Welcome to Search With Sean: Weekly News — your concise roundup of the key stories shaping SEO, AI, search, and digital strategy this week.

Co Hosts:

Nicola Agius - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicola-agius-8b330956/

Amanda Walls - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandajwalls/

Stanislav Farkas - https://www.linkedin.com/in/stanislav-farkas-fastraveller/

We covered the following + more:

Top Stories

We unpacked Google’s December core update, rolling out over three weeks just before the holidays. As always, the advice remains consistent: expect volatility, avoid knee-jerk changes, and wait until rollout completes before reacting.

We also discussed Microsoft Copilot usage trends, showing users increasingly turning to AI for health, career, and relationship guidance — highlighting how LLMs are shifting from search tools to personal decision support.

Another major theme was AI Overviews disrupting paid search, particularly on mobile, where ads are now frequently pushed below the fold — with healthcare seeing the biggest impact.

Local SEO also featured heavily, with research reinforcing how reviews, listing accuracy, and response times directly influence trust, conversions, and AI visibility.

Top Videos

We reviewed a Whiteboard Friday analysis showing AI Overviews appearing lower in SERPs more often, fuelling speculation around Google’s push toward AI Mode.

Google’s Year in Search highlighted how users are adopting longer, more conversational queries — influenced by voice search and LLM behaviour.

We also covered new product-focused AI Overviews, where Google is testing direct links to commercial pages, hinting at future monetisation strategies.

Plus highlights from the SEO in 2026 livestream and a deep conversation with Rand Fishkin on zero-click journeys, fragmented discovery, and where search is heading next.

Top Social Posts

Search Console updates stood out this week, including weekly and monthly reporting views and early AI-assisted insights.

We discussed Google’s rollout of Preferred Sources, new publisher partnerships, and the growing concern around echo chambers and source bias.

Finally, we covered the EU investigation into Google’s use of publisher and creator content for AI Overviews, alongside fresh analysis showing content length has no real impact on AI citations — relevance and clarity still win.

00:00 – Intro & show format

03:00 – Google December core update

11:00 – Core updates, volatility & expectations

18:00 – Copilot usage & AI as decision support

25:00 – AI Overviews vs paid search

33:00 – Local SEO, reviews & trust signals

40:00 – AI Overviews moving down SERPs

46:00 – Google Year in Search & changing behaviour

52:00 – Product links inside AI Overviews

58:00 – SEO in 2026 & Rand Fishkin highlights

01:04:00 – Search Console updates & Preferred Sources

01:08:00 – EU investigation, AI citations & wrap-up

View all stories + more here - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRgApI9fMAMVswEIcS8iz2HXYpWXPlA2hjHZs8B9stlS6s8mvX-cAkHydCWW2yvca6Jv2sn0xu6w4Eg/pubhtml

