If September was about expecting the unexpected, October was all about acceleration. AI search is advancing faster than ever, video now sits at the heart of search results, OpenAI is moving into ecommerce and ads, and Google continues to reshape both reporting and user journeys. Add to that a major spam update, new ad tools, and Meta’s latest subscription changes, and it’s clear this month demanded both agility and focus from marketers in the region.
Here’s what stood out and why it matters for your business.
BrightEdge’s latest research shows that more than half (54%) of the websites featured in AI Overviews also rank organically. That’s a significant increase from the early rollout period, when overlap sat around 32%. It signals that AI Overviews are becoming more closely connected to traditional search results; although the level of overlap varies widely by industry.
Sectors like Healthcare, Education, and Insurance show very high overlap (above 70%), where trust and authority play a major role. Google continues to favour reliable, well-established sources in these areas. Ecommerce, however, shows much less crossover (around 23%), suggesting that AI Overviews are still geared more toward research and guidance than direct sales.
While this data comes from the US, trends in the UAE often follow a similar pattern. That means now is the time to prepare your content for when AI integration deepens across local searches.
What this means for you:
If your business operates in YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) sectors, strong SEO fundamentals still increase your chances of being featured in AI Overviews. For ecommerce brands, focus on blending educational and product-led content to match different user intents.
Tutorials: prioritise helpful how-to content, guides, and explainer videos.
Product searches: keep pages clear, structured, and focused on conversion.
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OpenAI’s new usage report dropped, and what it says was not fully unexpected. ChatGPT has ~700m worlwide weekly active users now, and the way people use it has shifted dramatically: more than half of all interactions are now “Asking” queries, i.e., search behaviour. That’s a huge shift from a year ago, when content generation was still dominant.
And here’s the most important part: adoption is on track to hit mainstream levels (the “tipping point” around 20% of global internet users) by mid-2026. Most likely around April 2026, but it could be as soon as December 2025 if growth stays on track.
Why you should care:
This is just months away. And once AI search is mainstream, users will expect to find brands in AI answers just like they expect to see them in Google results today. Content needs to be built for “asking”: modular, helpful chunks (think FAQs, decision checklists, quick comparisons) that can be easily pulled into an AI answer.
Google’s August spam update officially wrapped up on September 22 after almost a month in play. The long story short? It was more of a clean-up than a reshuffle. SISTRIX and others are calling it “penalty-only”, so we’re not seeing big winners, just some sites quietly disappearing where spammy tactics were detected.
Why it matters:
If your traffic dipped during that late-August to late-September window, the first thing to check is compliance with Google’s spam policies. Thin content, over-optimised templates, or legacy link schemes are the usual suspects. There’s no quick fix here as recovery depends on cleaning things up and letting Google’s systems re-evaluate.
Here’s one that really stood out this month: Google’s AI Overviews are now pulling video content straight into results, not just text. And it’s not just YouTube anymore; TikTok, Instagram Reels, and even user-generated clips are showing up as sources in AIO.
This is a huge shift. For years, video has lived in its own little box on the SERP (carousels, snippets, etc.). Now it’s being treated as credible, authoritative material for AI answers. And when it comes to queries where a demonstration beats a description (tutorials, product set-up, “show me how” tasks), video is quickly becoming the default.
You need to start treating video like part of SEO, not just a social channel. That means:
Creating short, clear explainer videos for priority queries.
Publishing on YouTube (non-negotiable) and testing TikTok/short-form where relevant.
Adding transcripts and schema (VideoObject) so Google can actually “read” the video.
Embedding those videos in blog posts and product content so they live in the ecosystem.
If your Search Console reports suddenly looked weird last week, this is why. Google quietly dropped the num=100 parameter, and the fallout was immediate. 88% of sites saw impressions drop, and 78% lost unique ranking terms in GSC. Average position numbers are up, but only because the data is being cleaned, and a lot of those extra impressions were noise from scrapers and trackers.
This isn’t your site “doing worse.” It’s just the data becoming more realistic. But it does mean reports may look weaker, and that could be confusing.
What to do:
Annotate dashboards for late September so no one panics about “drops.”
Shift commentary to focus on clicks, CTR, and conversions instead of raw impression counts.
Basically: reset expectations. This is a measurement change, not a performance dip.
Google is moving fast to make AI Mode more than just a Q&A feature. Two major experiments have just launched in Search Labs (currently US-only and available in English), offering a glimpse of what’s next for search. While these new features haven’t reached the region yet, AI Mode itself is now available in Arabic and that is a clear sign that Google is preparing to expand these experiences across more languages and markets soon.
AI Mode can now help you act on your searches starting with restaurant reservations. You can literally ask something like “find me a table for three this Friday after 6pm around Logan Square, craving ramen” and Google will check multiple booking platforms, return real-time slots, and link you straight to the booking page. Coming soon: local service appointments and even event tickets.
For shopping queries, AI Mode now serves up rich visuals right at the top of results. Think inspiration grids, product images, and style options you can refine on the fly (“show me more in dark tones and bold prints”). Behind the scenes, Google’s “visual fan-out” breaks down both text and image inputs into subtopics, then pulls in shopping data from its massive Shopping Graph (50 billion listings, refreshed hourly). It’s all free listings for now, but the direction towards paid placements is obvious.
