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Marie Haynes analyzes DOJ trial documents that reveal how Google’s proprietary freshness signals, spam annotations, and user data power its ranking systems. The post User Data Is Important In Google Search, Per Liz Reid’s DOJ Filing appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

This week’s SEO Pulse breaks down how Gmail-powered AI answers, crawler access decisions, and free subdomains are shaping who gets surfaced in search. The post SEO Pulse: Google’s AI Mode Gets Personal, AI Bots Blocked, Domains Matter in Search appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

This week's PPC Pulse recaps OpenAI’s first ad test inside ChatGPT, Google’s new advertiser podcast, and expanded Demand Gen capabilities. The post PPC Pulse: Google’s Podcast Launch, Demand Gen, ChatGPT Ads appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

The President’s shortlived tariffs threat reawakens fears over erratic policymaking that fuelled 2025 slump for US currency View the full article

Generative AI has become a practical tool in search, content, and analytical workflows. But, as adoption increases, so does a familiar and costly problem: confidently incorrect outputs. Also called “hallucinations,” the term implies that an AI model is malfunctioning. But here’s the truth: This behavior is often predictable and results from unclear instructions. Or, more accurately, unclear prompts. For example, prompt AI for a “cookie recipe,” and nothing more. Don’t offer details about allergies, preferences, or constraints. The result might be Christmas cookies in July, a peanut-packed option, or a recipe so bland and basic as to be unworthy of the name “sweet treat.” This lack of detail can lead to misaligned outputs. It’s best to expect a model to misbehave and preempt this by creating explicit guardrails. This can be done effectively with rubrics. We’ll examine how rubric-based prompting works, why it improves factual reliability, and how you can apply it to AIs to produce more trustworthy results. Fluency vs. restraint: Which is better? When AI is asked to produce complete, polished answers without specific instructions on how to handle uncertain information or missing data, it often prioritizes fluency over restraint. That is, continuing the response smoothly (fluency) rather than pausing, qualifying, or declining to answer when information is missing (restraint). This is the moment AI “makes stuff up” – because uncertainty was not established as a stopping point. The consequences can be financially costly and can also harm reputation, efficiency, and trust. Professional service firm Deloitte was required to repay 440,000 Australian dollars after errors in an AI-assisted government report were found to include fabricated citations and a misattributed court quote, as reported by the Associated Press in late 2025. One academic reviewer noted that it: “Misquoted a court case then made up a quotation from a judge… misstating the law to the Australian government in a report that they rely on.” Should Deloitte have skipped the use of AI? Evaluating data and generating reports is an AI superpower. The lesson here is to keep AI in the workflow, but to constrain it – define, in advance, what a model must do when it doesn’t know something. This is where rubrics enter the fray. The role of rubrics in AI It’s common for users to implement generic safeguards against potential patterns of hallucination, but they often don’t hold up in practice. Why not? Because they usually describe an outcome and not a decision-making process. This leaves the AI model to make inferences when required information isn’t available. This is where rubric-based prompting is essential. A rubric – a scoring guide or set of criteria to evaluate work – can feel like an old-school, academic concept. Think of a grid teachers traditionally used to grade papers, often shared ahead of time so students knew what “good,” “OK,” and “not acceptable” papers looked like. AI rubrics rely on the same structural idea but serve a different purpose. Rather than scoring answers after prompting, they shape decision-making during the response generation process. They do this by defining what an AI model should do when the required criteria cannot be met. By defining explicit criteria, rubrics set clear boundaries, priorities, and even failure behaviors, reducing the risk of hallucination. Writing better prompts is not enough Advice around prompting often focuses on better wording. Typically, this implies being more specific or issuing clearer instructions. It may even mean nudging a model toward a specific format or tone. These are not useless steps, and techniques of this kind can improve surface-level quality. But they will not erase the underlying cause of hallucination. Users frequently prompt AI models with outcomes rather than rules. Prompt phrases like “be accurate,” “cite sources,” or “use only verified information” sound sensible but leave too much space for interpretation. The model will remain stuck deciding substantial details for itself. Long or complex prompts can also create competing goals. A single prompt might demand clarity, completeness, confidence, and speed – conflicting goals that can lead models to default behaviors, causing them to produce fluent and “complete” responses. Without a clear hierarchy of priorities, accuracy may be lost or diminished. Whereas a prompt might be effective at describing tasks, a rubric governs the decision-making process within tasks. AI rubrics do this by switching decision-making from inference to explicit instruction. Dig deeper: Advanced AI prompt engineering strategies for SEO What rubrics do that prompts can’t Prompts focus on tone, format, and level of detail. They frequently fail to address uncertainty. Missing or ambiguous information forces an AI model to decide whether to stop, qualify a response, or infer an answer. Without human guidance, inference usually is the victor. Rubrics cut down on ambiguity through the use of clear decision boundaries. A rubric formally defines what is required, optional, and unacceptable. These criteria supply the model with a concrete framework to evaluate all outputs generated. Identifying priorities explicitly means AI models are less likely to fill in the blanks to maintain fluency. The rubric that clarifies which constraints matter can allow factual accuracy to take precedence over “completeness” or narrative flow. Most importantly, a rubric defines failure behavior, what the model needs to do if success is impossible. Strong rubrics establish that a model can acknowledge missing information, return a partial response, or even decline to answer rather than making up a single word. Get the newsletter search marketers rely on. See terms. Anatomy of an effective AI rubric There is an old adage about “too many chefs spoiling the soup,” and this is the perfect analogy for rubric creation. Effective AI rubrics don’t need to fill pages or show up as heavily detailed queries. In the same way a recipe can be ruined by fussiness or too many competing flavors, so too can a prompt be overdone. Too many details or demands can introduce confusion. Reliable rubrics are those that focus on a small set of enforceable criteria that directly address the risks of hallucination. At a minimum, a well-written rubric should include: Accuracy requirements: Clear rules about what must be supported, what counts as evidence, and whether approximation is unacceptable. Source expectations: Guidance on whether sources must be provided, whether they are to come from supplied materials, or how to handle conflicting information. Uncertainty handling: Explicit instructions for what the model must do when information is unavailable, ambiguous, or incomplete. Confidence/tone constraints: Limitations on tone to prevent speculative answers from being presented with certainty. Failure behavior: Permission and preference for stopping, qualifying, or deferring rather than guessing. How to create a rubric for an AI model A rubric doesn’t make an AI model smarter, it makes its decision-making process more reliable. Here’s an example of a competitive analysis to explain the value of rubrics: A team asks an Al model to explain why their competitors are outperforming them in search results, and what they can do about it. Their prompt is written like this: “Evaluate why [competitor] is outranking us for [specific topic]. Identify the keywords they rank for, the SERP features they win, and recommend changes to our content strategy.” On the surface, this seems reasonable. In practice, it is an invitation for hallucination. The prompt lacks concrete inputs and the model has no constraints. The risk is high that the AI will invent plausible-sounding rankings, features, and strategic conclusions. Writing the rubric In practice, your rubric is included directly within the prompt. It must be clearly separated from the task, which describes what to analyze or generate. The rubric then defines the rules the model must follow to perform its task. This is a critical distinction: prompts ask for outputs, while rubrics govern how that prompt is created. Using the criteria in the section above, the prompt, followed by the rubric, would now read: “Analyze why [competitor] may be outperforming our site for [topic]. Provide insights and recommendations. Do not claim rankings, traffic, or SERP features unless explicitly provided in the prompt. If required data is missing, state what cannot be determined and list the inputs needed. Frame recommendations as conditional when evidence is incomplete. Avoid definitive language without supporting data. If analysis cannot be completed reliably, return a partial response rather than guessing.” When the rubric is incorporated, the model can’t infer. Instead, it treats uncertainty as a constraint. Dig deeper: Proxies for prompts: Emulate how your audience may be looking for you How rubrics and prompts work together As seen in the example above, rubrics don’t replace the prompt. They add to and often come after the prompt. They should be viewed as a stabilizing layer. The prompt is always responsible for defining the task: what is summarized, analyzed, or generated. Rubrics define the rules under which that task is performed. In practice, prompts can vary, while rubrics remain relatively stable across similar types of work, regardless of the topic. Defining sourcing, uncertainty, and failure behavior stays consistent, reducing error rates over time. For many workflows, a rubric can be embedded directly after the prompt. In others, they can be referenced or applied programmatically – for example, through reusable templates, automated checks, or system instructions. The format doesn’t matter, only the clarity of the criteria. Avoid overengineering Despite their effectiveness, rubrics can be easy to misuse. A common mistake users make is overengineering. The rubric that seeks to anticipate every possible scenario often results in an unwieldy, inconsistent one. Another mistake involves adding conflicting criteria without clarifying which takes precedence. Rubrics must be concise, prioritized, and explicit about failure behavior to reduce hallucinations. Use AI rubrics like a pro Prompting like a pro is about anticipating where AI will be forced to guess, then defining and constraining how it operates. Rubrics tell AI models to slow down, qualify, or stop when information is missing. In doing so, rubrics can help you leverage the power of AI for your work and create outputs that are accurate and trustworthy. View the full article

