Issue #30: AI Search shake-up to challenge performance norms

☕ Hello there adtech assassins

Grab a chilled cold brew to combat the heat with the top stories from this week so far.

🗞️ Top Stories

1. Perplexity makes $34.5 billion offer for Google Chrome
   The AI search start-up made an unsolicited cash offer to buy Chrome, confirming the bid amid potential antitrust remedies to laid out by US courts. TechCrunch

2. Havas launches ‘generative engine optimisation’ tool

   Brand Insights AI will track how LLMs such as ChatGPT portray brands, suggests content tweaks and provides source tracking transparency. The Media Leader

3. Carwow partners with Kevel to scale its retail media marketplace
   The UK auto marketplace aims to grow on site and partner monetisation across its media platform, leaning into Kevel’s API technology . Exchange Wire 

4. S4 Capital confirms merger talks with MSQ Partners
   Sir Martin Sorrell’s ad group says it’s in early discussions to acquire MSQ, signalling further UK agency consolidation. Reuters 

5. AI search poses ‘existential’ threat to publisher traffic, warns UK industry
   Generative search and Google’s newly launched AI Mode are significantly reducing referral clicks, forcing a strategic shift. The Media Leader

💭 60-Second Take – AI search is rewriting performance marketing

Earlier this week, B2B tech firm monday reported solid results, however a call out around declining traffic volumes as a result of AI powered search resulted in the stock price dropping by c.30%. AI search is changing how brands get discovered and is driving transformation in how and where consumers, both B2B and B2C, make purchase decisions.

• The Zero Click Zone: UK publisher businesses, those who make money predominantly from advertising, warn that gen AI answers are cutting referral traffic and is an existential risk to their traditional business model.

• Ads Move Into Answers: AI Mode and Search Overviews already have massive scale and Google are set to monetise this increasingly critical real estate with ads.

• More Places To Purchase: Microsoft is pulling existing search creatives into Copilot experiences, widening their paid search inventory beyond the legacy results page.

• Competitive Complexity: Perplexity’s massive bid for Google’s Chrome browser underscores how fast AI native search challengers are moving into this crucial discovery layer.

Marketers should expect short term volatility in paid and organic search as answer engines queries grow. Brands may look to orient around trusted and scalable walled garden discovery such as YouTube and TikTok to counter this uncertainty while testing and scaling performance through new AI search ad units.

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See you next time,

Access Adtech