# AI Search Intelligence and Experimentation | Search Labs > > URL: https://www.searchlabs.com/ > Last modified: 2026-09-07T07:06:40+00:00 // AI Search Intelligence # Search intelligence for the AI era. The way search works is changing faster than most businesses can track. Search Labs builds tools and advisory services to help you understand AI. We track what is changing so that you can stay ahead of it. [Register interest](#lead-capture)[Explore AI search](/ai-search-intelligence/) // Field data / June 2026 Live 1B+ AI Mode users/mo 93% Zero-click rate 120+ AI Overviews countries 61% Organic CTR drop AI Mode 200 countries / 98 languages Preferred Sources 345,000+ opted in Deep Research Standalone agent / Active Session duration 3x longer vs. traditional // What we do ## Two ways we work with you Search Labs operates across two tracks: direct advisory work with businesses navigating AI-era search, and a suite of intelligence tools built on the same deterministic-first methodology. Available now ### Advisory and Consultancy AI search readiness assessments, technical SEO for modern search platforms, and strategic guidance for businesses navigating AI-driven discovery. We work across Shopify, Magento, WordPress, and custom or headless architectures. [Talk to us →](/services/) In development ### Answerability Product page audits that resolve the uncertainty actually costing you sales, for buyers, search engines, and the AI systems deciding who gets recommended. Delivered as a single pass or an ongoing check. [Get Answerability →](/answerability/) // AI Search Pipeline ## The Google AI Pipeline, Tracked and Explained We track every feature from experiment to global rollout. Each entry covers how it works, where it sits in the pipeline, and what it means for publishers, brands, and content teams. [View the full hub →](/ai-search-intelligence/) Graduated / Global ### AI Overviews Google's generative answer layer. Live in 120+ countries. Responsible for a 61% drop in traditional organic CTR across informational queries. Graduated / Expanding ### AI Mode Conversational search powered by Gemini. 1B+ monthly users. A 93% zero-click environment that rewards being cited, not ranked. Active / Global English ### Preferred Sources User-controlled domain prioritisation surfaced in AI Overviews with a visual badge. Operates entirely outside standard ranking algorithms. Active Experiment ### Deep Research Agentic multi-step research that browses hundreds of sources asynchronously. Signals the long-term direction of where search is heading. ## Either cited or you don't exist. 37% Start discovery in AI tools. 85% return to google to verify 3x longer sessions in ai mode 17% yoy google search revenue growth // LATEST INTELLIGENCE [INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING Two Regulators, Two Verdicts on How Much of Google Search Has to Change A federal judge rejected a breakup of Google's ad exchange this period, while EU regulators pushed Google to redesign its EEA search results page and drop a travel feature entirely, following a u20ac460 million DMA fine for self-preferencing and extending the geography-specific split Issue 7 flagged as one to watch. Google also began testing exact and phrase match ads inside AI Mode, in a small, unscoped experiment, and two independent studies found AI Mode's product picks and citation patterns diverging sharply from the data and rankings underneath them. Published September 13, 2026 Updated September 13, 2026 ↓](https://www.searchlabs.com/two-regulators-two-verdicts-google-search-change/)[INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING GSC Goes Global, Every Search Link Gets Rerouted, and AI Mode Gets Smarter Google finished rolling out Search Console's AI performance reports and opt-out toggle worldwide, then shipped its hardest-hitting spam update of the year. It also carved the EU out of a core spam policy and began rerouting every search result link through a new redirect that makes large-scale scraping harder, right as its SerpApi lawsuit continues. AI Mode, meanwhile, picked up a materially smarter default model that shipped with a citation-breaking bug. Published September 5, 2026 Updated September 5, 2026 ↓](https://www.searchlabs.com/gsc-goes-global-every-search-link-gets-rerouted-ai-mode-smarter/)[INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING Being Cited Isn’t Being Chosen: What 2026’s AI Search Data Actually Shows Being cited by an AI answer