Minnesota continues to be the beating heart of nationwide anti-ICE movements with The Day of Truth and Freedom. Today, January 23, hundreds of businesses across the state are closing their doors in protest after community groups, faith-based organizations and unions came together to call for an “economic blackout.” “Minnesotans are coming together in moral reflection and action to stand together against the actions of the federal government against the state of Minnesota,” a declaration reads on the organizing website, ICE Out of MN. The day-long protest follows a series of tragedies that stem from the Department of Homeland Security’s January 6 deployment of 2,000 officers to Minneapolis. One day later, an ICE officer shot and killed Renee Nicole Good and, just this past Tuesday, ICE detained five-year-old Liam Ramos and his father in their driveway. The family has an active asylum case and had no order of deportation, yet the father and son are now in a Texas detention center. What is the Day of Truth and Freedom? ICE Out of MN’s statement continues: “The ICE ‘surge’ that cost the life of Renee Nicole Good is violating the Constitutional and human rights of Americans and our neighbors. It is time to suspend the normal order of business to demand immediate cessation of ICE actions in MN, accountability for federal agents who have caused loss of life and abuse to Minnesota residents and call for Congress to immediately intervene.” Participants in the Day of Truth and Freedom have four demands: ICE must leave Minnesota now. The officer who killed Renee Good must be held legally accountable. No additional federal funding for ICE in the upcoming Congressional budget and ICE should be investigated for human and Constitutional violations of Americans and our neighbors. We call upon Minnesota and National Companies to become 4th Amendment businesses, cease economic relations with ICE and refuse ICE entry or using their property for staging grounds. Minnesota-based publication, Bring Me The News, has an ever-evolving list of all the businesses—from bookstores to cafes—that are closed on Friday. It also includes businesses that will remain open but are taking action, such as donating some or all of their profits to organizations like the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota and the recently launched Immigrant Rapid Response Fund. How individuals are participating in the Minnesota economic blackout Organizers are further calling for individuals living in Minnesota to not work (unless involved in emergency services), go to school, or do any shopping for the day, instead focusing on “community, conscience, and collective action.” The Day of Truth and Freedom also includes a march at 2PM CT from the Commons downtown and a 3PM CT rally at the Target Center. Interested participants can reserve a free rally ticket on the ICE Out of MN website. Anyone who lives outside of Minnesota can take part in solidarity through a scheduled event or organizing one. The ICE Out for Good website hosts a growing database of events taking place, provides a space to create an event, and has an event planning toolkit. ICE Out for Good also encourages individuals to push businesses to speak out against ICE, such as Minneapolis-based Target, Delta, Home Depot, and more. It offers links to contact these businesses, alongside ones to reach members of Congress. Organizations that support anti-ICE activism The Day of Truth and Freedom movement isn’t specifically asking for donations, but anyone who is included to support the cause can donate to organizations such as: Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota Immigrant Rapid Response Fund National Immigrant Justice Center American Civil Liberties Union Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee Organized Communities Against Deportations Amica Center for Immigrant Rights View the full article

In a hypothetical nuclear war involving Russia, China and the United States, the island of Greenland would be in the middle of Armageddon. The strategic importance of the Arctic territory — under the flight paths that nuclear-armed missiles from China and Russia could take on their way to incinerating targets in the United States, and vice versa — is one of the reasons U.S. President Donald The President has cited in his disruptive campaign to wrest control of Greenland from Denmark, alarming Greenlanders and longtime allies in Europe alike. The President has argued that U.S. ownership of Greenland is vital for his “Golden Dome” — a multibillion dollar missile defense system that he says will be operational before his term ends in 2029. “Because of The Golden Dome, and Modern Day Weapons Systems, both Offensive and Defensive, the need to ACQUIRE is especially important,” The President said in a Truth Social post on Saturday. That ushered in another roller-coaster week involving the semiautonomous Danish territory, where The President again pushed for U.S. ownership before seemingly backing off, announcing Wednesday the “framework of a future deal” on Arctic security that’s unlikely to be the final word. Here’s a closer look at Greenland’s position at a crossroads for nuclear defense. ICBM flight paths Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, or ICBMs, that nuclear adversaries would fire at each other — if it ever came to that — tend to take the shortest direct route, on a ballistic trajectory into space and down again, from their silos or launchers to targets. The shortest flight paths from China or Russia to the United States — and the other way — would take many of them over the Arctic region. Russian Topol-M missiles fired, for example, from the Tatishchevo silo complex southeast of Moscow would fly high over Greenland, if targeted at the U.S. ICBM force of 400 Minuteman III missiles, housed at the Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, the Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana and the Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming. Chinese Dong Feng-31 missiles, if fired from new silo fields that the U.S. Defense Department says have been built in China, also could overfly Greenland should they be targeted at the U.S. Eastern Seaboard. “If there is a war, much of the action will take place on that piece of ice. Think of it: those missiles would be flying right over the center,” The President said Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Pituffik Space Base An array of farseeing early warning radars act as the Pentagon’s eyes against any missile attack. The northernmost of them is in Greenland, at the Pituffik Space Base. Pronounced “bee-doo-FEEK,” it used to be called Thule Air Base, but was renamed in 2023 using the remote location’s Greenlandic name, recognizing the Indigenous community that was forcibly displaced by the U.S. outpost’s construction in 1951. Its location above the Arctic Circle, and roughly halfway between Washington and Moscow, enables it to peer with its radar over the Arctic region, into Russia and at potential flight paths of U.S.-targeted Chinese missiles. “That gives the United States more time to think about what to do,” said Pavel Podvig, a Geneva-based analyst who specializes in Russia’s nuclear arsenal. “Greenland is a good location for that.” The two-sided, solid-state AN/FPS-132 radar is designed to quickly detect and track ballistic missile launches, including from submarines, to help inform the U.S. commander in chief’s response and provide data for interceptors to try and destroy warheads. The radar beams out for nearly 5,550 kilometers (3,450 miles) in a 240-degree arc and, even at its furthest range, can detect objects no larger than a small car, the U.S. Air Force says. Expert sees holes in The President’s arguments Pitching the “Golden Dome” in Davos, The President said that the U.S. needs ownership of Greenland to defend it. “You can’t defend it on a lease,” he said. But defense specialists struggle to comprehend that logic given that the U.S. has operated at Pituffik for decades without owning Greenland. French nuclear defense specialist Etienne Marcuz points out that The President has never spoken of also needing to take control of the United Kingdom — even though it, like Greenland, also plays an important role in U.S. missile defense. An early warning radar operated by the U.K.’s Royal Air Force at Fylingdales, in northern England, serves both the U.K. and U.S governments, scanning for missiles from Russia and elsewhere and northward to the polar region. The unit’s motto is “Vigilamus” — Latin for “We are watching.” The President’s envisioned multilayered “Golden Dome” could include space-based sensors to detect missiles. They could reduce the U.S. need for its Greenland-based radar station, said Marcuz, a former nuclear defense worker for France’s Defense Ministry, now with the Foundation for Strategic Research think tank in Paris. “The President’s argument that Greenland is vital for the Golden Dome — and therefore that it has to be invaded, well, acquired — is false for several reasons,” Marcuz said. “One of them is that there is, for example, a radar in the United Kingdom, and to my knowledge there is no question of invading the U.K. And, above all, there are new sensors that are already being tested, in the process of being deployed, which will in fact reduce Greenland’s importance.” ‘Golden Dome’ interceptors Because of its location, Greenland could be a useful place to station “Golden Dome” interceptors to try to destroy warheads before they reach the continental U.S. The “highly complex system can only work at its maximum potential and efficiency … if this Land is included in it,” The President wrote in his post last weekend. But the U.S. already has access to Greenland under a 1951 defense agreement. Before The President ratcheted up the heat on the territory and Denmark, its owner, their governments likely would have readily accepted any American military request for an expanded footprint there, experts say. It used to have multiple bases and installations, but later abandoned them, leaving just Pituffik. “Denmark was the most compliant ally of the United States,” Marcuz said. “Now, it’s very different. I don’t know whether authorization would be granted, but in any case, before, the answer was ‘Yes.'” —John Leicester, Associated Press View the full article

