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel.
GR: Video shoots are expensive, so you want to get the most for your buck — you can get one long-form video and 20 shorts out of it. You’re really increasing your opportunity and decreasing your cost per video. I typically recommend, when you’re taking those videos, using the transcript to turn it into a blog article, and into five different tiny social media pieces. However many ways you can repurpose a big piece of content, do it — it saves time, money, and brain power. AI is actually really helpful for this too: if we take a long video, pop it into AI, and say, “Give me the three top takeaways and the timestamps based on the transcript,” AI will do that, and we can break it down and decide how to reuse the content. It saves a lot of time and energy and gives you more ways to use content you already put thought into.
Christine said she’s building an AI agent to work on exactly that — going from one video and transcript to six different assets. That’s exactly what we’re talking about: when your AI does that for you, it saves so much time and gives you a lot to use in different places. Highly recommend that — great tip, Christine. One out-of-the-box, user-friendly solution for video is Midjourney. I’m by no means a video maven, but I’ve been able to do some things with it — though by now it’s probably been bought out. There are a bunch of different ways to use video, so do recommend exploring that as well.
Agentic & Ecommerce Features | How to Prepare for Proliferation of AI Agents
The last major theme we want to touch on is agentic commerce. I have some notes here, but I want to let Cory take this and talk about it, and then I’ll talk more about how you can use it. If you’re e-commerce — most of our clients aren’t heavily e-comm, so we probably won’t spend a lot of time on this — but it’s still an important part of the new Google experience.
CW: Sure. AI buying things for users is something we’ve been hearing about for the last couple of years, but it seems like it’s starting to pick up a lot of steam. Google introduced a lot of features at their I/O conference — it really feels like an AI conference at this point — specifically designed to facilitate AI transactions.
The biggest announcement, I think, was the Universal Cart. It’s exactly what it sounds like — a cart for anything you want to buy, hosted by Google, giving you two options for making a purchase: complete it directly on the retailer’s website, or give your payment information to Google and have it take care of it. It also has AI features like alerting you to a sale on items in your cart, coupon codes, that sort of thing. It’s another move by Google to try to become a one-stop shop for everything.
The big problem people will rightly point out is: how do you prevent the AI from charging your credit card when you don’t mean it to? I think they’re developing safeguards and guardrails to make sure that doesn’t happen. But again, Google’s becoming a one-stop shop — you go to Google for product information, comparison research, putting items in your cart, and then you just give them your credit card and they buy it. It’s pretty big.
As far as what that means for our clients, I think it points to the importance of making sure your website can be read and understood by AI agents. A lot of our clients don’t have e-commerce features, but I’d bet a bunch of you have schedulers your clients use to make appointments or reservations. So you definitely have some systems — at the very least, you’ve got a form fill. Making sure that form fill can be understood by an AI agent –we’re still learning, on a technical level, what that all entails. But it’s developing very fast, and it’s something we want to stay on top of as AI agents become more widespread.
Kick it back to you, Coral.
AI Developments in the Near Future
CN: Jeremy asked when the robots are taking over — next year, possibly, hopefully not.
One thing I’ll say about all of this is that AI is obviously huge right now — it’s almost all anybody asks about anytime I jump on a call, whether it’s a partner call, a potential partner call, or a client call. “How are you using AI for your workflow?” I get that question literally all the time.
So AI is huge right now, but I think it’s going to be interesting, because any time we get a new technology shift like this, it’s very exciting at the beginning, and I don’t think AI is going anywhere — but I think there’s going to be some balance eventually, where it becomes more of an assistive technology, integrated into our everyday lives, and a little less “everything is changing 24/7” in your face. That’s something to keep in mind, because right now it feels like the wild west of SEO all over again, where we’re all relearning what’s best to do, how to make Google happy, how to make the AI agents happy, and where everything’s going. It feels a little chaotic right now, but I think it’ll eventually level out, like it always does. The robots can’t take over too much, because eventually we’ll take it back — so not too worried, hopefully no time soon.
You Still Need an Optimized Website for AI Visibility
The other thing to mention, that Cory was talking about with making sure your e-comm site or whatever it is, is properly optimized — that’s critical, because you want AI and Google to easily find everything. I’ve had people ask me on calls recently, “Is it even worth it to have a website? AI is everything right now — is it worth it to optimize my website, to have it look nice?” My answer is always yes — and not just because I work in websites, but because you need a front page, a brochure, a place where people can come see who you are and what you’re about. People are still going to make it to your website: they’ll see the information AI gives them about who you are and what you do, then go look at your website and decide whether they like you. So that information is still there and still important to have. On top of that, having it properly optimized so you can show up in things like the e-comm Universal Cart, or wherever schedulers start popping up, matters, because that’s the direction it’s continuing to go. The better optimized, the better the information, the easier it is for AI and Google to find you, the more likely they are to surface you.