Google is nudging search toward tasks and experiences. Agentic features keep people inside Google to complete everyday actions, while visual responses change how people browse and get inspired. That means:
Local + services: watch for AI Mode handling bookings natively.
Retail + ecom: visibility will depend on how well products are optimised for visual search and the Shopping Graph.
Everyone: think beyond “blue links.” We’re entering an era where SEO means optimising for AI agents and multimodal answers, not just text-based results.
OpenAI just rolled out Instant Checkout inside ChatGPT for U.S. users (Emiratis you’ll have to wait) , and this is the first big step toward what they’re calling agentic commerce. Translation: you can now shop without ever leaving the chat.
How it works:
You type something like “gifts for a ceramics lover”.
ChatGPT serves up product suggestions ranked by relevance (not ads or sponsorship).
If an item has Instant Checkout, you hit Buy, confirm your shipping/payment details, and your order is complete.
Behind the scenes, Stripe powers payments, and the merchant handles fulfillment like normal.
Right now, this only works with Etsy sellers, but Shopify’s million-plus merchants are on deck next. Multi-item carts and more regions are also coming soon.
Why this matters:
It moves ecommerce discovery inside AI chat, not Google.
Ranking is relevance-based, not paid placement (for now).
Brands that get listed here could be discovered and purchased before the shopper ever sees a traditional SERP.
We’ve always known crawl waste (all those duplicate, redirected, or low-value pages clogging up your site) is bad news for traditional SEO. But what about AI search? A new case study in the childcare vertical suggests that tidying up your crawlable content helps Google rankings and makes you more visible in AI results.
What happened:
The site had ~2,000 indexed pages, but more than 45,000 non-indexed ones cluttered things up.
The sitemap alone contained 4,000+ duplicate and redirected URLs. After the cleanup, that number dropped to under 200.
The result: crawl efficiency improved, directing bots and AI systems toward the site’s richer, higher-value content.
The AI response:
Visibility went up across nearly every AI search platform. Perplexity, Gemini, Meta AI, Google AI Mode, and AI Overviews all jumped, in some cases by up to 10%.
The one outlier? ChatGPT, which dipped by about 4%. The theory is that ChatGPT’s slower refresh cycles (unless users enable browsing) mean it lags behind faster-moving platforms.
Overall, though, visibility rose by 3.5%, and in Gemini specifically, the client finally leapfrogged a competitor they’d been chasing for months.
This is more proof that the things you do for “classic SEO” carry through to AI search. Cleaner sitemaps, fewer duplicate URLs, and clearer IA all make it easier for AI systems to find, understand, and reuse the content you actually want to be surfaced.
This is not just another ad channel. It is ads inside conversational flows, which changes how we think about placement, targeting, and measurement. If OpenAI builds strong reporting, we will need to adapt quickly.
Start mapping how ChatGPT ads could work for your business (lead gen, brand messaging, product previews).
Sketch early test plans now so you are ready when betas launch.
Be prepared to move fast as a first mover and learn from early results.
Google has rolled out new reporting features for Performance Max campaigns, making asset and channel performance much more transparent. You can now segment asset performance by device, time, conversions, and network. Channel reporting also includes cost and ROI metrics, bulk downloads, conversion splits, and diagnostics when campaigns are limited.
The update gives clearer visibility into which assets and networks are actually driving results. It also makes it easier to shift budgets and swap out weak creative.
Meta is introducing a paid option in the UK (and we are sure it will roll out to the UAE soon) that lets users remove ads on Facebook and Instagram. Adults over 18 can now choose between free accounts with personalised ads or a subscription to remove them. Pricing starts at £2.99 per month on web and £3.99 on mobile, with discounts for additional accounts. Subscribers will not see ads and their data will not be used for targeting.
This creates two audiences: one still reachable through ads and one completely off-limits. Ad inventory may shrink, targeting could lose precision, and campaign costs may rise.
Track how many users opt in to subscriptions versus staying on free accounts
Monitor Meta campaign performance for changes in reach and CPMs
Adjust targeting and consider diversifying budgets if inventory becomes constrained
Microsoft Ads now supports Supplemental Feeds, allowing merchants to update product attributes like titles, descriptions, sizes, or promo IDs without re-uploading the full catalogue.
This saves time, reduces errors during peak trading periods, and makes it easier to adjust product data quickly. Supplemental values also override the base feed, giving more flexibility in updates.
Use supplemental feeds to make fast changes for promotions or inventory shifts
Test product updates without a full feed rebuild
Track whether ad performance improves with more frequent updates
October is set to make one thing clear: AI is no longer a side story, it’s the main stage. From AI Overviews and intelligent assistants to in-chat shopping and video-led search results, platforms are transforming how people discover and interact with brands faster than ever.
For businesses in the UAE, this means:
Creating content that’s modular, structured, and ready to answer user questions
Making video a core part of your SEO strategy
Staying adaptable as reporting and ad formats evolve
Preparing for the next wave of agentic commerce and ChatGPT-powered ads
The digital landscape is moving quickly. If you’re ready to stay ahead, we’re here to help you lead the change.