2026-09-24 Daily Brief

Google Ads expands AI Brief private beta to Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish. Additionally, for AI Max, we are introducing an AI-based performance reporting function that checks search terms, exposed creative assets, and website landing locations on one screen. Additional information and availability will be released later this year.

Connected Apps, which connect multiple external apps to Gemini, will be added sequentially. Users can link the app in Gemini settings, @mention the app in chat, or request it directly. This allows you to manage projects, work on designs, plan workouts, and more all in one place, Google explains.

You can create high-quality AI videos for free with the Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash model on Google Vids. Users can adjust scene length and transitions and create 1080p video. Clips created by AI include a digital watermark, which can be accessed by accessing vids.new on your desktop and selecting ‘Create AI videos.’

Peec AI analyzed in Google AI Overviews that the percentage of answers containing external links increased to more than 25%. Malte Landwehr reported a significant increase in the number of external links within AI Overview answers. However, Search Engine Roundtable added that these numbers may differ from how users feel.

Google Ads has released a new help article testing AI Max versus Dynamic Search Ads. Google Ads Experiments allows you to use custom experiments and experiment templates. The article covers how to use these features to compare the two advertising methods.

Brand recommendations and labeled ads in ChatGPT's organic responses were organized into different types of visibility. GEO proposed a method of repeatedly looking at brand mentions, accuracy of expression, and frequency of exposure compared to competitors, rather than a single prompt ranking. Go Fish Digital stated that the website must first establish supporting information about products and services before increasing external mentions.

Meltwater data shows that in August, YouTube was the most cited platform among Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot, Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Perplexity, and Grok. Tinuiti's Q2 2026 AI Citation Trends report analyzed that between January and April 2026, the proportion of YouTube citations in Google AI Mode more than quadrupled, and in AI Overviews more than doubled. YouTube is frequently included in LLM responses, especially for tutorials and featured content.

According to Comscore's Q2 2026 AI Intelligence Report, 47% of tracked ChatGPT conversations related to video games and consoles based on U.S. PCs in June included sponsored ads. This is a change from 3% in March. During the same period, toys and hobbies changed from 5% to 24%, and books, music, and videos changed from 9% to 22%. However, this data is the proportion of conversations based on an opt-in panel, and Comscore did not disclose details such as the number of monthly conversations and how they are categorized.

Existing e-commerce catalogs and product pages were created based on the premise of a search environment centered on short search terms and blue link lists. MarTech focused on this traditional page approach amid changes in AI search. No specific improvement measures or performance figures were provided in the summary.

YouTube has unveiled a custom feed where Gemini AI creates a customized feed when users enter the type of video they want in natural language. The created feed is fixed as a separate tab at the top of the YouTube home screen, and does not replace the existing recommended main feed. The ability to create multiple custom feeds will be introduced sequentially on web and mobile starting next month.

When you search for reviews of a specific product on Ask YouTube, you can receive video recommendations in the form of a comparison table containing product attributes and categories. After selecting a video, users can also ask follow-up questions about the product on the watch page. The search version of Ask YouTube is an experimental feature available to some users searching in English in the United States.

Google AdSense has changed its identity verification threshold from $10 to $0, according to its help documentation. To run ads and receive Google AdSense payments from your account, you'll need to verify your identity. The address verification threshold will still be $10 or local currency, and Google has announced that beginning in June 2026, you may be required to submit a government-issued photo ID and may be asked for a video selfie depending on your location.

Bing is testing adding a favicon before the site name in Shopping ads and product results carousels. Previously, only the site name was displayed in the corresponding ad unit. The test was captured through screenshots shared by Sachin Patel with X and SEW.

SEMrush introduced how to set an AI visibility baseline using the AI Visibility Toolkit. We presented a process for identifying citable content, missing topics and prompts, brand sentiment and AI narratives, external influence sources, and site-level AI access issues. Targets include AI-generated answers like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews.

Baidu's new AI CTR is calculated by dividing the number of clicks by the number of citations. This is different from the calculation based on impressions. Search Engine Journal covered what this metric means and what you can see in its AI Traffic Analysis report.