CW: You also need a repository for all that content. Your website is the source of truth.
It’s where you put all the information that AI is going to surface in the search results. If you don’t have a website, what’s it going to look for? The thought experiment is that you’d build your business off word of mouth and get third-party citations from publications or wherever.
But let’s say a user finds your business through AI because of those third-party citations — they’re going to want to go to your website to figure out when you’re open, where you do business, and how to call you. You need that information out there. Your website is your trust marker — it’s how you prove to people you’re actually in business.
You’ve got to have a website, even if it’s just something with your phone number and a form. That just seems crazy to me otherwise.
Closing Remarks
CN: Agreed. I’m going to pop this over to Gina to bring it home. Anybody who has questions as we wrap up in the last 10 minutes, feel free to pop them in — this is really the critical piece here, so we’re happy to answer and chat about it, and happy to answer questions after, too. If you scroll back up in chat, I popped in Cory’s, Gina’s, and my LinkedIn accounts, as well as our email addresses, so feel free to reach out to any of us. Now I’m going to turn it over to Gina — go ahead, you’ve been very helpful on this thus far.
GR: In closing, there’s a lot going on — a lot of moving parts. Everything we said today will probably change tomorrow, so we’re here as a resource. We’ll send this video out to everybody, along with Cory’s longer article about this — it’s invaluable for you as a business owner, a marketing person within a business, or someone helping other businesses. If you have questions, you can simply reply to the email, or use our individual contact information. If there’s a way we can help with any of the above — SEO, AIO, GEO, content creation, whatever — we’re here for you as a resource. Clients and non-clients alike, feel free to reach out with any questions you have.
We have about eight minutes left — does anyone have anything burning they’d like to ask either Cory, Coral, or myself before we give you your day back, and I get to go back to vacation with my mother?
CN: While we wait to see if anything comes through, I’ll give the last few takeaways. If there’s one piece of advice for something to do today or tomorrow, it’s: go take a look at your website, make sure your information is correct and up to date, and look at your Google Business Profile to make sure it’s up to date and correct too. After that, content, and then getting out there. So, first thing: make sure your website is solid, then your Google Business Profile. Aside from that, think about video. If you’re running ads, keep an eye on how the AI tools are doing and what’s surfacing based on that. If you’re a client running ads with us, feel free to ask Cory questions — he’s more than happy to answer, and he has a good amount of experience here, keeping an eye on all of that as always.
I know it feels like a lot, but we’ll get there, and we’re growing with it. There are always some growing pains — rest assured everybody is experiencing them — but we’ll get through it all together and make sure everything is running how it’s supposed to.
GR: In closing, I also want to offer something to the attendees: there’s some code on people’s websites that prohibits LLMs from crawling your site — not everyone has it, but we run audits to try and suss that out and offer ways to present that content so it’s not problematic for the LLMs reading you. We’re happy to run those audits as a courtesy for any of the webinar attendees, so if you’d like us to do that, feel free to send it over and we’ll let you know what your options are.
Sometimes it’s simple — we had a client with an accordion element, and changing that out to something different solved it. Sometimes, unfortunately, your website needs to be rewritten, but we try to come up with simple solutions to the problem before going nuclear on the whole site.
Cory, any final thoughts?
CW: Just don’t panic. Everything is fine! It’s tough when you read every day about a brand new AI thing, or Google says, “Oh, this isn’t at all relevant for AI search,” and then the next day they’re like, “Actually, we lied — this is very important for AI search.” So, don’t panic. We’re really doing our homework and trying to understand how this is evolving over time.
As a general rule of thumb, your basic good SEO practices are still very good at getting you most of the way to good AI optimization practices. As long as you can focus on helping your customers and being a good local business, I don’t think you have any cause to worry about getting seen in AI. That reputation is going to build on itself and help you. Just keep an eye on your local SEO and your Google Business Profile, make sure the information on your website is accurate and good, and you’re going to do fine. I believe in you!
GR: Awesome. Well, thank you all for attending — we’ll be here next month. I’m not sure what our topic is at this point; we’ve been trying to plan them out, but things keep changing so quickly. Our calendar of events changes as fast as all the rules around AI.
CN: Actually, we do have the topic for next month — we’re talking about AI workflows and ways to optimize them, which we’re looking forward to for you specifically, given your current AI workflow obsession. I’m really looking forward to hosting with you next month.
GR: Yes, I am — I’m a programming fool, so I can’t wait to share some tips and tricks with everybody.
Everyone have a wonderful rest of your day, week, month, and summer — be safe out there, and we’ll see you same time, same station next month. Thanks, everybody.
