News archive

14th Aug AI Mode Gemini 3.7 Flash becomes a selectable model in AI Mode 14th Aug Social Platforms X drops 665 Brazilian candidate accounts out of For You, and corrects how its new weights are being read 13th Aug AI Overviews AI-generated illustrations start appearing inside AI Overviews, and a recipe publisher objects 13th Aug Gemini Gemini 3.7 Flash takes over Gemini Spark 13th Aug Social Platforms X publishes its ranking weights and its visibility filters, plus a tool that shows your own labels 12th Aug ChatGPT Health and finance advertisers get a route into ChatGPT ads, case by case 12th Aug Gemini Gemini connects to twelve more services, from OpenTable to Zocdoc 12th Aug Grok Grok 4.6 becomes the flagship, aimed at long-running agents 11th Aug ChatGPT ChatGPT ads reach Brazil and Mexico, completing the May list at nine markets 11th Aug Gemini The Gemini app passes 1 billion monthly users 11th Aug Grok Grok Bot: agents that sign into your tools and keep working 10th Aug AI Overviews Google points the judge at an App Store ruling, two weeks before the AI Overviews hearing 9th Aug ChatGPT ChatGPT Atlas stops working, nine months after launch 7th Aug ChatGPT ChatGPT ad pixels switch to automatic advanced matching by default on 17th August 6th Aug ChatGPT GPT-5.6 Luna becomes the free-tier default and free text chats go unlimited 5th Aug Gemini Google Assistant shuts down on 4th September, and Gemini takes the slot 4th Aug AI Overviews How Google counts an AI Overviews impression: only once the link is in view 4th Aug AI Mode How Google counts an AI Mode impression: every follow-up is a new query 4th Aug Perplexity Ninth Circuit vacates Amazon's injunction against Comet's shopping agent 3rd Aug Social Platforms Pinterest moves search relevance judging to vision-language models

31st Jul ChatGPT ChatGPT crosses 1 billion weekly users 31st Jul Perplexity Reddit's DMCA circumvention claims against Perplexity and SerpApi survive dismissal 30th Jul AI Overviews Top Stories sits inside the AI Overview on one in six news searches 30th Jul Gemini Gemini Spark starts using your logged-in accounts to run web errands 30th Jul Social Platforms Reddit's "choppy" search referrals outweigh a 61% revenue quarter 29th Jul Google Discover Discover performance becomes measurable for social and video posts 29th Jul AI Overviews The two US AI Overviews antitrust suits get a joint hearing date 29th Jul AI Mode Productrise: AI Mode shows 95% fewer product listings than standard search 29th Jul Instagram Google Search Console opens Instagram reporting to every account 28th Jul Grok Build Mode ships, and Grok 4.5 arrives in GitHub Copilot 27th Jul AI Overviews Similarweb puts AI Overviews on 43% of US searches, nearly triple last year 24th Jul AI Overviews Google signs the EU's AI-content transparency code, days before the labelling rules bite 24th Jul Grok Grok lands inside Google Workspace, completing the Office set 24th Jul Social Platforms Facebook tests opening straight into full-screen video, with Classic Feed demoted to a tab 23rd Jul AI Overviews The EU's first DMA fine on Google names AI Overviews and AI Mode 22nd Jul AI Overviews AI Overviews and AI Mode launch in France 22nd Jul AI Mode AI Mode goes live in France 22nd Jul ChatGPT Similarweb landscape report: citations reach 6.8% of ChatGPT answers, ads reach 26% of chats 22nd Jul Grok Grok 4.5 reaches grok.com, X, iOS and Android 21st Jul AI Overviews Major publishers say blocking Google is now on the table 21st Jul AI Mode Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite starts rolling out in Google Search 20th Jul AI Overviews AOP: Google referrals to eight UK publishing groups fell 7.1% in a quarter 20th Jul Claude Anthropic's $1.5 billion authors settlement gets final approval 17th Jul AI Overviews Top Stories carousel goes live inside AI Overviews 17th Jul AI Overviews Google says AI features send "billions of clicks" to sites every week 16th Jul AI Overviews The EU orders Google to share Search data with rivals, AI chatbots included 16th Jul AI Mode AI Mode connects to Instacart, Canva and YouTube Music 16th Jul Gemini The EU orders Google to open Android to rival assistants, naming Gemini as the benchmark 15th Jul AI Overviews Ozone: publisher ad supply fell up to 40% in Q2 as AI search shrank the open web 15th Jul AI Mode Personal Intelligence connects Google Calendar to AI Mode 14th Jul AI Overviews German media regulators put AI Overviews under national media law 14th Jul AI Overviews Common Sense Media rates Google AI search "Unacceptable" for children 14th Jul AI Overviews Image generation comes to AI Overviews 14th Jul AI Mode Common Sense Media rates AI Mode "Unacceptable" for children 10th Jul Gemini Publishers sue Google over the books behind Gemini 2nd Jul AI Overviews Further Exploration starts appearing at the end of AI Overviews 1st Jul AI Overviews First randomized experiment puts the click loss at 39.8%, and finds the lost clicks were not lower quality

