Manual Focus

James and Hannah talk through GPT-6 and Intelligent UI, which OpenAI began rolling out in ChatGPT on 7 October 2026. Answers can now arrive as side-by-side comparisons, maps, forms and small tools built on request, including a savings calculator. They cover who gets which model and when, why a generic calculator or comparison table is no longer a defensible traffic asset, what Radisson's plugin result does and doesn't prove, what OpenAI hasn't said yet, and three jobs to hand to AI.

Read the article and get the prompts: What ChatGPT's GPT-6 Intelligent UI means for marketing teams

James and Hannah go through DemandSphere's data, published on 1 October 2026, showing Google's AI Overviews on 82.06% of its tracked brand searches by 29 September, up from about 26% earlier in the month. They cover what Chris Long and Search Engine Roundtable saw, why Google writing a summary of your company is a reputation question before it's a ranking one, who should own it, what the evidence doesn't show, and three jobs to hand to AI this fortnight.

Read the article and get the prompts: AI Overviews hit 82% of tracked brand searches in September

James and Hannah go through a study Vaer AI ran for Lightspeed Commerce, published on 29 September 2026, which found ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and Google AI Overviews picked a national chain over a smaller retailer 90 to 94% of the time when answering from training data alone. They cover why smaller retailers lose most ground on product-level queries, why adding the word "independent" to a prompt changed the answers so sharply, what Lightspeed's commercial interest and the North American sample mean for UK brands, and three jobs to hand to AI before peak trading.

Read the article and get the prompts: Lightspeed's AI shopping study and what smaller brands should do

James and Hannah talk through Adobe's holiday forecast of 28 September 2026, which expects clicks from AI services to US retail sites to rise 130% year on year over November and December, with Thanksgiving up 159%, Black Friday 95% and Cyber Monday 88%. They cover what Adobe counts as AI traffic, how much weight to put on its survey, why a US forecast should still change a UK peak trading plan, and three jobs to hand to AI before Black Friday on 27 November.

Read the article and get the prompts: What Adobe's AI shopping forecast means for Black Friday

James and Hannah talk through OpenAI's ChatGPT Ads app for Shopify, which began reaching merchants outside the US on 23 September 2026. The UK already has self-serve access, so a Shopify brand can advertise in ChatGPT without an agency or a new product feed. They cover who sees the ads (only Free and Go users), why paid and organic stay separate efforts, why the catalogue now does the job of ad creative, how Manual Focus would run a small test before Black Friday, and three jobs to hand to AI.

Read the article and get the prompts: What ChatGPT Ads on Shopify means for UK ecommerce brands

James and Hannah talk through the Competition and Markets Authority's proposal of 23 September 2026: Google would have to show UK Android and Chrome users a choice of search service at set-up and every year after, with AI assistants such as ChatGPT and Perplexity eligible if they search the web and credit and link to their sources. They cover what the consultation document adds to the press release, why the CMA's own user research points to a slow drift rather than a rush away from Google, why the linking requirement makes AI citations worth more, what's still undecided, and three jobs to hand to AI now.

Read the article and get the prompts: What the CMA's AI choice screen plan means for UK marketers

James and Hannah talk through why ranking on Google no longer predicts who gets quoted in AI answers. A Brandlight analysis published by 5W in May 2026 found the overlap between top organic Google links and AI-cited sources fell from around 70% in early 2024 to below 20% by April 2026. They cover why models pick sources on different signals from a ranked list, the four things that earn a citation (answering first, original data, checkable claims and third-party corroboration), why smaller teams still have a first-mover window, and three jobs to hand to AI.

Read the article and get the prompts: The citation moved off the page

James and Hannah walk through a 90-day plan for moving a marketing team from scattered AI use to structured AI work, without hiring or restructuring. It runs in six two-week blocks: audit current usage and the brand voice doc, write an operational voice prompt and settle on one tool of each kind, rebuild one workflow end to end, roll the pattern to a second workflow, build a weekly measurement loop, and hold an honest conversation with the team. They cover why the voice prompt comes first, why two well-run workflows beat five half-built ones, and three parts of the plan you can hand to AI.

Read the article and get the prompts: The 90-day AI integration plan for marketing leaders

James and Hannah talk through the two Google Ads controls announced on 14 October 2026: channel prioritisation, which ranks Search, search partners and Display as high or low priority, and budget allocation, which caps a low priority channel at a share of daily budget. They cover which campaign types get which control, why prioritisation only bites on budget-limited campaigns, what changes for Search campaigns on Display in February 2027, and three jobs to hand to AI before then.

Read the article and get the prompts: What Google Ads channel prioritisation means for paid teams