This is Part 1 of a 3-part series breaking down Google I/O and Google Marketing Live 2026, not the hype, but the actual implications for your daily work. Part 2 covers the why behind all of it. Part 3 covers how your SEO, Ads, and Marketing teams work together in this new world.
Why I'm Writing This in Three Parts
Honestly? Because one post wasn't going to do it justice.
Google I/O (May 19–20, 2026) and Google Marketing Live (May 20, 2026) landed back to back, and together, they represent the biggest shift in how Google Search and Google Ads work in years. Not just new features. A structural change in how users search, how agents shop, and how your content and ads get surfaced.
I've been going through everything, the official Google I/O 2026 announcements, the GML 2026 ads blog, the Search Engine Land full recap the developer keynote notes, and I want to share what I found in a way that's actually useful for teams doing the work.
So here's how I've split it:
- Part 1 (this post): What to stop doing and what to start, broken down by team
- Part 2: Why all of this is happening, the deeper shift most people aren't naming clearly
- Part 3: How SEO, Ads, and Marketing teams work together in this new structure
Let's get into Part 1.
Before Anything Else, The One Thing Everyone's Getting Wrong
The most common reaction I've seen this week:
"AI Mode is taking over. SEO is dead. Everything is changing overnight."
It's not. Here's the truth:
AI Mode is NOT the default search experience. It is NOT dominating the SERP right now.
Lily Ray, one of the most credible voices in search, said it clearly. Google has confirmed AI Mode is the future, but has given no timeline for making it the default. Traditional organic results are alive. Blue links are still ranking, still getting clicked, still driving business.
So before your team panics or your client fires off an email, bookmark this and share it.
Now, here's what DID change and what it means for your work.
🎯 For SEOs: What To Stop and Start
I was in a call with an SEO team last week and someone asked:
"Should we just stop creating blog content altogether?"
No. But the type of content and the intent you're targeting? That needs a hard rethink.
Stop Doing This
→ Optimising "what is X" and definition-style content as a traffic strategy
Gemini 3.5 Flash, now the default model powering Google Search globally, answers these queries inside AI Overviews before anyone clicks. Ranking #2 for "what is content marketing" is not a strategy anymore. It's a vanity metric.
→ Using keyword volume as your primary targeting signal
This one is going to sting for a lot of teams. Keyword volume is becoming a lagging, unreliable metric. Google's new Information Agents work proactively, they surface content for users without a search query being typed. A topic can have massive user interest with zero measured search volume. Volume-based research is measuring the wrong thing.
→ Building content that could have been written by anyone, about anything, at any time
If your content has no perspective, no first-hand experience, no named author, and no real depth, Gemini doesn't just rank it low. It skips it entirely in AI answer generation. It simply doesn't exist in the AI layer.
Start Doing This
→ Target decision-intent queries
The Intelligent Search Box, Google's biggest search box redesign in 25 years, handles vague, broad queries with AI. What it still sends to blue links are queries where users want accountability and a real source:
- "[Product A] vs [Product B] for [specific use case]"
- "[Service] in [City]", local intent is highly resistant to AI absorption
- "[Brand name]", branded queries are the new bottom of funnel
- Anything requiring real data, case studies, or expert opinion
→ Audit your structured data immediately
Information Agents crawl the web proactively in the background. If your schema is missing, broken, or your last update was 2023, agents skip you for fresher, cleaner sources. Prioritise FAQ, HowTo, Article, and Product markup this week. Not next quarter. This week.
→ Build E-E-A-T to get cited by AI, not just ranked
The new goal isn't position #1. It's being referenced inside an AI answer. That only happens with genuine depth, topical authority, named experts, and strong trust signals. Write like a practitioner, real examples, real opinions, real experience.
→ Track direct traffic separately, dark traffic is rising
Here's one most teams are missing entirely. When Information Agents surface your content for a user proactively, it often hits your analytics as direct traffic, referral data gets stripped. If your direct traffic is rising post-IO, that's likely agents finding you. Track it separately and monitor the trend.
→ Treat branded search growth as your most important health metric
When agents search on behalf of users, they default to brands they recognise. Branded search volume rising = you're building the kind of authority that AI trusts. Make this a weekly dashboard metric.
📢 For PPC and Google Advertisers: What To Stop and Start
I've had a version of this conversation three times this week:
"Our CTR is fine right now. Do we really need to change anything?"
Yes, because the changes from GML 2026 aren't just new features to bolt on. They're shifting the fundamental structure of how ads perform and get measured.
Stop Doing This
→ Over-indexing on last-click attribution
Last-click is telling you an incomplete, and increasingly misleading, story. With Qualified Future Conversions (QFCs) now linking upper-funnel ad activity to future sales via branded search behaviour, last-click misses the entire upstream chain. You're optimising for the last step of a journey your data can't see.
→ Treating landing page copy as your primary persuasion layer
Business Agent for Leads allows users to ask Gemini questions directly inside a lead gen ad before they ever land on your page. The AI handles objection-handling, FAQ, and pre-qualification inside the ad conversation. Your landing page is now a closer, not a persuader. Write it accordingly.
→ Running promotions only through sale pages
Direct Offers, Google's new personalized discount feature, surfaces exclusive discounts and bundles inside AI Search journeys, triggered by purchase intent the AI detects. Your promotion-driven blog post or sale landing page? Getting squeezed from both organic and paid ends.
Start Doing This
→ Enable Attributed Branded Searches tracking NOW
This is the most overlooked GML announcement. Attributed Branded Searches measure when your ads lead users to search for your brand later, connecting upper-funnel spend to branded intent. Critically: it sits in your "All Conversions" column, not your main Conversions column. Most teams are looking at the wrong number. Check it today.
