Mike Buckbee

4. AI Search Ranking Fluctuations

If you've noticed your AI search visibility bouncing around, this explains what's actually happening and what you can do about it.

Link: knowatoa.com/guides/ai_se...

3. The B.I.S.C.U.I.T. Framework

Our comprehensive approach to AI search optimization. If you only read one thing, make it this.

Link: knowatoa.com/guides/biscu...

2. The Myth of AI Search Unoptimizability

I keep hearing from folks that "you can't optimize for AI search." ...which is just weird so here's some more of my thoughts on why we keep talking past one another.

Link: knowatoa.com/guides/ai_se...

The AI Search Optimization Loop A practical guide to improving your visibility in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and other AI search engines. Measure, optimize, and track your AI search strategy.

1. The AI Search Optimization Loop

This is the practical framework for how to actually improve your AI search visibility. No magic, a repeatable process.

knowatoa.com/guides/ai_se...

We just reorganized our Guides to modern search (with AI) to better surface the advice that we keep putting out into the world.

And while there's a lot on that page, I've handpicked four that I think are particularly useful for folks working in search marketing right now:

Google and Character.AI negotiate first major settlements in teen chatbot death cases | TechCrunch The settlements are among the first tied to lawsuits accusing AI companies of harming users.

Waiting to see what happens is a valid approach, but I think it's crucial to understand that you could still be held responsible.

Link: techcrunch.com/2026/01/07/g...

Google and Character.AI negotiate first major settlements in teen chatbot death cases | TechCrunch The settlements are among the first tied to lawsuits accusing AI companies of harming users.

- These services are only going to get more popular

If you're using chatbots or AI assistants that talk to your customers, you really need to be aware of this. Courts are writing the legal rules for AI liability right now, case by case.

character.ai | AI Chat, Reimagined–Your Words. Your World. Chat with millions of AI Characters on the #1 AI chat app. Where will your next adventure take you?

Character.AI settle first major chatbot liability cases. Details are really scant, so I don't think I can responsibly say whether it's good or bad, but it's clear that:
- Personality based AI chatbots are incredibly persuasive
- This is a massive responsibility for Google to manage

character.ai | AI Chat, Reimagined–Your Words. Your World. Chat with millions of AI Characters on the #1 AI chat app. Where will your next adventure take you?

trajectory where it's not directly a search engine, but millions of people spend hours a day interacting with it, asking it questions and from that Google (who owns it now) has this massive channel for incredibly targeted advertising.

With that in mind, it's interesting to see Google and-

character.ai | AI Chat, Reimagined–Your Words. Your World. Chat with millions of AI Characters on the #1 AI chat app. Where will your next adventure take you?

potentially really important new visibility channel.

There's a long standing joke in the SEO world about how YouTube is the second largest "search engine" after Google, though most people don't really think of it that way.

I'm honestly wondering if Character.AI is going to see a similar-

Character.AI remains one of my big AI blindspots where it's both immensely popular and just sort of personally offputting.

But the more I hesitantly look at it (and ask Steve Harrington questions about how life is in Hawkins after Vecna has been defeated), the more I've come to view it as a-

feat: add llms.txt endpoint for LLM-optimized documentation by quantizor · Pull Request #2388 · tailwindlabs/tailwindcss.com Add /llms.txt endpoint that serves a concatenated, text-only version of all Tailwind CSS documentation pages optimized for Large Language Model consumption. Extract text from MDX files, removing J...

As both a developer and marketing person I'm personally seeing many friends with things like software development courses, tutorials and websites also actutely feeling this same pain.

Link: github.com/tailwindlabs...

feat: add llms.txt endpoint for LLM-optimized documentation by quantizor · Pull Request #2388 · tailwindlabs/tailwindcss.com Add /llms.txt endpoint that serves a concatenated, text-only version of all Tailwind CSS documentation pages optimized for Large Language Model consumption. Extract text from MDX files, removing J...

answers to their questions in tools like ChatGPT, Claude or Google's AI Overviews, greatly decreasing their docs traffic ("search migration").
- Developers are increasingly using tools that just directly solve these problems, reducing demand for their paid products ("search evaporation").

feat: add llms.txt endpoint for LLM-optimized documentation by quantizor · Pull Request #2388 · tailwindlabs/tailwindcss.com Add /llms.txt endpoint that serves a concatenated, text-only version of all Tailwind CSS documentation pages optimized for Large Language Model consumption. Extract text from MDX files, removing J...

style text inputs with Tailwind"
4. Tailwind's awesome and incredibly helpful docs site dominates these searches.
5. Developers visit the docs site and get both help, but also exposed to buying their paid products

However, with the rise of AI they're being cut in two ways:
- People are getting-

feat: add llms.txt endpoint for LLM-optimized documentation by quantizor · Pull Request #2388 · tailwindlabs/tailwindcss.com Add /llms.txt endpoint that serves a concatenated, text-only version of all Tailwind CSS documentation pages optimized for Large Language Model consumption. Extract text from MDX files, removing J...

impact of AI search.