30th Jun AI Mode Recipe links move to the top of AI Mode responses 29th Jun Google Discover AI Summaries that bundle publishers start appearing in the UK feed 29th Jun AI Mode Google commits to bringing AI Mode to France by September 23 27th Jun Instagram Mosseri tests making "Your Algorithm" central to the app 26th Jun Google Updates June 2026 spam update finishes rolling out in about 2 days 24th Jun Google Discover A third Discover logging error in seven weeks, and a first confirmation hiding in the fine print 22nd Jun ChatGPT ChatGPT ads reach Japan and South Korea; UK advertisers get self-serve 16th Jun Microsoft Copilot Bing Webmaster Tools adds Intents, Topics, Citation Share and Compare 12th Jun AI Mode Information agents roll out to AI Ultra subscribers 10th Jun Instagram "Your Algorithm" reaches the main Feed 9th Jun AI Overviews SparkToro: 68% of US Google searches now end without a click 8th Jun AI Mode Google: AI Mode will not become the default for Chrome search 4th Jun Google Discover Search profiles launch in the US, giving publishers a claimable identity in Discover 4th Jun Instagram Instagram Plus launches: the first paid distribution lever 3rd Jun AI Overviews UK regulator orders an AI Overviews opt-out for publishers 3rd Jun AI Mode Search Console adds Generative AI reports and an AI opt-out control 3rd Jun Claude SE Ranking: Claude referrals grew 386% in four months, from a tiny base 2nd Jun Google Updates May 2026 core update completes after a volatile 12-day rollout 2nd Jun ChatGPT Merchant product feeds resurface inside the ChatGPT Ads Manager 2nd Jun Microsoft Copilot Microsoft announces Web IQ, grounding APIs built for AI agents

28th May AI Overviews Munich court: AI Overviews are Google's own words, and Google answers for them 28th May Perplexity CNN sues Perplexity, the first US television network to sue an answer engine 27th May AI Overviews Preferred sources come to AI Overviews and AI Mode 27th May AI Overviews Merchant Center gets an AI performance report covering AI Overviews 27th May AI Mode Merchant Center gets an AI performance report covering AI Mode 26th May AI Overviews Cursor data from 846,000 sessions: an AI Overview slows searchers down and flattens intent 21st May Grok SpaceX's IPO filing produces the first audited Grok user number: 117 million 20th May AI Overviews I/O 2026: AI Overviews and AI Mode merge into one experience 19th May AI Mode I/O 2026: AI Mode passes 1 billion monthly users and merges with AI Overviews 19th May Gemini I/O 2026: Gemini Spark launches and the app passes 900 million users 15th May Social Platforms X's second algorithm release makes the repo runnable, and documents ads inside the ranking pipeline 14th May AI Overviews SISTRIX: an AI Overview sits on 72% of health searches for UK newsbrands 14th May Grok Google Analytics starts counting Grok referrals for you 13th May Microsoft Copilot Microsoft retires Copilot Mode in Edge after nine and a half months 7th May ChatGPT An undocumented change makes ChatGPT's brand links dramatically more prominent 6th May AI Overviews Google announces five link improvements for AI Overviews and AI Mode 5th May AI Overviews A musician sues Google for C$1.5m after an AI Overview called him a sex offender 5th May ChatGPT Self-serve Ads Manager opens to every US business, with no minimum spend 1st May AI Overviews SISTRIX: AI Overviews reuse the same sources for months 1st May AI Mode SISTRIX: AI Mode replaces 56% of its cited sources every week