→ Adopt Qualified Future Conversions (QFCs)
QFCs are Gemini-powered predictive signals that link your current ad activity to future sales via branded search behaviour. They show up now in reporting, and Google plans to feed them directly into Meridian's MMM model over time. Advertisers adopting QFCs early will have structurally more accurate attribution models than those who don't.
→ Set up Direct Offers with clear discount logic
You set the offer. Gemini decides when to surface it based on detected purchase intent. The practical implication: define your discount logic clearly (percentage off, free shipping, bundle deals) and let the AI do the targeting. It's not your traditional promo schedule, it's intent-triggered personalisation at scale.
→ Experiment with Business Agent for Leads
For lead-gen advertisers, this is the most underrated announcement from GML 2026. Users can ask questions and get answers from an AI agent inside your ad before hitting your form. The drop-off between ad click and form submission shrinks dramatically when objections are handled in the conversation. Test it now while competition is low.
→ Integrate Meridian into Analytics 360
Google is integrating Meridian directly into Analytics 360, combining first-party data, media signals, and cross-channel performance into one unified measurement model. Teams inside this ecosystem will have materially better budget allocation data than teams outside it. This is not optional for serious advertisers.
🛒 For E-commerce Teams: What To Stop and Start
This is the section where I need you to sit down if you haven't already.
"We rank well on Google Shopping. We're fine."
That framing is about to become very expensive.
Stop Doing This
→ Treating Google Shopping as a standalone channel
Google Shopping is merging into a broader agentic commerce layer.
Universal Cart syncs products across Search, YouTube, Gemini, Gmail, and Maps. It's not a shopping tab anymore. It's infrastructure.
→ Relying on product page traffic as your primary conversion path
Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) means AI agents can browse, compare, and complete a purchase without the user ever visiting your site. The conversion path you've optimised for years, ad click → product page → cart → checkout, can now be bypassed entirely inside Google's agent layer.
→ Ignoring UCP integration because it "feels like a future thing"
Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) is live in the US today. It's expanding to Canada, Australia, and the UK shortly. Merchants inside the UCP ecosystem are visible to agents. Merchants outside it are invisible in agentic shopping flows. First-mover advantage in protocol adoption is real, the shelf space inside Google's agent layer is being claimed right now.
Start Doing This
→ Prioritise UCP integration, start the dev conversation this week
Not next quarter. This week. Talk to your development team about UCP integration. The merchants who move first get the agent-layer visibility. Those who wait will be playing catch-up in an ecosystem that's already settled.
→ Ensure product feeds are live across YouTube, Maps, and Gmail
Universal Cart syncs products across all Google surfaces. If your product feed isn't active and optimised across YouTube, Maps, and Gmail, you're missing inventory placement in surfaces that are becoming purchase touchpoints.
→ Optimise for native checkout inside AI ads
Native checkout inside AI-powered ads reduces friction between discovery and purchase. Every step you remove between "agent finds your product" and "purchase completed" increases conversion. Audit your checkout flow specifically for the native Google checkout path.
→ Expand product feed quality, not just coverage
Richer feeds = better AI agent matching. Title quality, attribute completeness, image resolution, pricing accuracy, review data, these feed signals determine how well agents understand and surface your products. Feed quality is now a competitive advantage, not just a compliance checkbox.
📊 For CMOs and Marketing Leaders: The One Framing You Need
Every team is going to come to you with different versions of the same anxiety this week.
Your SEO team will say impressions are dropping.
Your PPC team will say attribution is getting harder.
Your e-commerce team will say Google Shopping is changing.
Here's how to hold all of it in one frame:
"Google is no longer a search engine. It is a task-completion engine. Our job is not to rank pages, it is to be the source AI cites, the brand agents recognise, and the merchant AI buys from."
Three strategic priorities that follow from this:
1. Brand authority is now infrastructure
PR, Wikipedia citations, review platform presence, community mentions, these are not soft awareness metrics anymore. They are hard signals that determine whether Google's AI agents trust and recommend your brand. Brand investment is bottom-of-funnel SEO and paid performance now.
2. Measurement is becoming a competitive moat
Teams using Meridian + Analytics 360 + QFCs will have structurally better attribution data than teams who don't. This is not a minor capability gap. Over time, it compounds into a material budget allocation advantage. Invest in measurement infrastructure now.
3. Google is quietly eating the MarTech stack
Ask Advisor, Google's unified AI assistant across Ads, Analytics, Merchant Center, and GMP, does what your agency dashboards, Looker Studio reports, and third-party optimisation tools do. For smaller advertisers, the need for external tools is dropping. For agencies, the "campaign management" value proposition is getting commoditised. Audit which third-party tools in your stack still earn their cost.
What's Coming in Part 2
Part 1 gave you the what. Part 2 goes deeper into the why.
- Why are impressions going to drop before clicks, and how to explain it to leadership without losing the room
- Why thin content is now completely invisible, not just low-ranking, and what Gemini 3.5 is actually doing differently
- Why brand authority just became a hard performance signal, the mechanism behind it, not just the claimAnd the deeper pattern from IO + GML 2026 that nobody is naming clearly yet, the one thread that connects every single announcement
More signal, less noise. Always. 🙏
Sources referenced in this post:
Google I/O 2026 official announcements · GML 2026 Google Blog · Search Engine Land GML recap · Meridian in Analytics 360 · Google Universal Cart + AP2 · Intelligent Search Box · Information Agents · Gemini 3.5 Flash · Meridian developer docs
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