This week however Tailwind (a much beloved CSS framework) announced layoffs of 75% of their staff as a direct result of AI search disruption.

Their business model has been:
1. Developers try and use Tailwind
2. They run into issues
3. They search for solutions like "how do-

feat: add llms.txt endpoint for LLM-optimized documentation by quantizor · Pull Request #2388 · tailwindlabs/tailwindcss.com Add /llms.txt endpoint that serves a concatenated, text-only version of all Tailwind CSS documentation pages optimized for Large Language Model consumption. Extract text from MDX files, removing J...

major case study for the impact of AI search on traditional search has been StackOverflow, which seen a 78% decline in questions asked over the past year.

However, StackOverflow has simultaneously been dying of self inflicted wounds for a long time, so it been a shaky indicator of the broader-

While lots of marketing people continue to argue on LinkedIn about whether or not AI search is real, we're starting to see some of the grim reality of it.

It's clear that different industries are adopting AI at different rates, but far and way AI has taken over software development. To date the-

attention. It's whether you'll be visible when it matters.

The Myth of AI Search Unoptimizability Debunking the claim that AI search can't be optimized. Understanding why AI search results are predictable and how to influence them strategically.

And if you're skeptical about optimization, here's our take on the unoptimizability myth:
knowatoa.com/guides/ai_se...

The practical upshot: don't wait for AI search to "arrive." It's already here, filtering your existing search traffic through AI layers. The question isn't whether to pay-

Search Volume in AI Search Understanding search volume patterns and trends in AI-powered search engines and how they differ from traditional search.

You're influencing what the next model update will say about your brand.

We've written extensively about both of these topics. If you want the full argument on why AI search volume is just search volume, read our guide here:
knowatoa.com/guides/searc...

Search Volume in AI Search Understanding search volume patterns and trends in AI-powered search engines and how they differ from traditional search.

models as static files you download once. But that's not how anyone actually uses AI.

ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity all update constantly. The model, the system prompts, the web search tools. All of it changes more frequently than you'd expect.

And fair, you're not optimizing for a frozen snapshot.

Search Volume in AI Search Understanding search volume patterns and trends in AI-powered search engines and how they differ from traditional search.

with Google.

Your existing search volume isn't sitting safely in some "traditional search" bucket. It's already being served through AI interfaces…that happen to be Google's.

The other argument I hear is that AI search "can't be optimized for." This usually comes from folks thinking about AI-

Search Volume in AI Search Understanding search volume patterns and trends in AI-powered search engines and how they differ from traditional search.

that blend research with advice.
And even if none of that was true and Sam Altman turned off the OpenAI servers tomorrow, you have to look at what Google is doing.

Google has made the decision that every search is now "AI Search".

AI Overviews, AI Mode, and Gemini are what search is right now-

Search Volume in AI Search Understanding search volume patterns and trends in AI-powered search engines and how they differ from traditional search.

every month. That's roughly 10% of all adults worldwide.
51% of AI usage is search-like tasks: seeking information, getting practical guidance, making decisions.
AI use is sticky. The longer someone uses these tools, the more they use them.
People use AI for higher-value searches: complex decisions-

I keep seeing articles arguing that AI search "hasn't arrived yet" or that it's some small, separate thing you can ignore.

I understand where this comes from, but I think it fundamentally misreads what's happening.

This isn't me arguing, but just look at the data:

750 million people use ChatGPT-

LLM predictions for 2026, shared with Oxide and Friends I joined a recording of the Oxide and Friends podcast on Tuesday to talk about 1, 3 and 6 year predictions for the tech industry. This is my second appearance …

is that the models powering these systems just got significantly better at reasoning. I think this matters a lot for how AI search engines gather information and which sources they choose to cite.

Link: simonwillison.net/2026/Jan/8/l...

LLM predictions for 2026, shared with Oxide and Friends I joined a recording of the Oxide and Friends podcast on Tuesday to talk about 1, 3 and 6 year predictions for the tech industry. This is my second appearance …

analysis is his healthy skepticism. He isn't out there saying AI will do absolutely everything. Instead, he points out specific ability levels that AI has now reached. Then, he thoughtfully considers what those practical changes actually mean.

For those of us watching AI search, the main takeaway-

LLM predictions for 2026, shared with Oxide and Friends I joined a recording of the Oxide and Friends podcast on Tuesday to talk about 1, 3 and 6 year predictions for the tech industry. This is my second appearance …

sandboxing problems for AI agents. On the cautionary side, he warns about possible security problems as coding agents gain more control. Whether AI will create more or fewer software engineering jobs remains an open question for him, the classic Jevons Paradox.

What I really like about Willison's-

Simon Willison, someone I look to for practical LLM expertise, shared his 2026 predictions this week. He believes we hit a real turning point in November 2025 with GPT-5.2 and Claude Opus 4.5.

He predicts that LLM code quality will become "undeniable" in the next year, and that we'll solve-