30th Apr AI Overviews Preferred sources open up to every language Google Search supports 30th Apr Instagram Aggregators become ineligible for recommendations across photos, carousels and Reels 24th Apr AI Overviews Seer: first partial CTR recovery on AI Overview queries 21st Apr Microsoft Copilot AI Max ads arrive for Copilot surfaces; Copilot Checkout reaches 500,000 merchants 16th Apr AI Mode Clicking a link in AI Mode on Chrome now opens the page beside the answer 14th Apr AI Mode The Google app for desktop leaves Labs with AI Mode built in 10th Apr AI Mode Agentic restaurant booking expands to eight more countries, subscription-free 8th Apr Google Updates March 2026 core update completes; Mueller explains staged rollouts 2nd Apr Gemini Gemini overtakes Perplexity to become the second largest source of AI referrals

26th Mar AI Mode Search Live goes global across all AI Mode countries and languages 25th Mar Google Updates March 2026 spam update completes in a record 19.5 hours 24th Mar ChatGPT OpenAI deprioritizes Instant Checkout and pivots ChatGPT commerce to discovery 20th Mar AI Overviews A US court dismisses a publisher antitrust case, and rules AI Overviews is not a separate product 19th Mar AI Overviews Google tells the CMA it is exploring an AI Overviews opt-out, without saying when 18th Mar Perplexity Comet ships on iPhone, completing the browser's platform story 17th Mar AI Overviews Chartbeat: search referrals to small publishers are down 60% in two years 13th Mar Social Platforms Facebook publishes the results of its originality crackdown: original Reels watch time doubled 12th Mar Social Platforms LinkedIn documents its feed ranking in detail, and none of the popular "rules" appear in it 4th Mar AI Mode Canvas graduates from Labs to everyone in the US 3rd Mar Google Discover Reach reports Discover traffic down 46% in half a year 1st Mar AI Overviews BrightEdge: AI Overviews now appear on about 48% of tracked queries

27th Feb Google Updates First-ever Discover core update completes (US English only) 27th Feb Perplexity Perplexity launches Computer, a cloud agent that routes work across 19 models 25th Feb AI Overviews SISTRIX: AI Overviews cost the German market 265 million clicks a month 20th Feb Google Discover The first measurement of the February core update: more topics, fewer publishers 18th Feb AI Mode AI Mode adds 53 languages, its largest single expansion 18th Feb Perplexity Perplexity kills its ads program entirely 16th Feb AI Overviews Google calls an AI Overviews opt-out a "huge engineering project", and licenses the FT 10th Feb AI Overviews European Publishers Council files antitrust complaint over AI Overviews 10th Feb Microsoft Copilot Bing Webmaster Tools ships AI Performance, the first citation-level AI report 9th Feb ChatGPT Ads go live in ChatGPT for US users on the Free and Go tiers 5th Feb Google Discover The February 2026 Discover core update, the first Google has ever named for Discover on its dashboard 5th Feb Social Platforms Reddit: 80 million weekly searchers, and one unified search 4th Feb AI Overviews Ahrefs: AI Overviews now cut top-result CTR by 58% 4th Feb AI Mode Alphabet Q4: AI Mode queries per user have doubled since launch 2nd Feb Grok SpaceX absorbs xAI, and the site starts calling itself SpaceXAI

