What changed in marketing this week, and what I'd do about it

What changed in marketing this week, and what I'd do about it

This week, five updates touched things a small business owns: your website content, your brand name in Google, your ads, your video and your customer data. All five point one way. Platforms are making more decisions on your behalf, so what you feed them matters more.

Quick answer: This week Google said all AI-generated content should be manually fact-checked before publishing, AI Overviews started showing on most branded searches, Google Ads is set to pull promotions from websites into ads from 12 October, YouTube Shorts began favouring original content, and new analysis showed Australia's draft privacy reforms affect almost every common marketing activity.

In this post

• Google says AI content needs a human fact-check
• AI Overviews are now showing up on most brand searches
• Google Ads will start pulling promotions from your website
• YouTube Shorts is rewarding original content
• Australian privacy reform could change how you target ads
• The bigger trend
• What I'd be doing about it
• FAQ

Google says AI content needs a human fact-check

What happened

On 1 October, Google updated its Search Central guidance on using generative AI content. It now explains that generative models "don't retrieve facts, but predict a likely sequence of words", that outputs may contain hallucinations, and that "it is critical to manually factcheck and review all AI-generated content for accuracy and trustworthiness before publishing." (Search Engine Land spotted the change.)

A day later, Google added a "main content" section to its helpful content documentation, describing how quality raters judge effort, originality, skill and accuracy (Search Engine Land). Meanwhile the September 2026 spam update, announced 24 September with a rollout of up to two weeks, is targeting things like scaled content abuse and fake reviews.

Why it matters

Google isn't banning AI content. It's putting the responsibility for accuracy back on you, in writing.

I see plenty of businesses publishing AI drafts after a quick skim. Google has now spelled out what it rewards: pages where someone did real work, added something original and got the facts right. I've written before about why AI content isn't moving your traffic, and this update backs that up.

What to do

• Put a human fact-check step into your content process. Every stat, date, price and claim gets checked against a source before it goes live.
• Audit pages you've published with AI help over the last year. Start with service pages and anything about pricing, health, money or legal topics.
• Add what AI can't: your own examples, your process, your photos, your opinion.

If you'd like a hand reviewing your content, that's a core part of our search engine optimisation work.

AI Overviews are now showing up on most brand searches

What happened

Search Engine Land reported data from DemandSphere showing AI Overviews appearing on branded searches jumped from about 26% at the start of September to more than 80% by late September, peaking at 90.48% on 27 September. In a separate test, Chris Long of Nectiv checked 100 enterprise brands and found AI Overviews for 93 of them.

Google hasn't announced the change, and neither study measured what it does to clicks.

The same week, Google's Robby Stein said AI Mode's monitoring features (tracking price drops, restocks or new places nearby) are rolling out to everyone globally.

Why it matters

When someone types your business name into Google, there's now a good chance the first thing they read is Google's summary of you. That summary draws on your website, your reviews, directories, forums and anything else Google can find.

Brand searches are your warmest traffic. If the AI summary is out of date or leans on one grumpy review, that's the impression people take away. It's the same problem I unpacked in why your company doesn't appear in ChatGPT recommendations.

What is an AI Overview? An AI Overview is a Google-generated summary that appears at the top of some search results. It answers the query directly and links to a handful of sources, often before the traditional blue links.

What to do

• Google your own brand this week. Try "[your brand]", "[your brand] reviews", "[your brand] pricing" and "is [your brand] any good".
• Note anything wrong or missing in the summary, then fix the source: your About page, FAQs, Google Business Profile, directory listings.
• Make the facts easy to find on your site: what you do, who for, where, and roughly what it costs. More on that in why your website will make or break your business in the AI search era.

This is exactly what our answer engine optimisation service is built for.

Google Ads will start pulling promotions from your website

What happened

Search Engine Land reports that from 12 October, Google Ads will scan advertisers' websites for "valid, high-quality promotions" and automatically create promotion assets for eligible Search and Performance Max campaigns. To start with, that means campaigns with linked location assets that don't already have promotion assets. It's on by default, and you can switch it off at account level in your automated asset settings.