To boost customer service satisfaction, it’s vital to adopt proven strategies that address key areas of the customer experience. Start by comprehending your customer path to pinpoint pain points, and actively listen to customer feedback to create meaningful change. Implement proactive multi-channel support and personalize user experiences based on preferences. Measuring customer satisfaction through NPS and CSAT scores is important, as is following up after purchases. Each of these steps can greatly improve your service approach, but there’s more to explore. Key Takeaways Map the customer journey to identify friction points and enhance service satisfaction through seamless interactions across all touchpoints. Actively listen to customer feedback and implement changes to improve experiences, increasing satisfaction scores by 10-20%. Personalize user experiences based on individual preferences to foster loyalty and boost engagement, leading to higher conversion rates. Provide proactive multi-channel support and follow-ups to address inquiries promptly and enhance customer loyalty by 20%. Regularly measure customer satisfaction using NPS and CSAT to identify trends and make informed improvements. Understand Your Customer Journey—Firsthand To truly improve customer service satisfaction, it’s important to understand your customer experience firsthand. Start by exploring your website anonymously. This allows you to experience the customer path as they would, helping you identify user actions and potential friction points. Utilize tools like Session Replay to gain insights into customer interactions, revealing areas of frustration that need addressing. Mapping the customer path is key as it highlights significant engagement areas and stages of interaction. This process helps you pinpoint pain points and areas for improvement, ultimately enabling better customer service satisfaction. Ensuring consistency across all touchpoints is essential for creating a seamless experience. When customers feel that their path is smooth and cohesive, you’re more likely to nurture a satisfied customer. Listen to Your Customers Listening to your customers is crucial for improving satisfaction and loyalty. By conducting direct user interviews, you can gain valuable insights into their experiences and expectations. Moreover, utilizing social media monitoring and real-time feedback widgets helps you capture immediate reactions, allowing you to address concerns quickly and effectively. Direct User Interviews Conducting direct user interviews is a powerful method for gathering in-depth feedback on customer experiences and satisfaction. By engaging with your customers, you can uncover valuable insights into their pain points and preferences, ultimately enhancing client satisfaction. This interaction cultivates a sense of value, making customers feel heard and appreciated, which can greatly boost loyalty and retention. Regularly implementing interviews allows you to track changes in customer sentiment over time, enabling you to make proactive adjustments to your services or products. Additionally, analyzing qualitative data from these interviews can reveal specific issues that quantitative surveys might miss, leading to targeted improvements in customer service. These insights are vital ways to increase customer satisfaction and guarantee your offerings align with customer needs. Social Media Monitoring As social media continues to shape how businesses interact with customers, monitoring these platforms has become essential for comprehending and responding to customer sentiments. Engaging on social media can greatly raise customer satisfaction and retention, as customers feel valued and heard. Here’s a quick overview of the benefits of social media monitoring: Benefit Impact Trust in Online Reviews 88% trust reviews as recommendations Increase in Retention Rates 20-40% increase Improvement in Satisfaction 70% increase with timely responses Real-Time Feedback Widgets Customer feedback is crucial for any business looking to improve satisfaction and loyalty. Real-time feedback widgets enable you to gather immediate insights from customers about their experiences, allowing you to address issues as they arise. Placing these widgets on key conversion pages captures user opinions during critical moments, resulting in actionable insights that improve the customer experience. Research shows that 70% of consumers feel more loyal to brands that actively seek their feedback through quick, easy channels. Moreover, utilizing feedback widgets can boost response rates by up to 40% compared to traditional surveys. By analyzing the data from these widgets, you can quickly identify trends and areas for improvement, eventually driving customer satisfaction and retention. Offer Proactive Multi-Channel Customer Support To improve customer satisfaction, it’s crucial to offer proactive multi-channel support options. Real-time assistance tools like live chat or chatbots can address inquiries immediately, whereas seamless integration across channels guarantees customers receive consistent help, whether they reach out via email, phone, or social media. Multi-Channel Support Options Offering multi-channel support options is essential for enhancing customer satisfaction and convenience. By providing various communication methods like live chat, email, and phone, you allow customers to choose what works best for them. Companies that integrate support across multiple platforms can see a 15% boost in satisfaction scores, thanks to seamless shifts between channels. Proactively addressing potential issues and offering updates can reduce inquiries by up to 30%, making your support more efficient. Training your staff to manage inquiries across these channels guarantees consistent, high-quality service, which can lead to a 20% increase in customer retention rates. Furthermore, implementing chatbots can handle up to 80% of common queries, considerably improving response times and overall customer satisfaction. Real-Time Assistance Tools Real-time assistance tools play an important role in enhancing customer support by ensuring immediate access to help when it’s needed most. Implementing live chat or chatbots on your website allows customers to receive quick answers, which reduces wait times and boosts satisfaction. Offering support through various channels—like email, phone, and social media—lets customers reach you in their preferred way, enhancing engagement. It’s vital to train your support staff to handle inquiries effectively across these channels, building trust in your brand. Furthermore, creating a thorough help center with FAQs empowers customers to find answers independently, reducing the need for direct contact. Utilization of technology to track interactions across channels leads to quicker resolutions and improved service quality. Seamless Integration Across Channels How can businesses guarantee they’re meeting customer needs effectively? Offering proactive multi-channel customer support is crucial. By allowing customers to reach out through their preferred channels—like live chat, email, or phone—you can achieve a 24% increase in satisfaction. Centralizing your support channels not only guarantees consistent service but likewise reduces response times by up to 50%. Training your staff to engage across various platforms cultivates a unified approach, boosting first contact resolution rates by 30%. Furthermore, proactively addressing potential issues with timely updates can decrease customer frustration by 40%. Utilizing technology, such as chatbots, provides immediate assistance and improves engagement by 70% during peak times, making support more efficient and effective. Act on Customer Feedback Acting on customer feedback is essential for any business aiming to improve its service and cultivate loyalty. About 70% of customers expect companies to respond to their suggestions, indicating that responsiveness can greatly improve satisfaction. When businesses implement changes based on this feedback, they often see customer satisfaction scores increase by 10% to 20%. In addition, regularly reviewing and addressing feedback can reduce churn rates by up to 15%, as customers feel valued when their concerns are acknowledged. Transparency is key; 87% of consumers are more likely to remain loyal to a brand that listens and acts on their input. Moreover, utilizing structured follow-up processes after addressing feedback boosts the chances of repeat business by 25%. Personalize Your User Experience Personalizing your user experience can greatly improve customer satisfaction, as it customizes interactions to individual preferences. Research shows that personalized experiences can lead to a 20% increase in conversion rates, making it crucial for your strategy. Here are three effective ways to personalize your approach: Use Customer Data: Leverage data to create dynamic content that resonates with users, resulting in a 10% uplift in sales through personalized recommendations. Automate Personalized Messaging: Implement automation tools to send customized messages based on user behavior, greatly improving retention since 80% of consumers prefer personalized experiences. Develop an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP): Target communications effectively with an ICP, achieving a 50% higher engagement rate in customized marketing campaigns. Leverage NPS and CSAT Scores Measuring customer satisfaction through Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) is essential for comprehending your customers’ experiences and loyalty. NPS evaluates customer loyalty by asking how likely customers are to recommend your company, with scores ranging from -100 to +100. This metric helps you gauge overall satisfaction. Conversely, CSAT measures immediate contentment with specific interactions, typically on a scale of 1 to 5. By regularly tracking these scores, you can identify trends over time and respond proactively to any declines in satisfaction. Companies that effectively leverage NPS data often experience a 25% increase in customer retention rates, as loyal customers are more likely to advocate for your brand. Furthermore, analyzing CSAT alongside NPS offers deeper insights into the customer experience, enabling you to pinpoint specific touchpoints needing improvement, ultimately enhancing overall satisfaction and refining your customer experience strategy. Follow up With Your Customers Following up with your customers after a purchase is a crucial strategy for enhancing their satisfaction and nurturing loyalty. This simple act can greatly impact your brand’s reputation and customer retention. Here are three key reasons to implement a follow-up strategy: Boost Customer Satisfaction: Following up can increase satisfaction by 70%, demonstrating your commitment to their experience and reinforcing the product’s value. Build Loyalty: Personalized communications can convert customers into loyal advocates, with 80% appreciating brands that reach out post-purchase. Gather Feedback: A structured follow-up can lead to a 20% increase in retention rates, as 90% of customers prefer brands that actively seek their opinions. Frequently Asked Questions What Are the 3 C’s of Customer Satisfaction? The 3 C’s of customer satisfaction are consistency, communication, and convenience. Consistency means you provide reliable service and quality every time, building trust with your customers. Communication involves listening to feedback, responding quickly, and keeping customers informed, which improves their experience. Finally, convenience focuses on making the customer path as easy as possible, whether it’s accessing support or making purchases. Prioritizing these elements can lead to improved overall satisfaction and loyalty. What Is the 10 to 10 Rule in Customer Service? The 10 to 10 Rule in customer service states that you should respond to urgent inquiries within 10 minutes and non-urgent requests within 10 hours. This approach helps set clear expectations, making customers feel valued and prioritized. By adhering to this rule, you’ll likely reduce frustration and improve satisfaction levels. Timely responses likewise improve your brand’s reputation, leading to positive word-of-mouth and improved online reviews, finally nurturing customer loyalty. How Do You Increase Customer Satisfaction? To increase customer satisfaction, you should actively seek feedback through surveys and direct communication, ensuring customers feel valued. Personalizing their experience based on data can greatly improve engagement. Furthermore, offering proactive support across multiple channels, like live chat, can address inquiries quickly. Training your staff in empathy and effective problem-solving is essential, as it helps customers feel understood. Regular follow-ups after interactions likewise reinforce relationships and demonstrate your commitment to their needs. How to Achieve 100% Customer Satisfaction? To achieve 100% customer satisfaction, you should actively seek feedback through surveys and direct communication. Follow up post-purchase to reinforce relationships, showing customers you value their input. Offer proactive multi-channel support, ensuring timely responses to inquiries to minimize frustration. Personalize interactions based on customer data, making them feel valued. Regularly train your staff on empathy and problem resolution to effectively address concerns, leading to improved satisfaction levels among your customers. Conclusion Incorporating these seven strategies can greatly enhance your customer service satisfaction. By comprehending the customer experience and actively listening to feedback, you can pinpoint areas for improvement. Providing personalized experiences and proactive multi-channel support guarantees customers feel valued. Regularly measuring satisfaction through NPS and CSAT helps track progress, whereas consistent staff training maintains quality service. Finally, following up post-purchase reinforces relationships and builds loyalty. Implementing these practices can lead to long-term customer satisfaction and retention. Image via Google Gemini This article, "7 Proven Ways to Increase Customer Service Satisfaction" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