27th Jan AI Overviews Gemini 3 becomes the default AI Overviews model worldwide 27th Jan AI Mode AI Overviews now hand off into AI Mode conversations 26th Jan Grok The European Commission opens a DSA investigation over Grok 23rd Jan Google Discover Google confirms AI-written Discover headlines are a feature, not an experiment 22nd Jan AI Mode Personal Intelligence connects Gmail and Photos to AI Mode 22nd Jan Social Platforms TikTok's US joint venture closes: the algorithm gets American governance 20th Jan Social Platforms X open-sources its recommendation algorithm, for the second time in its history 16th Jan ChatGPT OpenAI announces ads and takes ChatGPT Go worldwide at 8 dollars 14th Jan Gemini Personal Intelligence connects Gmail, Photos, Search and YouTube to Gemini 12th Jan Google Discover Chartbeat data: Discover referrals down 21% globally, 29% in the US 12th Jan AI Overviews Google restricts health queries in AI Overviews after Guardian probe 8th Jan Microsoft Copilot Copilot Checkout launches in the US with PayPal, Stripe and Shopify 6th Jan Grok xAI closes a 20 billion dollar Series E with Nvidia and Cisco investing 5th Jan Instagram What Mosseri's AI-authenticity message actually said, and the "algorithm shift" it never announced

29th Dec Google Updates December 2025 core update wraps up the year 28th Dec Google Discover Marfeel: AI Summaries are 51% of the Discover feed, and their clicks default to YouTube 19th Dec AI Overviews AI Overview ads quietly expand to 11 more countries 18th Dec Claude Claude for Chrome reaches every paid plan 18th Dec Instagram Instagram caps hashtags at five per post 17th Dec AI Mode Gemini 3 Flash becomes the default AI Mode model worldwide 17th Dec Gemini Gemini 3 Flash becomes the app default, with a Fast, Thinking and Pro picker 15th Dec AI Overviews Semrush: AIO prevalence peaked at 24.61% in July, settled near 16% 15th Dec AI Overviews Ahrefs: AI Overviews and AI Mode agree on the answer and disagree on the sources 15th Dec AI Mode Ahrefs: AI Mode cites more, and it barely cites what AI Overviews cites 10th Dec Instagram "Your Algorithm" launches on Reels 9th Dec AI Overviews European Commission opens Article 102 investigation into Google's AI search features 5th Dec Perplexity The New York Times sues Perplexity, a day after the Chicago Tribune 4th Dec AI Overviews Publishers take their AI Overviews evidence to the US Department of Justice 1st Dec AI Mode Gemini 3 Pro in AI Mode expands to nearly 120 countries

18th Nov AI Overviews Gemini 3 launches and comes to Search on day one 18th Nov AI Mode Gemini 3 comes to AI Mode on launch day, a first for Search 18th Nov Gemini Gemini 3 Pro lands app-wide and Gemini Agent arrives 7th Nov Microsoft Copilot A Search mode arrives inside the Copilot app 5th Nov AI Mode AI Mode gets an official button on Chrome's mobile new-tab page 4th Nov Perplexity Amazon sues Perplexity over Comet's shopping agent

29th Oct AI Mode Alphabet Q3: AI Mode passes 75 million daily active users 28th Oct Google Discover Fake AI-written stories reach millions in the UK feed, and Google promises a fix 27th Oct Grok Grokipedia launches, and briefly becomes a search-visibility story 23rd Oct Microsoft Copilot Copilot Fall Release bundles Copilot Search, connectors and an upgraded Edge 22nd Oct Perplexity Reddit sues Perplexity and the scraping supply chain behind it 14th Oct Instagram Teen accounts default to a PG-13-inspired content standard 10th Oct AI Overviews UK CMA gives Google strategic market status, AI Overviews included 8th Oct AI Mode AI Mode tops 200 countries and territories in its biggest expansion 2nd Oct Perplexity Comet goes free worldwide, with seven publishers signed to Comet Plus

