2026 Growth Memo research summary
All data analyses and user studies so far (July 2026)
AI search has split from classic Google faster than most teams can measure it.
This page collects my 2026 Growth Memo research through June 30, 2026. The focus is AI search, Google, consumer behavior, and organic growth. Some links may require a Premium subscription.
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AI Mode is changing buyer behavior: How consumers make high-stakes purchases in AI Mode, Users behave differently in AI Overviews vs. AI Mode, and What to do now that AIOs turned search into reading sessions.
AI visibility is not one score: The consensus gap, The ghost citation problem, and Reasoning lift.
AI citations reward different content signals than classic SEO: The science of how AI pays attention, The science of how AI picks its sources, and Shorter, focused content wins in ChatGPT.
Google data is getting harder to read: GSC data is 75% incomplete, Organic rankings vs. product grids, and The brand tax.
AI user behavior
How consumers make high-stakes purchases in AI Mode
April 7, 2026. A usability study of 185 documented purchase tasks showing how AI Mode users accept shortlists built by the LLM while classic Google users build shortlists themselves.
Users behave differently in AI Overviews vs. AI Mode
May 25, 2026. A clickstream study of 846K sessions showing that AI Overviews turn the SERP into a comparison environment while AI Mode produces acceptance.
What to do now that AIOs turned search into reading sessions
June 1, 2026. A follow-up on how AI Overviews compress classic intent segments and force content strategy to account for reading behavior, not only clicks.
AI visibility and citations
January 12, 2026. Research showing that LLM outputs can be influenced more than expected, which makes AI search optimization both more powerful and more fragile.
The science of how AI pays attention
February 16, 2026. An analysis of 1.2M search results showing that AI reads like a busy editor, not a patient student.
The science of how AI picks its sources
March 23, 2026. An analysis of more than 21K citations measuring the impact of content length, depth, and focus on AI source selection.
The science of what AI actually rewards
March 30, 2026. A cross-vertical analysis showing that most AI SEO writing advice does not hold at scale.
Shorter, focused content wins in ChatGPT
April 13, 2026. An analysis of 815K query-page pairs showing that focused pages beat the “ultimate guide” playbook for ChatGPT citations.
April 20, 2026. New data from 3,981 domains across 115 prompts, 14 countries, and 4 AI search engines showing that mentions and citations are not the same thing.
May 11, 2026. Research showing that 91% of AI citations show up in only one engine, which means visibility is not portable across ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity.
Reasoning lift: what happens to AI visibility when AI thinks harder
May 18, 2026. Research showing that high-reasoning prompts fire 4.6x more searches and cite a different web.
Topics matter for third-party authority signals
June 15, 2026. Research showing that off-property authority is topic-specific, so generic mentions and generic links waste budget.
Why proprietary data is your most defensible AI citation asset
June 29, 2026. Original data wins citations, but being the primary source is not enough by itself.
Google, commerce, and market data
February 2, 2026. An analysis of 450M impressions showing that Google filters three quarters of Search Console data.
Organic rankings vs. product grids: the new e-commerce divide
March 9, 2026. An analysis of 4K+ keywords and 40K product grids showing a large gap between classic SEO winners and product grid winners.
The brand tax: how Google profits from demand you already own
March 16, 2026. A Contentsquare 99B-session benchmark showing how paid search captures demand many brands already created.
April 27, 2026. A job market analysis showing that SEO roles with AI skills command higher salaries even when AI does not appear in the job title.
Measurement and operating guides
State of AI search optimization 2026
January 5, 2026. A baseline guide to the retrieval, citation, and trust factors that determine LLM visibility in 2026.
January 19, 2026. A framework for measuring organic growth when traffic and pipeline no longer move together.
How to compete in agentic commerce
January 26, 2026. A commerce playbook for a market where agents compare product truth instead of marketing arbitrage.
Synthetic personas for better prompt tracking
February 9, 2026. A prompt tracking method that uses synthetic personas to simulate search behavior across user segments.
AI-SEO is a change management problem
February 23, 2026. A change management framework for moving AI search work from experiments to organizational adoption.
How to build an AI SEO strategy that outlasts tactics
March 2, 2026. A strategy framework for separating durable AI search bets from short-lived tactics.
Make your prompt tracking more accurate this week
June 8, 2026. A measurement guide for treating AI visibility as a research system instead of a rank tracker.
Growth intelligence briefs
Growth Intelligence Briefs track SEO visibility, AI prompt counts, vertical shifts, winners, losers, and platform changes.
2026 brief archive: #12, #13, #14, #15, #16, #17, #18, #19, and #20.
The throughline
Classic SEO assumed a visible SERP, stable rankings, and a user who evaluates options manually.
The 2026 data points in a different direction: compressed decisions, fragmented AI engines, hidden queries, filtered Google data, and citation systems that reward specificity over generic authority.
That is why the research keeps coming back to the same operating principle: build assets AI systems can verify, compare, and cite.