To boost customer service satisfaction, it’s vital to adopt proven strategies that address key areas of the customer experience. Start by comprehending your customer path to pinpoint pain points, and actively listen to customer feedback to create meaningful change. Implement proactive multi-channel support and personalize user experiences based on preferences. Measuring customer satisfaction through NPS and CSAT scores is important, as is following up after purchases. Each of these steps can greatly improve your service approach, but there’s more to explore. Key Takeaways Map the customer journey to identify friction points and enhance service satisfaction through seamless interactions across all touchpoints. Actively listen to customer feedback and implement changes to improve experiences, increasing satisfaction scores by 10-20%. Personalize user experiences based on individual preferences to foster loyalty and boost engagement, leading to higher conversion rates. Provide proactive multi-channel support and follow-ups to address inquiries promptly and enhance customer loyalty by 20%. Regularly measure customer satisfaction using NPS and CSAT to identify trends and make informed improvements. Understand Your Customer Journey—Firsthand To truly improve customer service satisfaction, it’s important to understand your customer experience firsthand. Start by exploring your website anonymously. This allows you to experience the customer path as they would, helping you identify user actions and potential friction points. Utilize tools like Session Replay to gain insights into customer interactions, revealing areas of frustration that need addressing. Mapping the customer path is key as it highlights significant engagement areas and stages of interaction. This process helps you pinpoint pain points and areas for improvement, ultimately enabling better customer service satisfaction. Ensuring consistency across all touchpoints is essential for creating a seamless experience. When customers feel that their path is smooth and cohesive, you’re more likely to nurture a satisfied customer. Listen to Your Customers Listening to your customers is crucial for improving satisfaction and loyalty. By conducting direct user interviews, you can gain valuable insights into their experiences and expectations. Moreover, utilizing social media monitoring and real-time feedback widgets helps you capture immediate reactions, allowing you to address concerns quickly and effectively. Direct User Interviews Conducting direct user interviews is a powerful method for gathering in-depth feedback on customer experiences and satisfaction. By engaging with your customers, you can uncover valuable insights into their pain points and preferences, ultimately enhancing client satisfaction. This interaction cultivates a sense of value, making customers feel heard and appreciated, which can greatly boost loyalty and retention. Regularly implementing interviews allows you to track changes in customer sentiment over time, enabling you to make proactive adjustments to your services or products. Additionally, analyzing qualitative data from these interviews can reveal specific issues that quantitative surveys might miss, leading to targeted improvements in customer service. These insights are vital ways to increase customer satisfaction and guarantee your offerings align with customer needs. Social Media Monitoring As social media continues to shape how businesses interact with customers, monitoring these platforms has become essential for comprehending and responding to customer sentiments. Engaging on social media can greatly raise customer satisfaction and retention, as customers feel valued and heard. Here’s a quick overview of the benefits of social media monitoring: Benefit Impact Trust in Online Reviews 88% trust reviews as recommendations Increase in Retention Rates 20-40% increase Improvement in Satisfaction 70% increase with timely responses Real-Time Feedback Widgets Customer feedback is crucial for any business looking to improve satisfaction and loyalty. Real-time feedback widgets enable you to gather immediate insights from customers about their experiences, allowing you to address issues as they arise. Placing these widgets on key conversion pages captures user opinions during critical moments, resulting in actionable insights that improve the customer experience. Research shows that 70% of consumers feel more loyal to brands that actively seek their feedback through quick, easy channels. Moreover, utilizing feedback widgets can boost response rates by up to 40% compared to traditional surveys. By analyzing the data from these widgets, you can quickly identify trends and areas for improvement, eventually driving customer satisfaction and retention. Offer Proactive Multi-Channel Customer Support To improve customer satisfaction, it’s crucial to offer proactive multi-channel support options. Real-time assistance tools like live chat or chatbots can address inquiries immediately, whereas seamless integration across channels guarantees customers receive consistent help, whether they reach out via email, phone, or social media. Multi-Channel Support Options Offering multi-channel support options is essential for enhancing customer satisfaction and convenience. By providing various communication methods like live chat, email, and phone, you allow customers to choose what works best for them. Companies that integrate support across multiple platforms can see a 15% boost in satisfaction scores, thanks to seamless shifts between channels. Proactively addressing potential issues and offering updates can reduce inquiries by up to 30%, making your support more efficient. Training your staff to manage inquiries across these channels guarantees consistent, high-quality service, which can lead to a 20% increase in customer retention rates. Furthermore, implementing chatbots can handle up to 80% of common queries, considerably improving response times and overall customer satisfaction. Real-Time Assistance Tools Real-time assistance tools play an important role in enhancing customer support by ensuring immediate access to help when it’s needed most. Implementing live chat or chatbots on your website allows customers to receive quick answers, which reduces wait times and boosts satisfaction. Offering support through various channels—like email, phone, and social media—lets customers reach you in their preferred way, enhancing engagement. It’s vital to train your support staff to handle inquiries effectively across these channels, building trust in your brand. Furthermore, creating a thorough help center with FAQs empowers customers to find answers independently, reducing the need for direct contact. Utilization of technology to track interactions across channels leads to quicker resolutions and improved service quality. Seamless Integration Across Channels How can businesses guarantee they’re meeting customer needs effectively? Offering proactive multi-channel customer support is crucial. By allowing customers to reach out through their preferred channels—like live chat, email, or phone—you can achieve a 24% increase in satisfaction. Centralizing your support channels not only guarantees consistent service but likewise reduces response times by up to 50%. Training your staff to engage across various platforms cultivates a unified approach, boosting first contact resolution rates by 30%. Furthermore, proactively addressing potential issues with timely updates can decrease customer frustration by 40%. Utilizing technology, such as chatbots, provides immediate assistance and improves engagement by 70% during peak times, making support more efficient and effective. Act on Customer Feedback Acting on customer feedback is essential for any business aiming to improve its service and cultivate loyalty. About 70% of customers expect companies to respond to their suggestions, indicating that responsiveness can greatly improve satisfaction. When businesses implement changes based on this feedback, they often see customer satisfaction scores increase by 10% to 20%. In addition, regularly reviewing and addressing feedback can reduce churn rates by up to 15%, as customers feel valued when their concerns are acknowledged. Transparency is key; 87% of consumers are more likely to remain loyal to a brand that listens and acts on their input. Moreover, utilizing structured follow-up processes after addressing feedback boosts the chances of repeat business by 25%. Personalize Your User Experience Personalizing your user experience can greatly improve customer satisfaction, as it customizes interactions to individual preferences. Research shows that personalized experiences can lead to a 20% increase in conversion rates, making it crucial for your strategy. Here are three effective ways to personalize your approach: Use Customer Data: Leverage data to create dynamic content that resonates with users, resulting in a 10% uplift in sales through personalized recommendations. Automate Personalized Messaging: Implement automation tools to send customized messages based on user behavior, greatly improving retention since 80% of consumers prefer personalized experiences. Develop an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP): Target communications effectively with an ICP, achieving a 50% higher engagement rate in customized marketing campaigns. Leverage NPS and CSAT Scores Measuring customer satisfaction through Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) is essential for comprehending your customers’ experiences and loyalty. NPS evaluates customer loyalty by asking how likely customers are to recommend your company, with scores ranging from -100 to +100. This metric helps you gauge overall satisfaction. Conversely, CSAT measures immediate contentment with specific interactions, typically on a scale of 1 to 5. By regularly tracking these scores, you can identify trends over time and respond proactively to any declines in satisfaction. Companies that effectively leverage NPS data often experience a 25% increase in customer retention rates, as loyal customers are more likely to advocate for your brand. Furthermore, analyzing CSAT alongside NPS offers deeper insights into the customer experience, enabling you to pinpoint specific touchpoints needing improvement, ultimately enhancing overall satisfaction and refining your customer experience strategy. Follow up With Your Customers Following up with your customers after a purchase is a crucial strategy for enhancing their satisfaction and nurturing loyalty. This simple act can greatly impact your brand’s reputation and customer retention. Here are three key reasons to implement a follow-up strategy: Boost Customer Satisfaction: Following up can increase satisfaction by 70%, demonstrating your commitment to their experience and reinforcing the product’s value. Build Loyalty: Personalized communications can convert customers into loyal advocates, with 80% appreciating brands that reach out post-purchase. Gather Feedback: A structured follow-up can lead to a 20% increase in retention rates, as 90% of customers prefer brands that actively seek their opinions. Frequently Asked Questions What Are the 3 C’s of Customer Satisfaction? The 3 C’s of customer satisfaction are consistency, communication, and convenience. Consistency means you provide reliable service and quality every time, building trust with your customers. Communication involves listening to feedback, responding quickly, and keeping customers informed, which improves their experience. Finally, convenience focuses on making the customer path as easy as possible, whether it’s accessing support or making purchases. Prioritizing these elements can lead to improved overall satisfaction and loyalty. What Is the 10 to 10 Rule in Customer Service? The 10 to 10 Rule in customer service states that you should respond to urgent inquiries within 10 minutes and non-urgent requests within 10 hours. This approach helps set clear expectations, making customers feel valued and prioritized. By adhering to this rule, you’ll likely reduce frustration and improve satisfaction levels. Timely responses likewise improve your brand’s reputation, leading to positive word-of-mouth and improved online reviews, finally nurturing customer loyalty. How Do You Increase Customer Satisfaction? To increase customer satisfaction, you should actively seek feedback through surveys and direct communication, ensuring customers feel valued. Personalizing their experience based on data can greatly improve engagement. Furthermore, offering proactive support across multiple channels, like live chat, can address inquiries quickly. Training your staff in empathy and effective problem-solving is essential, as it helps customers feel understood. Regular follow-ups after interactions likewise reinforce relationships and demonstrate your commitment to their needs. How to Achieve 100% Customer Satisfaction? To achieve 100% customer satisfaction, you should actively seek feedback through surveys and direct communication. Follow up post-purchase to reinforce relationships, showing customers you value their input. Offer proactive multi-channel support, ensuring timely responses to inquiries to minimize frustration. Personalize interactions based on customer data, making them feel valued. Regularly train your staff on empathy and problem resolution to effectively address concerns, leading to improved satisfaction levels among your customers. Conclusion Incorporating these seven strategies can greatly enhance your customer service satisfaction. By comprehending the customer experience and actively listening to feedback, you can pinpoint areas for improvement. Providing personalized experiences and proactive multi-channel support guarantees customers feel valued. Regularly measuring satisfaction through NPS and CSAT helps track progress, whereas consistent staff training maintains quality service. Finally, following up post-purchase reinforces relationships and builds loyalty. Implementing these practices can lead to long-term customer satisfaction and retention. Image via Google Gemini This article, "7 Proven Ways to Increase Customer Service Satisfaction" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The Sony ULT Field 3 is part of Sony’s newer ULT lineup from 2025, alongside the larger ULT Field 5 and the ULT Tower 9. This is the smallest and most portable of the three, clearly aimed at people who want something tough, loud, and easy to carry. Right now, Woot is selling a refurbished unit for $99.99, with free shipping for Prime members and a $6 fee for everyone else. As a “Grade A” refurbed unit, it’s been inspected, tested, and guaranteed to work like new, with cosmetic wear that isn’t noticeable from arm’s length. It also comes with a one-year eReplacements limited warranty. The same speaker has been sitting at $125 on Amazon, and price trackers show it hasn’t gone lower there, so this is a genuine drop rather than a recycled deal. Sony ULT Field 3 Wireless Portable Bluetooth Speaker $99.99 at Woot $125.00 Save $25.01 Get Deal Get Deal $99.99 at Woot $125.00 Save $25.01 In actual use, the ULT Field 3 leans hard into bass. Sony squeezed a real woofer into a body that’s still backpack-friendly, and you can feel that low-end emphasis even at moderate volume. Turning on ULT mode pushes the bass further, which works well outdoors or in larger rooms, but it’s not subtle. Vocals can take a slight back seat if you don’t tweak the sound. Speaking of, the seven-band EQ in Sony’s Sound Connect app helps dial things in, especially if you want a flatter profile for podcasts or background music. The speaker is rated IP67, so it can handle dust, water, and the occasional drop without much worry, notes this PCMag review. It also supports Party Connect, letting you link it with other compatible Sony speakers for wider coverage. Battery life is another strong point, with up to 24 hours of playback when you’re not pushing the volume too hard. At full volume, that drops closer to five hours, which is expected given the bass output. Fast charging helps: A 10-minute charge reportedly gives you about two hours of listening, which is useful when you forget to plug it in. It’s not the most balanced-sounding speaker for critical listening, and the app extras like DJ effects might feel gimmicky for some. But for portability, durability, and long battery life at this price, it’s a solid option if bass-forward sound fits your needs. Our Best Editor-Vetted Tech Deals Right Now Apple AirPods 4 Active Noise Cancelling Wireless Earbuds — $148.99 (List Price $179.00) Apple Watch Series 11 [GPS 46mm] Smartwatch with Jet Black Aluminum Case with Black Sport Band - M/L. Sleep Score, Fitness Tracker, Health Monitoring, Always-On Display, Water Resistant — $399.00 (List Price $429.00) Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Plus — (List Price $24.99 With Code "FTV4K25") Samsung Galaxy Tab A9+ 64GB Wi-Fi 11" Tablet (Silver) — $159.99 (List Price $219.99) Deals are selected by our commerce team View the full article

