Blog

News and Updates about Profound

Davis McCain

14 Jul, 2026/Research

Variability of Google models: Gemini vs AIO vs AI Mode

Gemini, AI Overviews, and AI Mode share the same underlying infrastructure, but they don't behave like the same product. Across 15,155 brand configurations tracked daily in May 2026, brands saw a median 8-point visibility gap between their best and worst-performing Google model, driven not by how many brands each model mentions (they're nearly identical, 4.4 to 5.0 per response) but by which brands they choose to feature and which sources they cite to back them up. Gemini leans on editorial and reference sources like Reddit, YouTube, and Wikipedia, while AI Overviews and AI Mode cite far more heavily from social and UGC platforms, at roughly double Gemini's citation depth per run.

Multiple authors

14 Jul, 2026/Research

The shortlist is the new shelf

Profound teamed up with Kevin Indig and Clickstream Solutions on one of the first behavioral studies of how real users actually make decisions inside ChatGPT, the product of more than 150 hours of research design, participant sessions, behavioral coding, transcript analysis, statistical work, and writing. Watching 56 people compare products across 221 real shopping tasks, the study uncovered a surprisingly strong link between how often a brand shows up in ChatGPT's answers and what people ultimately choose to buy. The findings reveal something most marketers haven't caught onto yet: the moment of decision has quietly moved somewhere their analytics can't see.

Multiple authors

14 Jul, 2026/Product

Introducing FactCheck: the first way for brands to analyze AI accuracy at scale

AI engines make claims about your brand that aren't true. FactCheck measures what's accurate, what's wrong, and which sources are driving the errors.

Davis McCain

14 Jul, 2026/Research

Google AI Mode's shift to citing itself

Google is increasingly keeping AI Mode users inside its own ecosystem, with google.com rising to the model’s second most-cited domain and Business Profiles and Product Knowledge Panels appearing directly in answers. This shift is most pronounced across local-intent industries and physical consumer products, where customers may see a Google-hosted card instead of visiting a brand’s website. For brands, accurate profile information, complete product data, and strong review management are becoming critical to winning visibility and preventing customers from switching to competitors.

James Cadwallader

1 Nov, 2024/Blueprints

How AI Answer Engines Will Transform the Future

AI Answer Engines are driving a platform shift more monumental than social media in 2009, mobile in 2004, or perhaps even the internet itself.

James Cadwallader

5 Jun, 2024/Blueprints

Goodbye blue links, AI Search has arrived

Google Search was a trillion dollar monopoly for the best part of two decades, until ChatGPT launched in November 2022 and the way people discover information was changed forever.