AI Search Industry Roundup: February 2026

Welcome to the inaugural edition of our monthly AI Search Industry Roundup. Each month, we compile the most significant developments across AI search platforms, industry data, GEO success stories, and emerging tools. Our goal is to give enterprise marketing leaders a concise, actionable briefing on the changes that matter most to their AI search strategy. Let us get into it.

Platform Updates

Google AI Overviews: Expanding Reach and Sophistication

Google's AI Overviews have continued their trajectory of appearing in an increasing percentage of search results. Current estimates suggest AI Overviews now trigger on approximately 35-40% of informational queries in the United States, up from roughly 25% in late 2025. The format has evolved significantly, with longer, more detailed multi-source summaries becoming the norm for complex queries.

Key observations this month:

Source diversity is increasing. Early AI Overviews tended to heavily favor a small number of high-authority sources. Recent observations suggest Google is broadening the pool of sources it cites, creating more opportunity for niche and mid-authority domains to earn citations.
Product and comparison queries are receiving AI Overview treatment. Previously concentrated on informational queries, AI Overviews are increasingly appearing for commercial-intent searches, which has significant implications for B2B and e-commerce brands.
Structured data influence appears to be strengthening. Pages with comprehensive Schema.org markup, particularly FAQ, Product, and HowTo schemas, appear to be receiving preferential treatment in AI Overview source selection.

What this means for your strategy: If you have been focused primarily on informational content optimization for AI Overviews, it is time to extend your GEO strategy to product pages and comparison content. Structured data implementation is no longer optional.

ChatGPT Search: Maturing as a Discovery Channel

OpenAI's integration of real-time web search into ChatGPT has matured considerably. With the model now defaulting to browsing for queries that require current information, ChatGPT is functioning less as a static knowledge system and more as a genuine alternative search engine.

Key developments:

Referral traffic from ChatGPT is growing measurably. Enterprise brands with comprehensive LLM monitoring in place are reporting that ChatGPT-referred traffic has grown 40-60% quarter-over-quarter, though absolute volumes still trail traditional search significantly.
Citation patterns are becoming more consistent. Early ChatGPT search behavior was relatively unpredictable in which sources it chose to cite. As the retrieval system matures, citation patterns are becoming more stable and, crucially, more responsive to content optimization.
Conversational depth is increasing. Users are engaging in longer, multi-turn research sessions with ChatGPT rather than single-query interactions. This means brands need to consider how they appear across the arc of a research conversation, not just in a single response.

Perplexity Pro: Deepening Enterprise Relevance

Perplexity has solidified its position as the AI search platform most focused on research-grade information retrieval. The platform's user base continues to grow among knowledge workers, analysts, and enterprise decision-makers.

Notable updates:

Enhanced source transparency. Perplexity has continued to improve its inline citation format, making it easier for users to verify sources and, importantly, easier for brands to track their citation presence.
Expanded data source integration. New integrations with academic databases, financial data providers, and industry-specific knowledge bases are expanding the scope of queries where Perplexity delivers high-quality, sourced answers.
API access for enterprise monitoring. Perplexity's enterprise API offerings are creating new possibilities for programmatic monitoring of brand presence, a development that the GEO tools ecosystem is rapidly building upon.

Claude Web Search: Anthropic Enters the Discovery Landscape

Anthropic's Claude has expanded its web search capabilities, adding another significant AI platform to the discovery landscape that brands need to monitor and optimize for.

What to know:

Claude's web search implementation emphasizes source quality and verification, consistent with Anthropic's broader focus on safety and accuracy.
Early citation analysis suggests Claude's retrieval system favors highly authoritative, well-structured sources with clear factual claims, reinforcing the importance of the GEO Content Strategy Framework pillars.
Monitoring Claude alongside ChatGPT and Perplexity is becoming essential for comprehensive AI search visibility measurement.

Industry Data

AI Search Adoption Continues to Accelerate

The latest data points paint a clear picture of accelerating adoption:

Enterprise AI tool usage has reached 78% among Fortune 500 companies for at least one business function, according to recent McKinsey estimates, with marketing and research among the top use cases.
AI-referred web traffic now accounts for an estimated 5-8% of total referral traffic for enterprise B2B websites, up from less than 2% one year ago. While this remains a fraction of traditional organic search traffic, the growth trajectory is steep.
Consumer AI search behavior continues to shift. Survey data from multiple research firms indicates that approximately 30% of US internet users have used an AI chatbot for product or service research in the past month, a figure that has roughly doubled year-over-year.

Traffic Impact Data

A key area of concern for enterprise marketing leaders is the net impact of AI search on website traffic. The data remains mixed:

Brands that appear prominently in AI-generated responses are generally seeing net positive traffic effects, with AI-referred visitors often converting at higher rates than traditional organic visitors due to higher intent and better-qualified research context.
Brands that are absent from AI responses are experiencing accelerating traffic erosion as AI search captures a growing share of informational queries that previously drove organic clicks.
The gap between AI-visible and AI-invisible brands is widening, creating an urgency for enterprises that have not yet invested in GEO to begin doing so.