30th Sep AI Mode Search and Shopping ads start rolling out in US AI Mode 29th Sep ChatGPT Instant Checkout launches: buying inside ChatGPT, starting with Etsy 24th Sep AI Mode Search Live reaches general availability in the US 24th Sep Instagram Instagram passes 3 billion monthly users, and names what drove it 18th Sep AI Mode AI Mode comes to the Chrome desktop omnibox 17th Sep Google Discover Follow comes to Discover, and social posts formally enter the feed 12th Sep AI Overviews Penske Media sues Google over AI Overviews 8th Sep AI Mode AI Mode gets its first non-English languages

29th Aug Claude Cloudflare's crawl-to-refer series: Anthropic crawls tens of thousands of pages per referral 25th Aug Perplexity Comet Plus: 80% of revenue to publishers, seeded by a $42.5 million pool 21st Aug AI Mode AI Mode expands to 180+ new countries and territories in English 11th Aug Microsoft Copilot Bing Search APIs go dark after fifteen years 7th Aug Microsoft Copilot GPT-5 arrives in Copilot with Smart Mode routing 6th Aug AI Overviews Liz Reid says total organic clicks from Search are relatively stable 6th Aug Instagram Reposts launch globally, and they feed recommendations 4th Aug Perplexity Cloudflare accuses Perplexity of stealth crawling past no-crawl directives

30th Jul AI Overviews Authoritas: UK news publishers lose 47.5% of desktop clicks to AI Overviews 28th Jul AI Mode AI Mode launches in the United Kingdom 23rd Jul AI Overviews AI Overviews pass 2 billion monthly users 22nd Jul AI Overviews Pew: users click a result on 8% of visits with an AI summary vs 15% without 16th Jul AI Mode Gemini 2.5 Pro and Deep Search arrive for AI Pro and Ultra subscribers 15th Jul Google Discover AI Summaries launch in the US Discover feed 10th Jul Instagram Public professional Instagram content becomes Google-indexable by default 8th Jul AI Mode AI Mode becomes generally available in India

30th Jun AI Overviews Independent Publishers Alliance files the first EU complaint over AI Overviews 16th Jun AI Mode AI Mode traffic starts counting in Search Console, with no separate filter

27th May Claude Claude web search goes global on every plan 20th May AI Overviews I/O 2025: AI Overviews pass 1.5 billion monthly users in 200+ countries 20th May AI Mode I/O 2025: AI Mode rolls out to everyone in the US

21st Apr AI Overviews Amsive: AI Overviews cut average CTR by 15.49%, branded queries gain 18.68% 17th Apr AI Overviews Ahrefs: an AI Overview means a 34.5% lower CTR for the top result

21st Mar Claude Claude's search backend identified as Brave, by three independent signals 20th Mar Claude Claude gets web search, with direct citations 6th Mar Grok Tow Center: Grok cited news worse than any other AI search tool tested 5th Mar AI Overviews AI Overviews upgraded to Gemini 2.0 and opened to teens and signed-out users 5th Mar AI Mode AI Mode debuts as a Search Labs experiment

24th Feb AI Overviews Chegg becomes the first company to sue Google over AI Overviews traffic loss

28th Oct AI Overviews AI Overviews expand to more than 100 countries and 1 billion monthly users 3rd Oct AI Overviews Ads go live inside AI Overviews on US mobile

15th Aug AI Overviews AI Overviews go international: UK, India, Japan, Indonesia, Mexico and Brazil

30th May AI Overviews "About last week": Google responds to AI Overviews' viral quality failures 14th May AI Overviews AI Overviews launch in the US at I/O 2024

10th May AI Overviews Google unveils the Search Generative Experience at I/O 2023