Want to stay in the loop on what’s happening with Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other answer engines?
Bookmark this page and check in regularly—I’ll update it with fresh AI search news and trends every month.
2026
April
- OpenAI rolls out ChatGPT in CarPlay. If you have iOS 26.4 or newer and are connected to a supported car, you can start new voice conversations with ChatGPT directly from the CarPlay interface. (OpenAI)
March
- Google introduces Ask Maps in the US and India, a Gemini-powered conversational experience in Google Maps that allows users to plan trips, find businesses nearby, and ask location-related questions. (Google)
- Google expands Personal Intelligence to free Gemini and AI Mode users in the US, allowing them to get answers and recommendations based on their interests and past favorites. (9to5Google)
- Google adds new capabilities to the Universal Commerce Protocol, including a new Cart option that allows agents to save or add multiple items to a shopping cart at once from a single store. (Google)
- Google is testing AI-generated headline rewrites in Discover and traditional search results. For now, the test is small and narrow, and mostly impacts news sites. (Search Engine Land)
- Google is expanding Search Live to 200+ countries where AI Mode is available. With this feature, users can have a more interactive conversation using voice and camera. (Google)
- OpenAI reported $100 million in annual recurring revenue after launching its ads pilot in ChatGPT. The company considers to expand the testing to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. (CNBC)
- ChatGPT introduces a new Location Sharing feature. This allows users to share their device location and get more localized answers, recommendations, news, and weather. (OpenAI)
February
- AI Overviews and AI Mode now show pop-up links as users hover over them. (Robby Stein)
- OpenAI starts testing ads in ChatGPT for Free and Go users in the US. This test began on February 9, 2026. (OpenAI)
January
- Google rolls out AI Overview in Gmail. Powered by Gemini, this AI feature will summarize long email threads into concise summaries of key points. (Google)
- OpenAI is introducing ChatGPT Health to a small group of early users. (OpenAI)
- Microsoft launches Copilot Checkout in the US, allowing users to make purchases without leaving the chatroom. (Microsoft)
- Gemini is the fastest-growing AI chatbot, rising from 5% to 21% market share year-over-year (January 2025 vs January 2026). (Search Engine Journal)
- ChatGPT’s traffic share declines from 86% in 2025 to 64% in 2026, but it remains the market leader in generative AI tools. (Search Engine Journal)
- Google is launching the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), which will soon allow shoppers to buy products directly from AI Mode and Gemini. (Google)
- ChatGPT is testing ads in the US for free and Go users. (OpenAI)
- Google’s Gemini will power Apple Intelligence features, including a more personalized Siri coming this year. (Search Engine Land)
- Google AI Pro and AI Ultra users can now connect their Gmail and Google Photos to AI Mode for an even personalized search experience. (Google)
- Yahoo launches Yahoo Scout, an AI-powered answer engine built on the company’s unique data and user insights. It uses Claude as the foundational AI model. (Yahoo)
- When you click “Show more” inside AI Overview on mobile, it will now overlay AI Mode directly over the search results. (Search Engine Land).
- Bing is testing a new AI performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools. It will show how many times Copilot cites your website, and which pages are cited. But unfortunately, it won’t show how many users click those citations. (Search Engine Land)
2025
December
- Google’s home page search bar adds an option to upload an image or file, and it will take you to AI Mode instead of traditional SERPs or Google Lens. (Search Engine Roundtable)
- Google is increasing the number of inline links in AI Mode, and updating the design of those links to make them more useful. They also add contextual introductions to embedded links in AI Mode responses that explain why a link might be helpful to visit. (Google)
- Google introduces Gemini 3 Flash to AI Mode, which is said to be better at understanding more nuanced and complex questions. (Google)
- Several browser extensions in Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge are collecting user conversations with leading AI chatbots. (Ars Technica)
- ChatGPT could add sponsored content in its responses. (Search Engine Roundtable)
November
October
- Google is experimenting with AI-generated descriptions on SERPs. (Paul Shapiro)
- AI Mode is finally coming to Europe. The feature is now available in over 35 new languages and 40 new countries, including Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany, and The Netherlands. (Google)
- After the US, Google’s AI shopping feature “try on” will be available in Japan, Australia, and Canada. It also adds a new category: shoes. (Google)
- Google rolls out AI previews in Discover to users in the US, South Korea, and India. (Google)
- Walmart partners with OpenAI to allow customers to complete purchases directly from ChatGPT. (Walmart)
- After the US, Google will introduce ads within AI Overviews to select English-speaking markets by the end of 2025. (Search Engine Journal)
- OpenAI releases ChatGPT Atlas, its own web browser with ChatGPT built in. (OpenAI)
- Reddit sues Perplexity for scraping its data to train Perplexity’s AI systems. (Reuters)
September
- AI Mode is now available in 6 new languages: Indonesian, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese, and Spanish. (Google & Google)
- Google is rolling out Gemini in Chrome for Mac and Windows desktop users in the US. (Google)
- In the upcoming months, Google will introduce agentic capabilities to Gemini in Chrome, allowing users to automate tasks like booking a haircut and ordering groceries. (Google)
- AI Mode will be directly accessible from the Chrome address bar. This update will be rolling out to US users in English by the end of September and expand to more countries and languages in the weeks ahead. (Google)
- Cloudflare is launching The Content Signal Policy, a robots.txt directive that allows website owners to control how AI bots access and use their content. (Cloudflare)
- Google has launched Search Live in the US. Users can now have voice conversations in AI Mode and share their camera feed to get contextual, accurate, and real-time answers. (Google)
- ChatGPT has launched Instant Checkout, powered by the Agentic Commerce Protocol and built with Stripe. This means users can now buy products directly from ChatGPT. (OpenAI)
August
- ChatGPT is reportedly scraping Google search results (instead of Bing) to answer questions. (ZDNet)
- The launch of GPT-5 actually makes SEO irreplaceable, because it relies on search engines to access the world’s information. (Dejan)
- After the US, India, and the UK, Google rolls out AI Mode to 180 additional countries and territories. (Google)
- Google launches embedded link carousels in AI Mode on desktop, with mobile coming soon. (Robby Stein)
July
- Google is experimenting with Web Guide, a new AI feature that organizes search results into topic groups instead of the usual 10 blue links. (Google)
- OpenAI quietly adds Shopify as a shopping search partner. ChatGPT can now show rich results for users looking to browse products. (Search Engine Journal)
