Heyo, 

It’s the last full week of August and the digital marketing news is cooking, as always.

• 71% of US shoppers who use AI at least once a month turn to AI assistants when making purchasing decisions, according to EMARKETER. 34% use AI-generated summaries in search engine results. However, they don’t actually make the purchase through AI portals. Once again showing the influence and value of AI visibility as part of the path to purchase.

• Promptwatch reports Reddit’s share of citations in ChatGPT took a big dive last week and is slowly dropping in AI Mode. Could this be a sign AI platforms are shifting to cite more useful sources to create a better user experience and generate more ad revenues? That tracks with this story about how ChatGPT fan-out queries are leveraging their own version of E-E-A-T quality values to reduce spammy outputs. Regardless, this reinforces our recommendation of not jumping down the Reddit rabbit-hole unless your audience lives there. 

Thoughts on writing, AI, and copyright: 

• Humans are on a witch hunt to call out AI-created work, making their own rules for what’s AI-written. This article talks about how AI detectors are making mistakes too by doling out false positives on human-written work. 
  • Moral of the story: don’t let AI detectors and peoples’ AI detection rules scare you from writing. Write what you need and follow your own rules. #EmDashesAreNotJustForAI
• Anthropic is battling the AI detection/copyright problem with complex text watermarking (which is a bit backward, considering they trained the AI on copyrighted material). 
  • Moral of the story: If you use AI to help you write, know the use case in which it is appropriate.
• LinkedIn has had over 1 million users report AI slop so far. LinkedIn Creator Product Lead Sam Corrao Clannon has an intriguing definition for AI slop: “[C]ontent that is potentially sophisticated or polished in its presentation, but lacks substance.”
  • Moral of the story: Whether your posts are written by AI or not, the content itself must provide value to LinkedIn users or else you’ll be labeled as hot trash.

• YouTube influencers know how to work brand partnerships. Sprout gives the 11 best examples of brand partnership video types along with some hot tips to make them watchable. My favorite tip: weave the sponsorship in the storyline of the video, so it feels organic and creative instead of intrusive. Perfecting this can keep users watching even through the sponsored section.

“… We’re not just talking about mental health when there’s a crisis, we’re talking about mental health everyday,” Alison Malmon, Founder & Executive Director of Active Minds.

Originally named “Open Minds,” the organization was created to spread the word that seeking mental health help is a sign of strength, not shame. Now 20 years later, Active Minds has chapters on over 1,000 campuses and communities. Their goal is to support young adult mental health and create change for future generations: Active Minds.

Keep it groovy ☮️

Natalie

When an artist lives and breathes a piece of work, they bury so much meaning in the intricate details. These details act as a scavenger hunt for the observer — a pathway to navigate the mind of the creator.

Next time you see a play, go to an art museum, listen to a song, really delve into the work and see if you can find the ideas the artist left. 🙂