US president’s comments condemned by prime minister’s spokesperson in latest sign of strain between alliesView the full article

Shares in Intel Corporation (Nasdaq: INTC) are plunging in pre-market trading this morning. The stock price fall comes after the chipmaker reported its Q4 2025 earnings after the closing bell yesterday. But it’s Intel’s forecast, rather than its latest results, that seems to be driving the stock price’s fall. Here’s what you need to know. Intel reports Q4 earnings Yesterday, Intel reported its Q4 2025 and full fiscal 2025 results. For its full fiscal 2025, the company reported $52.9 billion in revenue. That compares with the $53.1 billion in revenue the company brought in during its fiscal 2024. But what investors were mainly interested in were the company’s Q4 2025 results and its Q1 2026 forecast—the quarter Intel is now operating in. For Intel’s Q4 2025, the company reported revenue of $13.7 billion. That was down about 4% from the $14.3 billion the company reported in the same quarter a year earlier. The company’s Non-GAAP earnings per share (EPS) were 15 cents. That was an increase from the 13 cents Non-GAAP EPS the company achieved in its Q4 a year earlier. As noted by CNBC, Intel’s EPS of 15 cents and revenue of $13.7 billion both beat LSEG estimates, which were 8 cents and $13.4 billion, respectively. However, despite these beats, Intel shares fell sharply, with the stock down more than 13% in pre-market trading as of the time of this writing. Intel unable to meet AI data center demand There are two primary reasons for Intel’s pre-market share price plunge this morning. The first is its Q1 revenue and adjusted EPS forecast. The company said it expects revenue during its first quarter to reach between $11.7 billion and $12.7 billion. It said its adjusted EPS is expected to come in flat. As CNBC notes, Intel’s Q1 revenue forecast range is mostly below the $12.51 billion analysts were expecting. The company’s adjusted EPS of 0 cents is also below the 5 cents analysts were expecting. But what has spooked investors the most is the comments Intel made about the demand for its server chips that are used in AI data centers. The good news is that the demand for these chips is extraordinarily high. The bad news, Intel announced, is that the company is unable to meet this demand. As Reuters notes, Intel decides years ahead of time on its manufacturing output, and the company was caught off guard by the AI data center boom. That means Intel is essentially leaving money on the table because it is unable to supply all the chips its customers are demanding. If there’s a bright side to Intel’s forecast, it’s that the company expects its Q1 supply to be at the lowest level, before improving in Q2 and later. INTC stock plunges after earnings After Intel’s disappointing Q1 forecast, shares in the company sank after hours yesterday and remain highly depressed as of the time of this writing. Currently, INTC shares are down more than 13.6% in pre-market trading to $46.92 per share. Yet while investors are clearly disappointed in Intel’s Q1 forecast and the company’s current inability to meet customer demand, it’s still worth noting that Intel shares have had a terrific run as of late. As of yesterday’s close, before today’s pre-market price drop, INTC shares have seen their price surge by a staggering 47% since the year began. Over the past twelve months, INTC shares have jumped more than 148% as of yesterday’s close. What investors will be looking for now is signs that Intel can boost its manufacturing capacity to meet customer demand and thus fully take advantage of the AI boom engulfing the economy. View the full article