Coverage doesn't say which countries get it first, so check your own account.

Why it matters

Your ads could start advertising whatever offer Google finds on your site. That's handy if your promotions are current. It's a problem if there's a "20% off" banner from last Christmas still sitting on a landing page.

An ad promising a deal you no longer honour is a customer service problem at best, and a misleading pricing complaint under Australian Consumer Law at worst.

What to do

• Before 12 October, check your site for expired sales, old promo banners and offer pages that still rank.
• Decide whether you want automated promotions on. If you run tightly controlled offers, add your own promotion assets or opt out.
• After 12 October, check the Assets section of your Google Ads account for any promotions Google created.

Want someone to check your settings? Our performance media team looks after Google Ads accounts like this every week.

YouTube Shorts is rewarding original content

What happened

YouTube announced it's updating its Shorts recommendation systems "to further prioritize original content and reduce the reach of content re-uploaded from other creators without adding anything of your own." Channels that mainly aggregate or re-upload other people's videos will see less reach (Social Media Today). Using someone else's clip is still fine if you add commentary, education or meaningful editing.

Why it matters

Brands leaning on trending clips to keep their Shorts ticking over will lose that shortcut. For small businesses, this is good news. You already have what YouTube wants: your team, your workshop, your customers' questions. If your content has started to feel samey, I wrote about why brands produce more of the same content.

What to do

• Film your own short videos, even on a phone. Answer one customer question per video.
• If you react to or reference someone else's content, add your own take. Give viewers something they can't get from the original.

Australian privacy reform could change how you target ads

What happened

The Government released the exposure draft of the second tranche of Privacy Act reforms on 31 August, with consultation closing 18 September. According to MinterEllison's summary, the draft expands personal information to capture behavioural data, device identifiers and geolocation; requires a simple way to opt out of direct marketing; restricts trading personal information for direct marketing without consent; and adds a "fair and reasonable" test for how data is collected and used.

This week, B&T covered an analysis by agency In Marketing We Trust that assessed 32 everyday marketing activities against the draft. It found 31 would be affected: 20 could continue at higher cost, 4 would work less effectively and 7 depend on mechanisms the platforms control. Only measuring your own performance through analytics was untouched. The agency expects the reforms could pass parliament within 12 months.

It's still a draft with no commencement date. I'm a marketer, not a lawyer, so get proper advice.

Why it matters

Pixels, remarketing audiences, customer list uploads and location targeting all sit inside that expanded definition. If they get harder or costlier to use, businesses with direct customer relationships will feel it least. That's why your first-party data might matter more than your targeting.

What to do

• List what customer data you hold and where it lives: CRM, email platform, ad accounts, spreadsheets.
• Map where that data flows, including which tags and pixels sit on your site and what they send.
• Document how you collected consent, and make unsubscribing simple.

Building that direct relationship is the heart of demand generation, and it's where we'd start.

The bigger trend: platforms are deciding more, so your inputs matter more

Google's AI writes the first summary of your brand. Google Ads writes promotions from your website. YouTube decides whether your video counts as original. Lawmakers are tightening the data behind targeting.

You control less of the output. You still control the inputs: the accuracy of your website, the quality of your content, the consistency of your brand information and the trust you build with customers directly.

I don't see that as bad news. If you do the fundamentals well, machines understand you more easily and people trust you more. Unchecked AI content, recycled video and rented audiences will feel this shift first. It all comes back to a joined-up marketing strategy.

What I'd be doing about it

1. Google your brand name and fix anything the AI summary gets wrong at the source.
2. Add a human fact-check to every piece of AI-assisted content.
3. Remove expired promotions from your website before 12 October.
4. Check your Google Ads automated asset settings and decide what you'll allow.
5. Film one original short video a week using your own team and expertise.
6. Run a simple data audit: what you hold, where it goes, and how you got consent.

Want a second set of eyes?

None of these updates calls for panic. They reward the boring stuff done properly.

If you'd like to see how your brand shows up in AI search right now, or want someone to check your Google Ads settings before 12 October, get in touch with the team at Purple People. That's usually where the interesting gaps start.