This Week AI Shifted from Trend to Infrastructure
AI In Marketing with Ashley | Issue #3
Over $2 billion flowed into AI this week. The shift was less into hype and more into the plumbing. Think, sales agents to customer service bots, ad copy engines and search infrastructure. All of that aside . . .
Here’s what matters for your business today:
What this actually means for your business
Trust, relationships, and genuine expertise still win. HubSpot lost blog traffic to AI Overviews, then grew AI-referred demand 1,850% by building real authority.
Image, Midjourney. Curated and Designed by Ashley Etling
Search changed its rules.
Google’s AI Overviews now trigger on 58% more queries than a year ago. Being #1 in organic search doesn’t guarantee you appear in the AI answer at the top of the page. The brands seeing results are those built around answering questions with genuine depth and authority.
LinkedIn became a search signal.
AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini are doubling down on LinkedIn as a trusted source. Citations from LinkedIn in AI answers have doubled since late 2025. This is a signal for your leadership team to or continue to publish there, so your brand is visible in the world’s fastest-growing discovery channel.
Image Made With Midjourney, Curated by Ashley
Ads inside AI went live. Criteo is now placing ads inside ChatGPT conversations. Early signals show LLM-referred traffic converts better than most traditional referral sources. A new channel is being born in real time.
What hasn’t changed: Trust, relationships, and genuine expertise still win. HubSpot lost blog traffic to AI Overviews, then grew AI-referred demand 1,850% by building real authority.
Your move this week: Pick one executive and have them publish one insight they noodled on over the weekend and share it on LinkedIn. It is a genuine perspective on something your customers are wrestling with. That’s the starting line for the new era of search.
Chantal and I started Bampt to help growing businesses from ecommerce brands, to agencies, and professional services teams get the same AI advantage that enterprise companies are building right now. We build and implement AI workflows that make building your business easier and more profitable, with the speed and personal attention that a big agency simply can’t offer.
Chantal covers the week’s top AI news. I cover what it means for your marketing. Together, hopefully, we save you a lot of time sorting through the noise.
If someone forwarded this to you, subscribe below. And if it sparked something, I’d love to hear what you’re seeing in your own business — just reply.
See you next week.
— Ashley
