Technology Category
A MarTech contributed column by Greg Kihlstrom, published October 13, 2026, cites surveys on consumer willingness to let AI agents shop. It is opinion; most survey methods are missing and one example rests on a single reporter's test.
Why it matters
If an agent picks the product, brand building and product data must work for machines as well as people.
Semrush's H2 2026 AI Visibility Index, published October 13, adds a UK benchmark. In July Tesco ranked 25th among ChatGPT's cited UK domains and Asda 606th, though both were top-100 mentions on all four platforms.
Why it matters
Brands can be named often yet send no traffic because the sources AI cites are other sites.
On October 15, 2026 Google said AI Overviews and AI Mode will show more inline links, a section highlighting the one or two most useful links, and news carousels with Preferred Sources. Google did not say click data will appear in reports.
Why it matters
Whether AI answers send clicks decides if publishers and brands see traffic from AI results.
DataDome's Q3 2026 AI Traffic Report, published October 15, counted about 25 billion AI agent requests, up 41.5% on Q2. Meta's Muse made 19.5 million September requests, 33% of agentic browser traffic, measured over only nine days.
Why it matters
Agentic browsers act for users and may not identify themselves, which affects analytics, bot rules and conversion measurement.
On October 13, 2026 Microsoft Bing added a beta Topics Portfolio tab to the AI Performance report. It groups a site's grounding queries into AI-classified topics and lists opportunity queries where other sites are cited. Numbers are approximate.
Why it matters
It is the first view from a major search engine that shows citation gaps, which are the core of AI search optimisation.
Search Engine Roundtable reported on October 15, 2026 that Bing is testing a module showing related searches based on browsing, below Microsoft Ads. Microsoft gave no statement; how browsing data is used is not explained.
Why it matters
Personalised related searches shift which queries users run next and could affect ad and organic traffic.
Search Engine Roundtable reported on October 14, 2026 that a user posted a screenshot of AI Mode's left sidebar on a standard Google results page. Barry Schwartz could not reproduce it and suspects a test; Google gave no statement.
Why it matters
If AI Mode becomes part of the main page, click patterns and search habits could change.
On October 13, 2026 SerpApi released its Extract API to all accounts, including the free plan, returning pages as JSON, Markdown or HTML up to 5 MB. Its documentation does not say whether it obeys robots.txt, and Google's lawsuit against SerpApi is pending.
Why it matters
Site owners may see new automated traffic, and AI tool builders get another route to web content.
DemandSphere's CEO said on October 12, 2026 that Google returned spurious results on about 11% of its daily SERPs, and Nozzle measured 8.0% poisoned pages. Figures are self-reported and Google has not commented.
Why it matters
Rank reports drive client decisions, and a few per cent of wrong results can distort trends.
On episode 115 of Google's Search Off the Record, Martin Splitt and John Mueller said PDFs are converted to HTML and rank normally, but neither knew Google's documented 64MB fetch limit. The HTML cap is documented as 2MB.
Why it matters
Many sites publish key content as PDFs, and the limits and canonical options decide whether it is indexed correctly.
