September 2026 brought two notable developments in AI advertising. Google began rolling out automatic AI Max upgrades, while OpenAI began testing Sponsored Agents that answer product questions inside ChatGPT. These tools give AI a larger role in presenting offers before prospects reach a form or speak with a sales team.
Google's algorithm updates typically arrive unheralded. Traffic moves, rankings shift or crash, and marketers panic. With the February 2026 Discover Core Update, Google explicitly stated its intentions, and what it said tells us a lot about how to build search authority moving forward.
Seasons greetings! As 2025 winds down, here’s my big takeaway and a foundation of my strategy for ’26. I almost hate to say it because it’s so clichéd, but it’s AI stuff. I have to confess, the whole “AI” project feels a bit nefarious. Every glimpse I get of the industry of AI itself, the more turned off I am by the environmental impacts, the exaggerations of AI’s ability (some predicted that it would have killed us all by now), and the evil-villain antics of what we now refer to as the “tech oligarchy.”
AI is changing how people interact with complex systems. In marketing, it already shapes visibility, optimization, and content strategy. In software, its role is more direct: it can guide users through structured processes, and remove some of the technical busy work. Lead delivery is one of those processes, and it’s where we're rolling out our new AI Assist feature.
