@willscott.bsky.social
Husband, father, marketer, Ironman, locomotive consultant. https://si.ly/m/will-scott
Bing's new AI Performance report reveals how Copilot's RAG retrieval works.
"Grounding queries" aren't user queries — they're machine-generated. One question generates 3-5 retrieval variants.
Citation counts are inflated, but query themes are gold for AI SEO.
Bing now shows how often Copilot cites your content in AI answers.
We pulled 91 days: 19,717 citations, 86 pages cited. One page = 69% of all citations.
AI search is wildly more concentrated than traditional search.
Full data → searchinfluence.com/blog/bing-ai-performance-report-copilot-citati...
Idea to homepage redesign in 47 minutes.
The bottleneck has shifted. The question isn't "how do we build this?" anymore. It's "what should we build?"
The businesses that get good at decision-making velocity will own the next five years.
760 people surveyed on AI search:
50% use AI tools weekly
79% read AI Overviews
56% trust brands AI cites
Only 30% of orgs have a strategy.
Not a knowledge gap — a capacity gap.
https://searchengineland.com/higher-ed-data-seo-visibility-ai-search-468193
James Carville said "Speed kills" in 1992.
Yesterday: idea → live landing page in 47 minutes.
Not because I'm fast. Because my tools are.
Tomorrow: all the tools that make this possible.
https://si-homepage-demo.vercel.app
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
— Arthur C. Clarke
This week: treated AI like a team, not an assistant.
In 5 days:
→ Published + promoted across 6 platforms
→ Fixed 35 broken pages
→ Audited 8 properties
→ Built a tool I've wanted for a year
The bottleneck isn't "what should we do" anymore. It's "what's worth doing."
New research: 56% are more likely to trust a brand cited by AI. But 60% of orgs are still just exploring AI search -- only 30% have a strategy.
AI doesn't look for the biggest brand. It looks for the best answer.
searchengineland.com/higher-ed-data-seo-visibility-ai-search-468193
Yeah. The quote we heard was a 20K buy-in. So we'll see.
04.02.2026 18:52 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
OpenAI just announced ads are coming to ChatGPT -- in the coming weeks.
This isn't "another ad platform."
It's the clearest signal yet that AI chat is becoming a primary discovery channel. Your customers are forming intent there before they ever touch Google.
Full breakdown: searchinfluence.co...
AI visibility tactics that work:
• 250 docs to shape brand perception
• Go multimodal
• Freshness matters
• Social works fast
h/t @lilyray.nyc @kevin-indig.bsky.social @rosshudgens.bsky.social @johnmu.com @bernardjhuang.bsky.social @searchengineland.bsky.social
New Visibility Report:
Are AI tracking tools actually tracking anything real?
SparkToro tested the same prompts 100 times. Only 2 of 24 tools recommended consistently.
If you're buying an AI visibility tool, read this first.
thevisibilityreport.com
Are AI tracking tools actually tracking anything real?
New @sparktoro.bsky.social research: AI tools give wildly inconsistent brand recommendations — even with identical prompts.
This week's Visibility Report digs in.
📎 thevisibilityreport.com
Thanks for sharing @terryvanhorne.bsky.social
02.02.2026 16:16 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
AI is now a stakeholder in your marketing. A mediator between brand and customer.
Google's agent marketplace: 2,000 agents. A2A protocol: 150+ partners.
h/t @crystalontheweb.bsky.social
https://www.wix.com/studio/ai-search-lab/agentic-web-will-change-everything
Agreed.
02.02.2026 09:25 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Grad students search differently now:
50% use AI weekly
69% of searches = no click
82% favor page-one
SEO = algorithm optimization
GEO = AI assistant optimization
Full research: searchinfluence.com/blog/ai-search-optimization-for-graduate-education-marketing-in-2026/
"The problem with logic is that it kills magic." -- Rory Sutherland
As AI optimizes everything, what happens to the irrational stuff that actually works?
WordStream dropped their 2026 SEO trends.
Key stat: SEO still drives 34x more traffic than AI chatbots. 60% of businesses haven't seen AI search impact yet.
GEO hype will peak. Don't panic-pivot.
Optimize for both, watch the data.
New project: The Visibility Report — a weekly newsletter tracking AI SEO and visibility tools.
Built entirely through Slack chat with an AI agent. No code editor touched.
Feedback welcome: https://thevisibilityreport.com
In the AI era, ubiquity = probability.
Show up consistently with the same core message across contexts? You become the pattern AI pulls from.
Consistency compounds. It's not vanity -- it's probability.
People treat ChatGPT like Google - ask a question, get the answer.
But LLMs don't search. They generate. Predicting words based on patterns, not retrieving facts.
They're making it up with math. That's the technology.
Different mental model required.
"The real fact of the matter is that nobody reads ads. People read what interests them, and sometimes it's an ad." — Howard Luck Gossage
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
AI is trained on consensus. It knows the average of everything ever written.
The value is in information gain -- unique angles, first-party data, perspectives that don't exist yet.
What's the insight only you can contribute?
Schema markup used to be SEO extra credit.
The AI might not read it directly. But the retrieval system deciding which pages AI sees? It probably does.
Schema → Better indexing → Higher chance of retrieval → You get cited.
Your website now has two users:
1. The human who asks the question
2. The AI that finds the answer
Both want clarity. Both want to find the answer fast.
The difference is the last mile. This isn't SEO 2.0 -- it's UX bifurcation.
Speaking today at Brew Agency's Marketing with Purpose roundtable. 15 senior marketers, real talk about AI meets marketing.
What I'm covering: the shift from "AI tools" to "AI users." Your customers talk to AI before they talk to you.
Listened to @mariehaynes.bsky.social explain Google's UCP -- worth 20 minutes.
AI agents can now complete purchases without leaving the conversation.
No website. No checkout. Your site might not be in the journey at all.
We optimize user journeys. But what if the user isn't human?
AI agents are browsing, comparing, deciding. They don't see your hero image or emotional triggers.
What does UX look like when the "user" is an LLM? I genuinely don't know.
Stealth applicants are rising. AI might be why.
If AI can do in 10 minutes what used to take 6 months of research, maybe students don't need your nurture sequence anymore. They just apply.
Anyone else seeing this?
