Google keeps giving itself a larger role in deciding what people see, OpenAI is building an advertising business, YouTube wants recommendations to feel like conversations, and email marketers are being reminded that strategy still matters. Different stories, same theme: platforms are becoming stronger gatekeepers, while marketers have less control than they used to.
Google announced the biggest changes to search in 25 years at I/O last week. I wanted to see what's actually live in Australia right now. So I ran the same queries across Chrome and Safari, desktop and mobile, standard search and AI Mode, and recorded what I found.
Google has renamed Search to Ask. AI Mode picks one business to recommend, not ten to rank. It bases that recommendation on how well your information satisfies the customer's decision process, including concerns they haven't voiced. Different search pathways recommend different businesses for the same query. The shift is gradual but the direction is clear. Understand your customers, give them what they need, and the AI will recommend you. Ignore them, and it will recommend someone who didn't.
