Anecdotally, everyone knows there are a plethora of AI agents out there, and they’re browsing the web a lot more often these days. BrightEdge Consulting quantified the trend and shared statistics at its BrightEdge Spark event in New York City earlier this month: A third of all web traffic is now coming from AI agents, and it’s growing at a clip of 150% on a month-over-month basis. The overwhelming majority of that—87%—is coming from ChatGPT.

On the sidelines of the event, BrightEdge CEO Jim Yu told me that AI agents are getting much more capable and tackling more use cases. They’re doing deeper dives into all of the content that answers a specific query, and they’re also getting a better understanding of the natural next questions and deeper research that a user wants to know.

But what does a user want? And what, exactly, is AI looking for? That’s changing all the time—both as users improve their queries and as AI systems “learn” how to better find and package information.

This information should help enlighten both consumers and B2B customers, who are using AI for company research. I talked to Alex Roy Rajan, founder and CEO of SalesboxAI, about how to use AI and technology to both find B2B customers in the rapidly changing sales pipeline and improve your customer experience. An excerpt from our conversation is later in this newsletter.

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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

In his keynote address at BrightEdge Spark, CEO Jim Yu said brands often see that AI search is using sources like YouTube videos and Reddit posts to form its results. Many brands have responded by doing things like bulking up their YouTube presence and working more with influencers.

However, Yu said, that might not be the right strategy. He pulled up information for a brand that consistently had a high amount of YouTube sources. But a deeper look found that the video cited most often came from an outside account with relatively few followers that summarized the brand’s return policies.

BrightEdge is launching a new tool for companies to gain more visibility into how AI platforms are representing their brands and how agents are experiencing their digital presence. Called AI Hyper Cube, it shows information including the prompts that mention a brand, the sources AI systems rely on, how competitors appear in AI searches, the sentiment of AI-generated narratives, and whether AI is including old issues—like controversies or recalls from years ago.

Yu told me it’s important to take a holistic view of brand and sentiment in the era of AI search. The days of click-and-convert are over, as AI is now paving the way to a customer’s brand journey. AI is also demolishing all silos around the content about your brand—many people are now getting into brand information through support pages, Yu said.

If you’re selling patio furniture, for example, a customer would likely ask AI for general recommendations, Yu said. It’s important for your brand to be included in those recommendations, with a positive sentiment, and in a way that it could be seen differently than your competitors. And, he added, the information that can persuade the consumer to pick your brand might not even be on your website.

“The journey is super different,” he said. “And so we really encourage CMOs to think about sort of ‘brand’ and ‘non-brand’ different. Now, not only is it about the links in a flat model, but a much more holistic journey across that different set.”

A New Mexico jury found Tuesday that Meta enabled child exploitation on its platforms and misled users about the platforms’ impact on children’s mental health. The verdict, which includes a $375 million penalty, essentially holds the social networking company responsible for illegal content and actions of users of platforms including Facebook and Instagram.

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said in a statement that the verdict “is a historic victory for every child and family who has paid the price for Meta’s choice to put profits over kids’ safety.” Meta said it would appeal the decision, telling the New York Times, “we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online.”

This is the first verdict in many pending cases challenging tech and social networking companies for harmful effects on users. Jurors are deliberating a California case in which a 20-year-old user accuses Meta and Google-owned YouTube of fostering a social media addiction that led her to being depressed. (TikTok and Snap were also defendants in the California lawsuit and settled before the trial began.) According to the Wall Street Journal, there are more than 2,000 similar pending lawsuits about social media in federal court. There are also state-level cases in Florida, Massachusetts and Mississippi.

It took only a matter of days for a local TV mega-merger to become a sprawling legal issue about media control. Last Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission approved the $6.2 billion merger of Tegna and Nexstar, which was already the largest owner of local TV stations in the U.S. Nexstar now controls 265 stations in 44 states and Washington, D.C.—about 80% of the country’s local TV market. This exceeds the FCC’s own rule limiting a single station owner to reaching a maximum of 39% of the nationwide local TV market, and the merger was approved without a full commission vote, the New York Times reported.

The deal has been controversial since it was first announced. This much control of local stations in the hands of a single owner allows for them to have an outsized influence in programming choices, editorial control and advertising. Diana Moss, vice president and director of competition policy at the Progressive Policy Institute, told Columbia Journalism Review that such a large nationwide network could increase advertising rates, making TV advertising cost prohibitive for local businesses. And as far as controlling messaging is concerned, a pre-merger Nexstar flexed its muscles last year with its stations keeping ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live off the air for an extra week following the network’s suspension of the late night show for a joke about Charlie Kirk’s accused killer.