Notable GEO Wins

Each month, we highlight brands that have achieved measurable improvements in AI search visibility through systematic GEO optimization. For this inaugural edition, we are sharing aggregated patterns observed across the industry.

Pattern: Structured Data Implementation Drives Rapid Citation Gains

Multiple enterprise brands that implemented comprehensive Schema.org markup, including Organization, Product, FAQ, and Article schemas, saw measurable increases in LLM citation rates within 30-60 days. The average increase reported across industry case studies was 2.4x for brands that went from minimal to comprehensive structured data implementation.

Pattern: Content Consolidation Outperforms Content Volume

Several brands achieved better AI search results by consolidating thin, overlapping content into fewer, more comprehensive resources than by producing new content. In one notable case, merging 12 related blog posts into 3 definitive guides resulted in a 3x increase in AI citation frequency for the target topic cluster.

Pattern: Wikipedia and Wikidata Presence Amplifies Training-Data Mentions

Brands that successfully established or improved their Wikipedia and Wikidata presence saw corresponding improvements in training-data-based LLM mentions, the mentions that occur even without the model performing a web search. This is a longer-term play but delivers compounding returns.

Tool Launches and Updates

The GEO and LLM monitoring tools ecosystem continues to expand rapidly. Notable developments this month include:

Several new entrants in the LLM monitoring space have launched, each with different approaches to the challenge of systematic AI response tracking. We are evaluating these tools for a comprehensive comparison post in the coming weeks.
Established SEO platforms are beginning to add AI search features. Major platforms have announced or launched beta features for AI Overview tracking, citation monitoring, and GEO content scoring. These are early-stage features but signal that the major SEO tool vendors recognize the category shift.
Integration capabilities are improving. The lack of API access and integration options was a significant limitation of early GEO tools. Newer releases and platform updates are addressing this gap, making it easier to incorporate AI search data into existing marketing analytics workflows.
AI content optimization tools are incorporating GEO-specific scoring alongside traditional SEO metrics, giving content teams a single interface for optimizing across both traditional and AI search channels.

We will be publishing detailed reviews and comparisons of the leading tools in the coming weeks. Browse our coverage by topic.

What to Watch: March 2026 and Beyond

Anticipated Platform Changes

Google's next Search update cycle is expected to bring further refinements to how AI Overviews select and present sources. Early signals suggest a potential shift toward more dynamic, real-time source selection that could further advantage brands with fresh, well-optimized content.
OpenAI's enterprise offerings are expanding, and potential changes to how ChatGPT handles commercial queries could create new opportunities (and challenges) for brand visibility.
Perplexity's advertising model continues to develop. How Perplexity balances sponsored content with organic citations will have significant implications for the GEO landscape.

Emerging Trends to Monitor

Voice-activated AI search through smart speakers, automotive systems, and wearables is growing. This channel introduces unique optimization considerations since voice responses are even more concentrated than text responses, typically featuring only one or two brands per query.
Vertical-specific AI search tools are emerging in healthcare, legal, financial services, and other industries. Brands in these sectors need to monitor domain-specific AI platforms alongside the general-purpose ones.
Regulatory developments around AI-generated content, search transparency, and digital marketing practices are advancing in the EU and beginning to take shape in the US. Enterprise brands should track these developments for compliance implications.

Content Calendar Opportunity

March is a strong month for publishing forward-looking content in many B2B verticals (Q1 trend reports, annual planning guides, and fiscal year strategy content). Brands that publish definitive, data-rich content in March position themselves well for citation in the Q2 research cycle.

Final Thoughts

The AI search landscape in February 2026 is characterized by accelerating adoption, maturing platforms, and a widening gap between brands that have invested in GEO and those that have not. The window for early-mover advantage is still open, but it is narrowing.

We will be publishing these roundups monthly to keep our community informed of the developments that matter most. If there are specific topics or platforms you would like us to cover in future editions, let us know.

For a deeper dive into any of the topics covered in this roundup, explore our blog or browse our guides.

Sources and References

McKinsey & Company. "The State of AI in 2025." McKinsey Global Survey, 2025.
Gartner. "Predicts 2025: Search and Discovery." Gartner Research, 2024.
SparkToro. "AI Search Adoption Survey, Q4 2025." SparkToro, 2025.
Semrush. "AI Overviews Trigger Rate Analysis, January 2026." Semrush Sensor, 2026.
SimilarWeb. "ChatGPT Referral Traffic Trends, Enterprise Segment." SimilarWeb, 2025.
Perplexity AI. "Enterprise API Documentation and Platform Updates." Perplexity AI, 2026.
Anthropic. "Claude Web Search Capabilities." Anthropic Documentation, 2025.

AI Search Industry Roundup: February 2026 — Key Developments and Trends