This week, we covered the doubly heated Google Search ranking volatility, but nothing was confirmed by Google. OpenAI will soon test ads in ChatGPT responses and they will charge on an impression basis...View the full article

Automation has been reshaping PPC account management for years, from rules, scripts, and API-driven workflows inside Google Ads. Most marketers are already comfortable with automated bidding, data-driven optimization, and other AI-powered enhancements. The next shift goes further. Two developments in particular are changing how PPC campaigns are managed and optimized: AI agents and vibe coding. Together, they point to a more autonomous way of working, where execution increasingly moves to AI – while marketers focus on strategy, systems, and creative direction. This shift unlocks new levels of efficiency and flexibility, but it also changes what effective PPC management looks like. Agentic AI: Google Ads has its own agentic AI integrated Google released its Agentic Ads Advisor in November 2025. The tool uses the latest Gemini models to help advertisers surface insights and improve campaign performance. Google describes Ads Advisor as: “[Y]our AI partner that helps you proactively manage campaigns directly within Google Ads. It helps you understand your business context and simplifies your work by learning from your interactions to improve campaign results.” The goal is to help advertisers analyze and optimize campaigns more efficiently. But it raises an important question: what should an agentic AI tool actually do? An agentic AI should function as an autonomous agent. It should surface information when needed, but it should also be able to operate independently when appropriate. That includes identifying opportunities to improve campaign setup, assets and ad copy, search terms, and other inputs. More importantly, it should be capable of implementing certain changes, not just recommending them. That is where agentic AI needs to go. As Jyll Saskin Gales noted after testing the tool, Google’s Ads Advisor is useful in places but not yet capable of acting autonomously. How agentic AI can be used in PPC workflows AI agents are meant to be autonomous. They should be able to make decisions without constant human input, actively managing, adjusting, and optimizing campaigns in real time. If an agentic AI only provides advice or reporting, much of its potential is lost. In practical terms, agentic AI can handle bidding strategies, ad placements, audience targeting, and creative testing. Instead of simply adjusting bids or budgets, it can make decisions on the fly, optimizing campaigns based on live performance data, seasonality, competitive activity, and user behavior trends. This represents a fundamental shift in how PPC accounts are managed. As agentic AI takes on more operational work, PPC professionals can spend more time on strategic decision-making. Over time, it is likely that many advertisers will rely on the same algorithms, campaign types, and AI agents. When that happens, competitive advantage will depend less on tooling and more on strategy. Differentiation will come from classic marketing fundamentals: Positioning. Value propositions. Offers. Website quality. Brand awareness. Creative assets. Those are the areas where marketers can still outpace competitors using the same AI-driven systems. Dig deeper: Agentic PPC: What performance marketing could look like in 2030 Why agentic AI is relevant for advanced PPC marketers For experienced PPC marketers, the appeal of agentic AI lies in its ability to scale campaigns without sacrificing strategic control. That is where it becomes a true game-changer. Real-time optimization: Instead of waiting a full day for bid adjustments to take effect, agentic AI can respond within minutes, allowing campaigns to adapt quickly to changing market conditions. Data-driven creativity: Agentic AI is not limited to performance metrics. It can analyze creative elements and audience interactions, testing combinations of visuals, copy, and CTAs to identify top-performing ads. Reduced human error: With less manual intervention, the risk of mistakes or missed opportunities declines. This allows PPC professionals to spend more time on higher-level strategy rather than execution. Despite the potential, agentic AI still requires informed oversight. PPC professionals must understand how to evaluate and apply AI outputs, especially when aligning decisions with broader marketing objectives. That matters because current tools are still limited. Google’s own agentic AI implementation still has limitations. In addition, many advertisers want tools that operate according to their own rules and priorities. That is where vibe coding comes in. Get the newsletter search marketers rely on. See terms. Vibe coding: How to build your own tools In parallel with the rise of agentic AI, another concept is gaining traction in marketing: vibe coding. At its core, vibe coding is a way of working with AI-powered platforms to build more personalized, intuitive, and data-driven campaigns, tools, landing pages, or other systems. In short, vibe coding lets you act as a developer, even if you are not one. With tools such as Cursor, Lovable, and AI Studio, you can describe what you need and let the system build it. By refining prompts over time, you can end up with a personalized tool that does exactly what you want, in your own style. Vibe coding has been especially valuable in my own work. Professionally, I have built tools such as: An SEO schema markup generator. A campaign and SEO audit tool. A system that generates marketing ideas by simply entering a website URL. It has also extended beyond work, including: A tool that tracks daily calorie and nutrition intake. Another that creates custom CrossFit workouts based on Garmin and Strava data. Once you start building this way, it becomes easy to keep expanding what you create. Dig deeper: How vibe coding is changing search marketing workflows Applying vibe coding to PPC workflows Beyond building standalone tools, vibe coding becomes more powerful when combined with agentic AI. That combination allows marketers to build their own AI agents for PPC work. Frederick Vallaeys has shown how to build custom tools for PPC campaigns, though his example relies on manually entering data before the tool can operate. By adding an AI agent layer, that step can be automated. Instead of manual inputs, the agent can pull data through the Google Ads API, process and format it as needed, and then execute specific tasks. In Vallaeys’ example, that task is seasonality analysis. From there, the possibilities expand. You can build: A keyword agent to identify new opportunities. An ad copy agent that generates creative based on performance data. A creative agent that produces new image assets. Data agents, video agents, and other specialized agents can be connected into a single system, resulting in a custom agentic AI tool built through vibe coding. The future: Where agentic AI and vibe coding will take PPC The rise of these technologies brings both challenges and opportunities. By embracing agentic AI and vibe coding, PPC marketers can streamline operations, improve campaign performance, and stay competitive while also standing out from peers. The future of PPC is autonomous, data-driven, and more personalized than ever. Embracing agentic AI and vibe coding creates a clear advantage for marketers who understand how to apply them effectively. That advantage benefits internal teams and, ultimately, customers. These technologies are not here to replace PPC professionals. They are designed to extend capabilities, reduce manual effort, and enable better results with less friction. PPC is becoming increasingly AI-powered, and adapting to that shift is no longer optional. For practical examples of how AI agents and vibe coding are already being applied, follow Alfred Simon, Mike Rhodes, and Ales Sturala. View the full article

