Our Latest Research

From meta-analyses across dozens of existing studies to original experiments we run ourselves, here's what's come out of the lab.

From meta-analyses across dozens of existing studies to original experiments we run ourselves, here's what's come out of the lab.

3 Years of AI Overviews: How Big is the Traffic Drop (& Were Predictions Right)? A Meta-Analysis of 39 Studies

3 Years of AI Overviews: How Big is the Traffic Drop (& Were Predictions Right)? A Meta-Analysis of 39 Studies

We read 39 first-party studies on Google AI Overviews and click-through rate, from the 2024 launch to mid-2026, to work out how big the drop is and where it's going. The middle figure is about 47.5%, the steep phase looks like it ended in 2025, and pages cited inside the answer come out ahead.

Usman Akram

Do Google's Topical Authority Winners Also Win in AI Search? We Studied 134 Categories

Do Google's Topical Authority Winners Also Win in AI Search? We Studied 134 Categories

We studied 134 B2B software categories, identified the topical authority leader in each, and checked how those brands ranked in Google and across four AI models. Topical authority correlated with Google rankings, but not with AI search visibility. The brands that own a keyword cluster on Google are not always the ones AI recommends.

Usman Akram

We Asked 4 LLMs the Same Question 12,000 Times: Here’s What We Learned

We Asked 4 LLMs the Same Question 12,000 Times: Here’s What We Learned

We ran the same three prompts across OpenAI, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity, 12,000 runs in total, to test whether AI recommendations are consistent, random, or somewhere in between. The results reveal surprising patterns in variance, ranking stability, and model behaviour across categories.

Usman Akram

Sept 12, 2025

Optimizing for AI Search Engines: A Meta-Analysis of 19 Research Studies

Optimizing for AI Search Engines: A Meta-Analysis of 19 Research Studies

A data-driven study of how AI search engines surface sources. By analyzing 19 research papers and thousands of LLM responses, this report identifies the signals that most strongly influence whether your content gets cited by AI systems.

Usman Akram

Image

Don't Navigate This Shift Blind. Subscribe to the Research

Unsubscribe anytime. No spam. Just research.

Image

Don't Navigate This Shift Blind. Subscribe to the Research

Unsubscribe anytime. No spam. Just research.

Image

Don't Navigate This Shift Blind. Subscribe to the Research

Unsubscribe anytime. No spam. Just research.