Google is now testing adding the AI Mode button to the search bar when you are inside the search results page. Google has the AI Mode button almost everywhere else, but now we are seeing it added to the search bar, within the search results page, not just the home page.

Microsoft Bing is also asking some searchers to verify they are human before showing them search results. Google is doing this a lot, in various forms, and now Bing was spotted doing this.

Google has posted a new help document in the Google Ads help area named About commerce audience sharing through Google Ads. It explains that “Commerce audience sharing allows commerce partners, such as retailers or marketplaces, to share first-party data segments with their advertising partners, such as brands or sellers.”

Google may be more successful in blocking AI scrapers, search scrapers and third-party tracking tools since around September 13th or so. This coincides with the September 4th and September 12th reversals we reported, and it also aligns with the methods Google has been using to block non-human behavior in its search results recently.

This week we covered the first week or so of Google’s unusual ranking volatility only to see things spike up in a big way this week as well – something is up. Google’s remedies are out for its ad tech monopoly ruling. Google has an AI contribution pilot for paying publishers…

Microsoft is testing adding new labels to the Bing Search product carousels. Labels include Top Picks, Price Drop, Sale and likely other labels on the Bing Search product listings, within the carousels.

Last year, Google began to roll out Google Discover on the desktop interface of Google.com. But now, for the past several months, Discover on desktop is not been found. Google tested Discover on Desktop in 2023 and then, in 2025, said it was coming; it even started to roll it out, but again, it didn’t […]

Earlier this month, we learned a judge ruled that Google won’t be broken up over its monopoly ruling in its ad tech case. And now we have the full memo with the judge’s proposed remedies, including Google making behavioral changes.

Google is turning the local knowledge panels, your Google Business Profile, into an AI Overview listing. At the top of the local listing it says “AI Overview” and then there is a “Show more” button to expand, which brings you into the follow up AI Mode style chat interface.

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…

Google left one thing out of the announcement around the new Search profiles features announced today, you can now add a Search profile badge to your website. This allows users/searchers to follow you directly from your website.

Google has updated the Search profiles with a new article design, a single login to manage multiple Search profiles and only 10,000 followers on social platforms are required.

OpenAI is testing a new ad format in ChatGPT named Sponsored Agents. Sponsored Agents “let people start a conversation with a business-sponsored agent after clicking an ad in ChatGPT,” OpenAI wrote.