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AI Tools Can’t Agree on Who’s the Best (and There’s a Reason for That) |
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SparkToro ran the first serious research on whether AI visibility can actually be measured.
They had 600 people run the same prompts through ChatGPT, Claude, and Google’s AI Overviews/AI Mode nearly 3,000 times. And found chaos:
- The same prompt returned the same brand list less than 1% of the time. The same list in the same order? Under 0.1%.
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Why? These are probability engines, designed with randomness baked in to sound more human, generating unique answers.
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But the visibility rate was consistent. Certain brands showed up 55%-77% of the time regardless of list order. That’s the metric worth tracking.
Translation: If you're tracking AI mentions the way you track SERPs, you're chasing fog. Track visibility %, not rankings. If you're paying for AI tracking and they can't show how they handle the randomness problem, don't.
And if ChatGPT calls you '#1'? They're telling your competitor the same thing.
👉 Read more on Sparktoro: SparkToro's AI Visibility Research
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AI Shopping Rivals Are Teaming Up Against Amazon
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Walmart, Target, and Etsy have all partnered with Google to sell through Gemini and AI Mode. They’re also listing through OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Shopify has teamed up with everyone in the space except Amazon. PayPal has announced AI commerce partnerships with every major retailer except Amazon.
Amazon, meanwhile, has blocked shopping agents from OpenAI and Google - while reportedly in talks to invest tens of billions in OpenAI for a deal that could include a shopping partnership.
The quote that explains it: 'You’re seeing partnership announcements and willingness to work with everybody that you have not traditionally seen, because Amazon’s dominance just gets stronger every day. This is looking like the one opportunity to try to dislodge them.'
Translation: If AI agents become the front door to shopping, your platform choice becomes a distribution decision. Shopify stores may surface in ChatGPT. Amazon listings might not. The infrastructure is being decided now. If you sell products, this is worth watching.
👉 Read More on The Information: In AI Shopping Wars, Rivals Team Up to Take On Amazon and Amazon Discusses Getting Special Access to OpenAI Tech
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Google Seems Done With Self-Promotional 'Best Of' Listicles |
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Lily Ray analysed seven SaaS companies that lost significant organic visibility in late January. The common thread: blogs full of 'best X' articles where they ranked themselves #1.
The numbers:
- One $8B brand had 191 self-promotional listicles. Lost 49% visibility.
- Another had 228 listicles in their /guide/ folder. Lost 43%.
- A third had 340 across their blog. Lost 34%.
- A fourth had just 61 listicles, but launched them all in July 2025. Down 30%+.
The pattern: high volume of 'Best [Category]' posts, company ranks itself #1, often with AI-generated content and artificially refreshed dates ('Updated for 2026!').
Translation: If your blog is full of listicles where you rank yourself first, that's not content strategy - it's a liability. Audit now:
site:yoursite.com intitle:best "1. [your company or product name]"
If the number is high, expect it to cost you.
👉 Read More on Lily Ray's Substack: Is Google Finally Cracking Down on Self-Promotional Listicles?
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PR Industry Pushes Back on Fake Experts |
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LinkedIn Shared What Actually Drives Visibility |
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LinkedIn's marketing team saw non-brand traffic drop up to 60% as AI Overviews took over discovery, while their rankings stayed stable. So they tested what actually works.
What moved the needle:
- Heading hierarchy and semantic HTML (LLMs parse content in fragments - structure affects whether you get extracted)
- Named authors with visible credentials (outperformed anonymous content)
- Clear publication timestamps (signals freshness)
- Conversational, insight-driven writing (not keyword-stuffed)
What they're measuring now: Visibility rate, citation share, and LLM mentions - not just traffic.
The mindset shift: 'We're moving away from 'search, click, website' thinking toward a new model: Be seen, be mentioned, be considered, be chosen.'
Translation: LinkedIn is one of the most-cited sources in AI answers. They're treating their own platform as training data - and so should you. If your company page and team profiles aren't structured for AI extraction, you're missing a channel that's growing while traditional search shrinks.
👉 Read More on LinkedIn: How LinkedIn Marketing Is Adapting to AI-Led Discovery
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Ryanair’s Warning: AI Will Want a Cut
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(And it won’t be polite about it.)
On a recent earnings call, Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary talked about LLMs like ChatGPT as future booking platforms.
The comparison he used was Booking.com, and the stat landed hard:
'They don't own a stick of any hotel anywhere. And yet they're able to charge hotels 20% for distribution, and they have a market cap of $150 billion.'
O'Leary's point is blunt: If AI agents become the default place customers discover and book, they’ll behave like Booking.com. Gatekeepers first. Partners second.
His plan? 'My bet is that we will tell them to f*** off and that they'll need us more than we'll need them because we have such price leadership in Europe.'
That's why Ryanair obsesses over low prices, and getting customers onto their app and booking direct - they're building leverage now, before AI platforms come asking for a cut.
Translation: This isn't about visibility or rankings - it's about who owns the customer. Ryanair’s moves show what happens before AI intermediates the relationship. If you're a D2C brand, this is a preview of the negotiation you haven't had yet.
👉 Read/listen on Seeking Alpha: Ryanair Holdings plc (RYAAY) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript on 26th January 2026
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Xero's CPO described their new homepage as 'a control room for AI agents' - showing what the AI already did, not what users need to do.
Translation: The SaaS interface is shifting from human to-do lists to activity log. And it's not just SaaS - if you have any logged-in customer experience, expect your customers' own AI agents to start interacting with your systems too.
👉 Read/listen on Seeking Alpha: Xero Limited (XROLF) Shareholder/Analyst Call Transcript on 3rd February 2026
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Super Bowl LX is This Sunday |
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