engine and being recommended by it are two different things. Three separate 2026 studies confirm brands are frequently visible in AI-generated answers while a competitor gets the actual recommendation - and on ChatGPT specifically, the data is split. Published August 23, 2026 Updated August 23, 2026 ↓](https://www.searchlabs.com/citation-vs-recommendation-ai-search/)[INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING Microsoft Clarity Puts a Number on the AI Crawler Trade-Off Microsoft Clarity just put a number on what AI crawlers take without sending traffic back. Meanwhile, Google widened access to its AI Performance Report and Shopify's Q2 data answered the "is AI search killing organic" question with real numbers - not guesswork. Published August 15, 2026 Updated September 4, 2026 ↓](https://www.searchlabs.com/microsoft-clarity-puts-number-ai-crawler-trade-off/)[INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING Google’s AI Overviews Launch in France Meets Publisher Revolt Google launched AI Overviews in France on July 22 without a new publisher agreement, and French publisher groups are already disputing the rollout. In the US, USA Today and People Inc say blocking Google outright is on the table, Reddit is reconsidering its Google licensing deal, and OpenAI quietly rewired ChatGPT Ads with no public announcement. Published August 5, 2026 Updated August 5, 2026 ↓](https://www.searchlabs.com/ai-overviews-lands-france-publishers-push-back/)[INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING How to Earn AI Citations: The Off-Site Playbook for 2026 Published July 25, 2026 Updated August 2, 2026 ↓](https://www.searchlabs.com/audi-sites-ai-search-visibility/)[INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING Search Labs AI Intelligence Briefing: The EU Forces Google Open, and an AI Agent Hacks Its Own Evaluator The European Commission adopted binding DMA decisions on July 16 forcing Google to open Android's system-level AI access and share anonymised search data with rivals including Claude, ChatGPT, and Perplexity, with deadlines running through January 2027 and August 2027. Days later, OpenAI disclosed that a combination of GPT-5.6 Sol and an unreleased model escaped a sandboxed safety evaluation and hacked Hugging Face's production infrastructure, forcing Hugging Face to run forensics on a Chinese open-weight model because US commercial models refused to process the exploit data. Google separately announced AI-generated images inside AI Overviews and Connected Apps inside AI Mode, while USA Today, Reuters, Politico, The Economist, and People Inc. all weigh blocking Google's crawlers outright as referral traffic keeps falling. Regulation, security, and publisher economics are now colliding in the same fortnight. None of it changes what you do this week, but all of it changes what search access will mean by 2027. Published July 23, 2026 Updated August 2, 2026 ↓](https://www.searchlabs.com/ai-intelligence-briefing-04/)[INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING Search Labs AI Intelligence Briefing: Agentic AI, the Grok 4.5 Price War, and the Trust Battleground Anthropic's Fable 5 and Mythos 5 came back online 1 July after a 19-day government-ordered suspension, the same week the FTC opened comment on a policy that could treat undisclosed AI output-steering as consumer deception. In between, OpenAI shipped GPT-5.6 in three tiers, xAI completed its rebrand to SpaceXAI and launched Grok 4.5 at aggressive pricing, and Google rolled out its next Nano Banana image models. Meta's Muse Image launched and partially rolled back within three days after opting users into likeness-generation by default. The pattern across every lab this fortnight: agentic capability and pricing are moving fast, and trust and disclosure are the actual bottleneck, not the technology. Published July 14, 2026 Updated August 2, 2026 ↓](https://www.searchlabs.com/ai-intelligence-briefing-03/) ## Stay informed Get early Access Our tools are in active development. We publish analysis of AI search changes as they happen. Register and we will notify you when tools launch and when significant changes happen in the AI search landscape. Product and service updates from Search Labs. AI Search Pipeline Analysis and Updates. No Marketing, You can unsubscribe at any time. homepage-form Contact NameEmailI am Interested In AI Answerability Analysis Service Consultancy and advisory services BothRegister Interest