TikTok has finalized a deal to create a new American entity, avoiding the looming threat of a ban in the United States that has been in discussion for years on the platform now used by more than 200 million Americans. The social video platform company signed agreements with major investors including Oracle, Silver Lake and the Emirati investment firm MGX to form the new TikTok U.S. joint venture. The new version will operate under “defined safeguards that protect national security through comprehensive data protections, algorithm security, content moderation and software assurances for U.S. users,” the company said in a statement Thursday. American TikTok users can continue using the same app. President Donald The President praised the deal in a Truth Social post, thanking Chinese leader Xi Jinping specifically “for working with us and, ultimately, approving the Deal.” The President add that he hopes “that long into the future I will be remembered by those who use and love TikTok.” Adam Presser, who previously worked as TikTok’s head of operations and trust and safety, will lead the new venture as its CEO. He will work alongside a seven-member, majority-American board of directors that includes TikTok’s CEO Shou Chew. The deal ends years of uncertainty about the fate of the popular video-sharing platform in the United States. After wide bipartisan majorities in Congress passed — and President Joe Biden signed — a law that would ban TikTok in the U.S. if it did not find a new owner in the place of China’s ByteDance, the platform was set to go dark on the law’s January 2025 deadline. For a several hours, it did. But on his first day in office, President Donald The President signed an executive order to keep it running while his administration sought an agreement for the sale of the company. “China’s position on TikTok has been consistent and clear,” Guo Jiakun, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson in Beijing, said Friday about the TikTok deal and The President’s Truth Social post, echoing an earlier statement from the Chinese embassy in Washington. Apart from an emphasis on data protection, with U.S. user data being stored locally in a system run by Oracle, the joint venture will also focus on TikTok’s algorithm. The content recommendation formula, which feeds users specific videos tailored to their preferences and interests, will be retrained, tested and updated on U.S. user data, the company said in its announcement. The algorithm has been a central issue in the security debate over TikTok. China previously maintained the algorithm must remain under Chinese control by law. But the U.S. regulation passed with bipartisan support said any divestment of TikTok must mean the platform cuts ties — specifically the algorithm — with ByteDance. Under the terms of this deal, ByteDance would license the algorithm to the U.S. entity for retraining. The law prohibits “any cooperation with respect to the operation of a content recommendation algorithm” between ByteDance and a new potential American ownership group, so it is unclear how ByteDance’s continued involvement in this arrangement will play out. “Who controls TikTok in the U.S. has a lot of sway over what Americans see on the app,” said Anupam Chander, a professor of law and technology at Georgetown University. Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX are the three managing investors, each holding a 15% share. Other investors include the investment firm of Michael Dell, the billionaire founder of Dell Technologies. ByteDance retains 19.9% of the joint venture. Associated Press writers Chan Ho-him in Hong Kong and Didi Tang in Washington contributed to this report. —Kaitlyn Huamani, AP Technology Reporter View the full article

The Nato secretary-general is happy to use flattery in order to get things doneView the full article

As expected, but sooner than I thought, Google has brought Personal Intelligence to Google Search within AI Mode. This first launched last week in the Gemini app and is now rolling out to Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers in English in the U.S.View the full article

Google will sometimes fall back to showing featured snippets when it is unable to generate AI Overviews for a query. And when that happens, it sometimes looks like an AI Overview, but it is not an AI Overview, it is a featured snippet.View the full article

For much of the modern corporate era, brand has been treated as surface area. A story told outward. A set of signals designed to persuade, attract, and differentiate. When companies spoke about brand, they were usually talking about perception: how they looked in the market, how they sounded, how they were received. That framing made sense in a world where markets moved a little more slowly, organizations were stable, and leadership could afford to separate strategy from culture, product from meaning, execution from belief. That world no longer exists. Today’s organizations operate in a state of near-constant volatility. Strategy shifts quarterly. Teams scale overnight. Culture is tested publicly, in real time. And leadership is no longer judged solely by results, but by coherence and meaning. Do the choices make sense? Do the values hold under pressure? Does the organization know how to behave when the playbook runs out? In this environment, brand cannot remain a visual wrapper. It must become something more fundamental. It must become an operating system. When Brand Stops Being a Story and Starts Being Structure An operating system doesn’t exist to impress. It exists to coordinate behavior, allocate resources, and make complex systems usable. It governs what’s possible, what’s prioritized, and what happens when things break. This is the shift now underway in the most forward-thinking organizations—brand moving from expression to infrastructure. In this new paradigm, brand is no longer just what the company says. It’s how the company defines itself. It shows up in how leaders frame trade-offs, how teams resolve tension, how products evolve, and how culture responds to stress. The question is no longer “Is the brand consistent?” but “Is the brand functional?” Does it help people make better decisions faster? Does it reduce friction? Does it offer clarity when data runs out and vision or judgment takes over? If it can’t be used under intense pressure and scrutiny, it isn’t an operating system at all. The End of the Brand Deck Era and What Comes Next This evolution didn’t happen because brand teams failed. It happened because organizations asked brand to do the wrong job. For years, brand was tasked with alignment theater: values posters, messaging frameworks, tone-of-voice documents. Useful artifacts, yes, but largely disconnected from how power, priorities, and incentives actually worked inside the business. Meanwhile, leadership teams struggled with a different problem entirely—fragmentation. Smart people pulling in different directions. Strategy decks multiplying ideas while conviction thinned. Culture initiatives proliferating without changing behavior. The gap between what the brand claimed and how the organization actually operated grew wider. In that gap, trust eroded, employees disengaged, decision-making slowed. And companies found themselves saying the right things while doing the wrong ones. Brand-as-operating-system emerges as a response to that gap. Not as a creative flourish, but as a leadership correction. Brand as a Shared Logic System What does this look like in practice? When brand functions as an operating system, it becomes a shared logic layer across the organization. It provides a common mental model that helps teams answer questions like: What kind of decisions do we make here? What do we prioritize when values collide? How do we act when there’s no precedent? What does “good” actually look like for us? This is where brand moves beyond language and into behavior. Hiring becomes more precise. Not just about skills, but about belief alignment. Innovation becomes more focused. Not just novel, but meaningful. Culture becomes less performative. Not what’s celebrated on slides, but what’s rewarded in practice. The organization stops asking people to remember the brand and starts enabling them to use it. Why This Is a Leadership Problem, Not a Marketing One Brand-as-OS doesn’t install itself. It has to be architected, and that responsibility starts at the top. Brand-as-OS only works when leadership owns it, models it, and enforces it. This is where many organizations stall. It’s easier to approve a campaign than to commit to a worldview. Easier to delegate brand than to live inside it. But brand is not neutral. Every organization already has an operating system. The only question is whether it’s intentional or accidental. Our Future of Brand Report 2026 reveals a clear pattern: companies that treat brand as infrastructure, embedded in systems, rituals, and strategic choices, outperform peers who treat it as a job left to the marketing department. What sets these companies apart isn’t better branding. It’s leadership that understands brand is the connective tissue between culture, vision, and execution. At Motto, we’ve seen this firsthand. In companies led by visionaries who treat brand not as a communications tool, but as a cultural code. Leaders who hold brand in the same regard as financial health or product strategy, because they understand it’s tied to both. And when that code is clear, everything else becomes faster, sharper, and more aligned. What emerges isn’t language for the website or a better logo. It’s a set of convictions that govern how the company behaves, especially when the answers aren’t obvious. The company doesn’t just look different; it is different. The Cost of Not Making the Shift Organizations that fail to treat brand as infrastructure will continue to suffer from the same symptoms, no matter how many initiatives they launch. They’ll hire exceptional talent only to frustrate it. They’ll produce beautiful work that lacks cohesion. They’ll talk about alignment while reinforcing ambiguity. Most dangerously, they’ll confuse activity with progress. In contrast, companies that build brand as an operating system gain something far more valuable than consistency. They gain velocity. Because when people share a belief system, they don’t need permission for every move. They can act with confidence, even in uncertainty. The Next Frontier of Leadership Leadership in the coming decade will not be defined by charisma or control but by coherence. The ability to create systems that make sense to the humans inside them. Brand-as-operating-system is not a trend. It’s a response to complexity. A way of giving organizations a spine when everything else is in flux. The leaders who understand this won’t hand off brand to marketing and hope it holds. They won’t treat vision, culture, and brand as separate lines of effort, but as one integrated system of belief, behavior, and direction. They’ll design for alignment from the inside out, not just to look good but to operate better. Because the future of brand leadership belongs to those who do more than tell the story. They architect the system. They run the code. They build companies where vision is felt, culture is lived, and brand is the connective tissue in it all. Not just brands with something to say. Brands built to lead. View the full article

Google Ads currently has a bug where if you try to edit your asset groups within your Performance Max campaigns in the web user interface, it simply won't work. Google is reportedly aware of the issue and is telling advertisers to use Google Ads Editor or the API as a workaround for now.View the full article

Key Reddit communities that professionals use to stay informed, ask smarter questions, and learn from peers across industries. The post 45 Best Subreddits For Marketing & SEO Professionals appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

