GEO news
What is changing in AI search. Each item is a summary with a link to the outlet that reported it.
ChatGPT ad clicks earn $0.89 per visit against $2.45 from paid search, working paper finds
A visit from a ChatGPT ad generated $0.89 in revenue for U.S. traffic, compared with $2.45 from a paid Google search ad, according to a working paper by Maximilian Kaiser and Christian Schulze dated October 2026 and still under review.
Source: Search Engine Journal
BrightEdge finds big travel brands lead AI answers, with gaps in inspiration queries
New BrightEdge research into travel queries shows established brands taking most of the visibility in both Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT, but the leader changes with the travel sector being asked about.
Source: Search Engine Journal
Being known is not being recommended: a five-time CEO's AI search test exposes the measurement gap
Tony Uphoff asked ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews the questions his prospective clients ask, then counted how often the engines named the two businesses he launched in February.
Source: Search Engine Journal
ChatGPT Ads go live in 26 more countries as OpenAI widens its ad formats
OpenAI has expanded ChatGPT Ads to 26 additional countries, bringing the total to 89 markets worldwide, and says more than 100,000 advertisers are now using the platform. The update went out in the company's weekly email to advertisers.
Source: Search Engine Roundtable
ChatGPT Ads switches on automatic creative changes by default
OpenAI is turning on creative enhancements by default for new and existing ChatGPT Ads campaigns from Friday, October 30.
Source: Search Engine Journal
OpenAI's hidden Aura safety check can block sites from ChatGPT browsing
OpenAI runs a central site-safety check, referred to internally as Aura, that decides whether its browsing agents may connect to a website at all.
Source: Search Engine Journal
Pages cited by AI assistants more likely to answer the question up front, study finds
Pages that AI assistants cite open with a direct answer to the question more often than pages they pass over, according to an analysis of 193,507 AI answers from ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and AI Overviews.
Source: Search Engine Journal
OpenAI data: one in five consumer ChatGPT messages now seek information
Information seeking reached 20.7% of messages on consumer ChatGPT plans in August, edging past writing at 20.6% for the first time in OpenAI's Signals series, which begins in July 2024. Writing regained the lead in September at 21.4% against 20.2%.
Source: Search Engine Journal
ChatGPT ads gain a Learn more arrow link, with some units served via Amazon DSP
OpenAI is testing a new format for some ChatGPT ad units, adding a dotted, underlined 'Learn more' link with an upward arrow inside the text-based ad. The link does not appear on every ad, and the design was spotted by Bordie Clark, who shared screenshots on X and SERP Alert.
Source: Search Engine Roundtable
Brands ChatGPT rarely names without search stay rare even when cited pages mention them
Brands that ChatGPT seldom names when answering without search results tend to stay seldom named when it does search, even when those brands appear on many of the pages it cites.
Source: Search Engine Journal
Winning AI search visibility does not guarantee B2B sales, analysis finds
Ranking well in Google, ChatGPT or Perplexity does not by itself win B2B buyers. Buyers who arrive from an AI answer still have to understand an offering, check its claims and decide to act, and a website that makes that work hard loses them before sales ever hears from them.
Source: MarTech
ChatGPT sends 0.62% of the traffic Google organic does, 100-site study finds
ChatGPT traffic is a rounding error next to Google organic, according to an analysis of 12 months of GA4 data across 100 websites and more than 145 million sessions.
Source: Search Engine Journal
ChatGPT sends less than 1% of Google's traffic
ChatGPT referral traffic amounts to just 0.62% of the sessions Google organic search sends to websites, according to an analysis by Marie Haynes covering 100 sites, 12 months of GA4 data and more than 145 million sessions.
Source: MarTech
OpenAI explains how ChatGPT picks ads, separately from its answers
OpenAI has published a technical account of how advertising works inside ChatGPT, describing a dedicated model that reads a conversation, turns relevant parts of it into search queries, and submits candidate ads to an auction.
Source: Search Engine Journal
