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What Google Marketing Live 2026 Really Means for Marketers

with Bill Buchanan and Nicole Jennings

Google Marketing Live 2026 dropped a wave of announcements that left the marketing world buzzing. In this episode, Brad Stephenson sits down with Level Agency President Bill Buchanan and EVP of Service Delivery Nicole Jennings to explain what actually matters, what brands should do right now, and what they'll wish they had started sooner.

Bill attended GML in person, including a rare behind-the-scenes session with Google's keynote team. Nicole brings her perspective from Brand Performance and her leadership over Level's full service delivery organization, which spans media, SEO, creative, and development. Together, they unpack why Google's pace of change is unprecedented even by Google's own standards, and what it signals for where search is headed. This episode was recorded just before Brad took the stage at SMX Advanced to speak on unifying the search experience.

The conversation covers how AI mode is reshaping the funnel from top to bottom, why the new ad formats are less important than the foundational infrastructure beneath them, and why the brands that get the data foundation right now will have a compounding advantage heading into the back half of 2025. Bill and Nicole also walk through what CMOs in higher education, healthcare, home services, and financial services need to prioritize, and close with the one thing everyone will wish they had done sooner when they look back at this moment a year from now.

What You'll Learn:

• Why Google's shift to AI mode is unprecedented even by its own historical standards, and what "ripping the Band-Aid" really means at this scale
• The three things Bill says every brand will wish they had done earlier: fix the data foundation, compete for AI citations, and treat SEO, paid, and content as one unified solution
• Why YouTube strategy and AI Max are the two things Nicole says to pressure test your agency on immediately
• How AI is blurring the line between SEO and PR, and why brand mentions are the new backlinks
• What QFCs, attributed brand searches, and Meridian mean for CFOs who still believe in last-click attribution
• Industry-specific takeaways for higher education, healthcare, home services, and financial services
• Why Nicole's single highest-leverage move for a CMO this quarter is a scalable, repeatable YouTube strategy

Featured Guests:

Bill Buchanan is President of Level Agency. With decades of experience in digital marketing and a front-row seat at Google Marketing Live 2026, Bill helps shape the strategic direction that guides how Level partners with clients across SEO, media, data infrastructure, and AI adoption.

Nicole Jennings is EVP of Service Delivery at Level Agency, responsible for the full range of client-facing services including media, SEO, creative, and development. Nicole brings a practitioner's perspective to big-picture platform changes, translating what Google announces on stage into what brands actually need to do on Monday morning.

Connect With the Guests:

Bill Buchanan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wbuchanan

Nicole Jennings: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolejennings/

Connect With the Show:

Level Agency: level.agency

How to Support the Show:

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone on your marketing team who is trying to make sense of AI search.