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This December episode dives into another packed month of digital marketing, AI and search - from China’s rapidly advancing robotics, to Google’s latest Search Console upgrades, new AI shopping tools, and major shifts in how large language models cite content. We also cover the most interesting videos, discussions and social posts shaping the industry. Here’s what’s inside 👇🎬 Top VideosWe highlight a wide range of videos this month — from Vanessa Wingårdh’s critiques on society’s growing AI dependency and Amazon’s job-cut plans, to XPeng’s humanoid robot demo that was so realistic the team had to dismantle it live on stage.You’ll also see robotics tours from China, Julia McCoy’s AI-driven breakdown of the future of video creation, Stephen Fry and Yoshua Bengio discussing AI risks, Dario Amodei warning about fast, unregulated development, and John Mueller unpacking the newest Search Console features. Plus: panels on the singularity, home robotics, and deep interviews with leaders across AI. 📰 Top StoriesThis month includes Google’s rollout of AI-powered shopping and auto-checkout features, Apple planning to license Google’s 1.2T-parameter model for Siri, and a charity receiving a 27,000% traffic spike after a UK TV show mention.We also cover Microsoft’s new Copilot for Health, fresh data showing AI Overviews appearing heavily in medical queries, a 61% organic CTR drop on queries with AI answers, and Google’s addition of custom annotations, branded vs non-branded filters, and new query grouping inside Search Console.Other major updates include new Insights into Google Discover, Ahrefs research on brand mentions improving AI visibility, and surprising findings on how LLMs differ wildly from Google rankings. 🌍 Other NewsWe review projects like World — a digital identity system co-founded by Sam Altman — and explore concerns around job losses, universal basic income, and the future of work raised by Elon Musk and Amazon’s automation plans.There’s also data showing 97% of clicks still happen in Google’s top 10 results, OpenAI-related hallucination cases in courts, Google’s Project Sun Capture for space-based AI data centers, rising issues with AI-powered toys breaking safety guardrails, and several sector-specific studies on AI citations across travel and brand stability. 💬 Social HighlightsWe wrap up with standout posts from across the industry — including analyses of ChatGPT’s most common prompt types, volatility in AI-driven brand mentions, TikTok’s new local discovery and review-gamification features, and Google’s continuing rollout of new Search Console tools.The episode also features debates on AI accuracy, safety failures (like AI mistaking a bag of Doritos for a gun), creator-focused AI tools, and the real-world impacts of LLM-driven search on visibility and user journeys. 👉 Subscribe for ongoing SEO, AI and digital-marketing updates — all based on real stories, real data, and real examples from across the industry.Explore the majority of the stories covered here - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRgApI9fMAMVswEIcS8iz2HXYpWXPlA2hjHZs8B9stlS6s8mvX-cAkHydCWW2yvca6Jv2sn0xu6w4Eg/pubhtmlIf you would like a copy of the slides email me at searchwithsean@outlook.com + Sorry about the laggy picture! : /

Welcome to Search With Sean: Weekly News - your roundup of the biggest stories shaping SEO, AI, and digital strategy this week.

Co Hosts:Laura Iancu - https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-iancu-seo/

Amanda Walls - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandajwalls/

Stanislav Farkas - https://www.linkedin.com/in/stanislav-farkas-fastraveller/

We covered the following + more 👇

📰 Top Stories

This week we discussed Google’s new branded vs non-branded Search Console filter, a long-awaited upgrade that should make reporting far easier, even if handling brand variations is still unclear.

We also looked at Ofcom’s move to start tracking VPN usage in the UK using AI tools, raising serious concerns about privacy and what this means for remote workers.

LinkedIn launched AI-powered people search, shifting from rigid filters to natural-language prompts, although the platform’s feed and UI still have major issues to fix.

Microsoft’s new “Copilot for Health” came up too — an attempt to simplify medical information with cited sources, but still risky given the hallucination rates we continue to see in health-related queries.

And we discussed the unusual story of a woman in Japan marrying an AI persona she created, prompting a deeper conversation about loneliness, culture and technology shaping human relationships.

🎬 Top Videos

We reviewed Ben Smith’s BrightonSEO deep dive comparing AI Mode with traditional search, ChatGPT and Gemini, showing surprisingly high usage but much lower engagement.

We covered Dan Taylor’s explanation that blocking AI crawlers still won’t fully stop your content being used in training data because of sources like Common Crawl.

We looked at OpenAI’s new “Group Chat” feature, which could transform collaborative workflows for teams using GPTs.

And we explored the 60 Minutes interview with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, where he discussed the risks of misuse, the challenges of AI safety, and the uncomfortable reality that regulators are far behind the speed of AI development.

💬 Top Social Posts

Louise Linehan highlighted new Ahrefs research showing AI Overviews change their content every two days, swapping nearly half of their citations each time.

Chima Mmeje shared findings showing that more than half of brand mentions inside LLM answers vanish within three weeks, reinforcing how unstable AI visibility really is.

We also talked about the viral moment where someone bought perplexity.in and redirected it to Gemini, a chaotic twist in the AI search rivalry.

And we finished with reactions to Adobe acquiring Semrush for $1.9B, a huge sign that SEO and AI search are becoming central to Adobe’s long-term strategy.