Hello again, and welcome back to Fast Company’s Plugged In. On January 16, Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak—known to all as Woz—received the James C. Morgan Global Humanitarian Award, an honor bestowed each year by the Tech Interactive, a science museum in San Jose, California. The ceremony and a conversation between Wozniak and comedian Drew Carey capped a gala event in which several organizations were named laureates for using technology to improve the world. Their creations include a brain-computer interface (BCI) that helps people with disabilities communicate, a forum that lets patients who have received BCI implants shape the technology’s best practices and ethics, a headset that uses ultrasound therapy to treat mental conditions, and a device that provides people with Parkinson’s disease the ability to walk more confidently. Until he took the stage himself, Wozniak sat in the audience with his wife, Janet, watching presentations about each honoree with rapt attention. In a conversation after the event, Wozniak marveled at what he’d seen. “They were creating something to solve a problem they had with the world, and that’s where you get the best products,” he said. He likened the honorees’ ingenuity to his own implementation of color graphics on 1977’s Apple II, a killer feature at a time when other microcomputers could barely draw pictures in black and white. Rather than adding to the machine’s cost and complexity, he explained, his approach “took no chips at all. I mean, it was just so far out of the box. It violated all the rules of mathematics on color TV.” Jay SanguinettiSidney CollinSteve WozniakAndreas ForslandIan Burkhart Wozniak has spent close to half a century being celebrated for his technical brilliance and irreplaceable role in bringing computing to the masses. Just three years after starting Apple with Steve Jobs (and, briefly, Ron Wayne), he received the Association for Computing Machinery’s Grace Murray Hopper Award. Six years after that, he and Jobs won the National Medal of Technology, resulting in a memorable photo opp with President Ronald Reagan. He said last week’s award was particularly meaningful to him because it reflected his efforts as a humanitarian rather than solely as a technologist. Those efforts have often focused on culture and education in Silicon Valley. A native of San Jose, Wozniak provided funding that was instrumental to bootstrapping the 27-year-old Tech Interactive as well as the city’s Children’s Discovery Museum. (The latter is located on a street named Woz Way—yet another of Wozniak’s many tributes.) In his memoir, iWoz, he writes about paying for computer labs in local schools and fulfilling a cherished dream by teaching computing skills to fifth graders. Even earlier, he donated the very first Apple computer to a teacher named Liza Loop. After Apple employees dating to its days as a garage startup weren’t cut in on its 1980 initial public offering, Wozniak gave them a meaningful percentage of his personal stock, purely because it felt like the right thing to do. He was also a principal founding donor to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an essential advocate for civil rights in the digital age. The list of his good deeds goes on, and is not thoroughly documented: In conversations with people who have known him for decades, I’ve heard multiple stories about his unpublicized support for other worthy causes. All along, Wozniak has remained on Apple’s payroll. (One of the best things about attending product launches at Apple Park is observing him mingling with the preshow crowd, otherwise made up of journalists, creators, influencers, and Apple PR people.) But it’s been more than 40 years since he wound down active work at the company. Though he’s since been involved in several startups—in areas ranging from remote controls to space junk—his post-Apple life has mattered in ways that have nothing to do with money or power. His desire to leave society better than he found it is one big reason why. It’s not tough to connect the dots between the Woz who engineered the Apple-1 and Apple II when he was in his mid-twenties and Woz the 75-year-old humanitarian. He does so himself, arguing “your personality settles down between 18 and 23 years old. From then on, you’re the same person.” (Having reassessed his priorities after surviving a small plane crash in 1981, he does allow that something like “a horrible shock or near-death [experience]” might have an impact.) His interest in inventing stuff, he told me, began as a form of self-expression that helped him overcome being painfully shy: “The only way I could do anything to communicate was to design something cool. And people, other geeks, would talk to me about it.” Steve WozniakKatie Ferrick Apple’s first machines grew out of Wozniak’s desire to own a computer himself, at a time when no computer was built or priced for consumers. That led to him wanting to help other people own them, an early sign of his fundamental generosity of spirit. At first, that meant sharing the Apple-1 schematics so that other hobbyists could assemble their own—in part because he couldn’t convince his pre-Apple employer, HP, that PCs might become a pretty decent business. “I proposed it five times,” he remembers. “I got turned down. No computer company really felt it was going to go anywhere.” Fortunately for Wozniak, and us, others showed more foresight. Essential support came from Paul Terrell, whose Byte Shop computer store became Apple’s first dealer, and Mike Markkula, the company’s first angel investor and, later, its CEO. “It took a couple of people like that to really give us a chance,” Wozniak says. (What about Steve Jobs? Discussing their time together at Apple—Jobs resigned after a board fight in 1985, the same year Wozniak moved on—Wozniak calls him “a good talker, a good promoter, a good marketer of the Apple II” but also points out the failure of the company’s third and fourth computers, the Apple III and Lisa. As Jobs’s Mac got off to a sluggish start, he notes, the Apple II’s continuing popularity provided the company with a lifeline. Wozniak waxes more enthusiastic about the iPod, a crucial element of Apple’s comeback after Jobs returned: “It wasn’t a computer, but he knew what people wanted—he knew people.”) In this century, the Apple II has remained admired and loved in equal measure—when I helped assemble a list of the greatest PCs of all time, we ranked it No. 1. Even so, the world may underappreciate the degree to which it reflected Wozniak’s outlook on life. It certainly delivered on his life philosophy, which he calls the secret of being a good person: “Happiness equals smiles minus frowns.” I’m not sure if a single offering from today’s Silicon Valley outperforms the 49-year-old Apple II on that score, and AI is only making matters more fraught. Maybe that’s a lesson for today’s product designers: Be more like Woz. One other trait sets Wozniak apart. In an industry brimming with self-serious workaholics, he is a lifelong prankster, a pastime he discussed onstage with Carey last week. (My takeaway: Never, ever let Woz talk to Siri on your iPhone.) I asked him if there’s a link between his mischievous streak and his philanthropic one. He wasn’t sure. But he stressed that humor and creativity are deeply intertwined. “If you can make jokes, you can look at the world in different ways,” he told me. “They just come together naturally.” His own life proves his point, and we’re all richer for it. You’ve been reading Plugged In, Fast Company’s weekly tech newsletter from me, global technology editor Harry McCracken. If a friend or colleague forwarded this edition to you—or if you’re reading it on fastcompany.com—you can check out previous issues and sign up to get it yourself every Friday morning. I love hearing from you: Ping me at hmccracken@fastcompany.com with your feedback and ideas for future newsletters. I’m also on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads, and you can follow Plugged In on Flipboard. More top tech stories from Fast Company You probably shouldn’t click that email ‘unsubscribe’ link. Here’s what to do instead It’s tempting to click on ‘unsubscribe’ to defend yourself from spam emails. But that can sometimes make things worse. Here’s a safer way to take control. Read More → This ingenious ‘weightless camera’ is changing live sports forever Norwegian startup Muybridge has rocked pro tennis. Next up: soccer, hockey, F1—even emergency medicine. 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Google's Gemini may be rolling out new local results, it may be new, I am not sure. But the details it shows may give you insight into how Google understands and interprets your business. Gemini gives new headlines and sections about your business based on what it thinks it knows about it.View the full article

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I like to say that my job as a charity auctioneer is the ultimate sales role. I stand onstage night after night encouraging people to give money, playing off the audience to push them to bid higher, in the name of charity. If there’s one thing the stage has taught me, it’s that flexibility is everything. The faster you can adapt and offer a solution, the more successful you’ll be whether you’re selling a product or an idea. Here are three of my favorite sales secrets. 1. THE POWER OF SUGGESTION One of the quickest ways to lose someone’s attention is to tell them how you think your product should work for them. If a donor has offered their mountain house as “the ultimate ski vacation house” and I walk onstage and announce that I’m selling “a ski house,” I’ve immediately eliminated half the room as potential buyers of this lot simply because half of the room probably doesn’t ski. Add to that, if you don’t like to ski, what is the appeal of renting a house where you sit around in a cold climate with nothing else to do. If I get onstage and position it as a mountain house for all seasons, I open it up to the entire audience again. A mountain house has countless uses, and skiing is just one of them. When you give people multiple ways to imagine using something, you invite them into the story. You expand the possibilities rather than narrowing them. In sales, and leadership, suggestion opens minds. Assumptions shut them down. 2. THERE’S MORE THAN ONE WAY TO GET FROM LONDON TO PARIS Be open to different paths to agreement. Before a sales pitch, or before stepping onstage, I like to play a simple game: How else could this be used? I’ll ask friends, colleagues, or clients how they see value in the same item. Take a piece of jewelry, for example. It could be a gift to yourself, a gift for a friend, or something to pass down to your daughter. Or, for the men in the audience, an opportunity to be the guy who brings home a surprise gift “just because,” or a future birthday, anniversary, and Valentine’s Day gift. For those who are single, an opportunity to have something when you meet the girl of your dreams. When I understand all the ways someone might emotionally connect to an item, I can meet them where they are instead of forcing them down a single path. 3. BEFRIEND YOUR UNDERBIDDER Every auction has a winner and a runner-up. It’s one of the few places where not everyone gets a trophy, but that doesn’t mean anyone has to walk away feeling like they lost. The same is true in sales. No matter how prepared or enthusiastic you are, a deal won’t always close. What will be remembered is how the other person felt in the process. As I’m about to drop the gavel, I keep eye contact with the underbidder until the very last second, watching for any sign they might reengage. If it’s clear they’re done, I acknowledge them publicly, often asking for a round of applause for a strong underbidder. Why? Because people who feel respected and appreciated are far more likely to come back. In auctions, in sales, and in leadership, making someone feel good, regardless of the outcome, keeps the door open long after the deal is done. View the full article