This weekly update reveals how AI agents are completely changing the marketing world. The biggest story is how Google's AI tools are hurting website traffic for many businesses.

Google's AI Changes Hit Marketing Hard

Google's AI Overviews are now showing up for way more searches than before. In August 2024, only 10,000 keywords had AI Overviews. By May 2025, that number jumped to almost 173,000 keywords. This means when people search, they often get their answers right on Google's page without clicking any website links.

The impact on marketing is huge. Websites in the #1 spot used to get 28% of clicks. Now they only get 19% of clicks - a 32% drop. Second-place websites dropped from 20.83% to 12.60% of clicks. Almost 4 out of 10 marketers say they lost website traffic after Google added AI Overviews.

But there's a surprising twist. Lower-ranking websites are actually doing better. Websites that show up in positions 6 through 10 got 30% more clicks in 2025 compared to 2024. This might be because AI Overviews push regular search results down, making lower results more visible.

Browser Agents Are Coming

The next big change is browser agents - AI tools that can use websites for you. Perplexity, an AI search company worth about $18 billion, offered to buy Google's Chrome browser for $34.5 billion. This could be a smart move to get millions of users quickly, or just a publicity stunt.

Anthropic also announced a pilot program for browser agents. These AI tools can control your web browser, read your emails, check your calendar, and even access your bank accounts. This could change how people shop and interact with brands online.

OpenAI is also building its own web browser to compete with Google. This means marketers will need to track traffic from AI language models (LLMs) just like they track Google traffic now.

Excel Agents Get Big Money

August saw huge investments in AI agents for spreadsheets. Three different companies raised millions of dollars to build these tools. Endex AI got $14 million from investors including OpenAI. Shortcut raised $44.5 million, and Paradigm got $5 million.

These Excel agents could help marketers analyze data faster and make better decisions. Instead of spending hours making charts and reports, AI agents could do this work in minutes.

OpenAI Keeps Growing

OpenAI had a huge month. They raised $8.3 billion and now make $13 billion per year. They also released GPT-5, which is smarter about picking the right AI model for each task. The company expects to make $20 billion by the end of the year, partly by adding ads to their AI tools.

OpenAI also released open-source models called gpt-oss. These come in two sizes - a big 120B model and a smaller 20B model that can run on laptops.

Social Media Platform Changes

Social media platforms are updating how they help marketers track success. TikTok now tracks what people do after clicking ads without needing special tracking pixels. This gives marketers better data about whether their ads actually work.

Google is testing something called Web Guide results. Instead of showing a simple list of websites, it groups results by different topics. This AI-powered clustering could change how people find information and how marketers need to optimize their content.

Pinterest shared new tips for growing audiences. The platform says marketers should post regularly, follow trends, and make their pins easy to find in searches. Pinterest users plan ahead and often buy things they find, making it valuable for marketers.

Generation Z Changes How They Search

Young people are changing how they look for information. Gen Z users are now using ChatGPT and TikTok to get answers instead of traditional Google searches. This means marketers need to make sure their content shows up in AI tools, not just search engines.

ChatGPT traffic to websites grew 25 times compared to last year. While it's still tiny compared to Google traffic (0.19% vs 41.9%), experts think AI search could be bigger than regular search by 2030.

Security Concerns Grow

AI agents are becoming more powerful, but they're also being used for bad things. Criminals are using AI agents to commit fraud and cybercrimes. Some have used multiple AI agents working together to steal money.

Anthropic changed its privacy policy and will now use customer chats to train AI unless people opt out by September 28. Users have until that date to say no, or their conversations could be used for five years instead of being deleted after 30 days.

For marketers, this means being extra careful about what information they share with AI tools. Companies need to think about privacy and security when using AI agents for marketing work.