The merger was challenged in court both before and after it was approved. Last Wednesday, eight Democratic state attorneys general asked a judge to block the deal, arguing that it consolidates ownership of competing stations, the AP reported. Then, the day after the deal was cleared, a coalition of state cable and broadband associations and Newsmax filed their own lawsuit, Deadline reported. (DirecTV had previously filed its own suit against the deal, and Deadline writes it is also seeking to join this one.) This lawsuit questions the process of the approval, including ignoring the 39% rule, the waiving of a rule that prohibits a company from owning more than two stations in one market, and the closed-door endorsement of the merger.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr hasn’t spoken specifically about these issues, but in the statement approving the merger, he notes today’s broadcast media market is very different from what existed in the past. National programmers have amassed much more clout, and this merger allows the opportunity for more investment in local news—something regulatory agencies have opted not to do, he said, which has led to local news sources closing. Deadline reports other large local TV station owners—including Sinclair, Gray Media and E.W. Scripps—support the deal for that reason: If large mergers are allowed by the FCC, they can become larger companies that can better take on national programmers.

How Technology Is Changing The B2B Marketing Pipeline

The marketing pipeline is changing, and those who work on all ends of it need to adapt to new trends, new technology and the certainty of future change. I talked to Alex Roy Rajan, founder and CEO of SalesboxAI—which helps marketers navigate these shifts—about what to expect and what to do differently. This conversation has been edited for length, clarity and continuity.

What is the state of B2B lead-based marketing today?

Rajan: Purchase decisions happen through a buying group, which means multiple individuals have clout in that decision. So marketers need to engage with multiple buying group members. Until very recently, that buying group was all humans, but that’s not true anymore.

You need to make sure first that the gatekeepers or research sources for that buying group are informed. You have AI assistants that are going to do the research. It’s very important from an AI visibility perspective for the marketer to make sure information—the pricing comparison, et cetera—is available for those agents.

There’s a lot of noise, a lot of content out there, and [buying group members] need all the help they can get. They are using AI to distill that information because AI helps them stay focused, crystallize, filter out the noise. You need to make sure that whatever you’re trying to convey is visible to the AI researcher on the buying side, because they’re going to be asking a single question: ‘Tell me the top CRM solutions,’ let’s say.

How are AI agents impacting the way B2B marketing is done?

It’s evolved into being signal based. It’s about listening, rather than just automating, and doing things at scale. It’s getting your timing: acting, coming in front of that account at the right moment. And for that, you need agents to listen for intent signals.

For example, somebody’s on the website. That’s a signal. If there’s multiple people from a company coming, that’s an even stronger signal. It’s about being able to listen for that, then combine it and understand. It’s filter out the noise and prioritize the accounts.

AI agents help you with focusing your ad spend on the right accounts, to focus on the right buying group members from the right companies. Once you have that, then you can go to personalization at scale. How do you make that conversation personalized for that company or for that role? It’s allowing you to do a level of detail you always wanted as a marketer, but never had the resources and time to do so. It helps you do your job better.

How can a company adapt to changes in marketing and technology, both for now and toward the future?

It depends on budget, what systems you have in place. Start with the inbound side of things. See how you can be more visible. Make sure that signals can be listened to so that you can act upon them.

I would say it’s not disruptive. It’s not that everything you were doing all along was wrong. It’s: How do I make it more refined and better? For example, maybe they already had a chatbot on the website, but make that chatbot more intelligent. You can definitely improve that experience.

It has to come from experience first. It’s about making sure that whatever you already have—let’s take a look at the inbound experience—how do we make it better? I don’t have a receptionist and I’m a small business. I never have that. Maybe I could have an AI receptionist. Can we make it more personalized? It could be the support experience. Some of it is very robotic today, but could be much better.

Computer hardware manufacturer Logitech promoted Yalcin Yilmaz to chief commercial officer, effective April 1. Yilmaz has spent 22 years with the firm and currently works as the company’s vice president of Europe and Asia Pacific Developed. He will succeed Quin Liu.

Insurance provider Plymouth Rock Assurance appointed Elliott Seaborn as chief marketing officer. Seaborn most recently worked as chief marketing officer at IntelyCare and Monster.

Cybersecurity company Armis appointed Simon Mouyal as chief marketing officer. Mouyal most recently worked in the same role at CyberArk, as well as athenahealth prior to that.

You’re not fooling anyone: Your audience can tell when you’re giving them AI-written material. Here’s how to use AI to help your writing process, but ensure that what you put in front of people still has that deeper human connection.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed at work, but that can lead to stress, exhaustion and poor performance. Fun is a fundamental (pun intended) part of an effective work day. Here’s how to bring more joy to the workplace, both for yourself and your team.

AI-generated video is taking social media by storm. A viral TikTok account has used the technology to create its own version of dating reality show Love Island starring what?

See if you got it right here.

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