Issue 290, November 12, 2026
Think about the last time you needed a new pair of running shoes, a dishwasher or earbuds. Not long ago, the routine went something like this. You typed a few words into Google and scrolled past the ads at the top. You opened six tabs, read two reviews that contradicted each other, went to Amazon and scrolled through a page of sponsored listings. Somewhere in there, an email arrived from a retailer you bought from three years ago, reminding you there was a sale. Eventually, more worn down than convinced, you bought something.
Now a lot of us just ask AI. We type or say the question to ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude or the AI summary sitting at the top of the Google results, and we get an answer without going any further in the search results. Three options, a sentence on each and maybe a recommendation. Plenty of people stop right there. They never open the six tabs, never see the sponsored listings and never land on the company’s website at all.
This is a big shift…