Weekly Digital Marketing News Show | SEO, AI & Search Updates
- Sean Barber
- Jul 25, 2025
- 5 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
Search With Sean is a weekly digital marketing news show for in-house marketers, agency practitioners and SEO professionals. Each week I break down the most important stories in SEO, AI search and digital strategy — cutting through the noise to focus on what actually matters for your day job.
I'm Sean Barber, an in-house SEO at a major UK charity, and I bring a practitioner's perspective you won't get from the big agency channels. New episodes every week on YouTube and Spotify.
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Weekly Digital Marketing News Episodes
AI Search Strategy Shifts, Space-Based Data Centers, Structured Data & Local SEO Changes | 11 May
A wide-ranging episode this week covering how AI is reshaping search strategy, new frontiers in AI infrastructure, and evolving practices across structured data, local SEO, and international search.
In this episode:
Conde Nast’s decision to deprioritise search traffic and what it signals for brand-led SEO in an AI-first ecosystem
The Oscars introducing AI actor rules and the wider tension between human creativity and AI-assisted production
Project Suncatcher: Google and SpaceX exploring orbital AI data centres and what it reveals about future infrastructure scaling
OpenAI’s expansion into paid advertising and the growing debate around AI ROI, monetisation, and sustainability
Real-world discussions around AI psychosis cases and the broader implications of AI assistants in daily decision-making
Botify research into OpenAI web crawl growth and what increased AI scraping activity means for publishers
Anthropic’s Project Deal pilot testing AI agents in marketplace environments and early signals from agentic workflows
The rise of mobile AI assistants (Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude) and how they’re shifting user behaviour on mobile
Structured data research, including FAQ-rich results and ongoing challenges around schema usage and visibility
International SEO insights from Aimee Jurenka and how localisation strategies are evolving in AI search
Local SEO updates, including negative review strategies and evolving best practices for GBP optimisation
GA4 AI Assistant channel developments and what they mean for tracking and attribution in AI-driven journeys
Wider industry commentary on AI ethics, training data, adoption curves, and ROI vs hype in real-world deployments
A final roundup including robotics and automation highlights, including a lightning robot marathon as a signal of progress in physical AI systems
Featuring: Amanda Walls, Laura Iancu & Stanislav Farkas
AI Safety, Enterprise Risk, Gemini Push, Discover Updates & SEO Skills Reality | 08 Jun
A deep-dive episode this week exploring the tension between AI capability and control — from model safety and enterprise risk to Google’s aggressive push to mainstream Gemini, plus what’s actually changing in SEO skills and publisher ecosystems.
In this episode:
Claude model discussion: Fable vs Mythos, exploring the gap between safer public releases and more advanced internal AI systems
The growing challenge of AI safety, governance, and enterprise readiness as adoption outpaces structured guardrails
“Vibe coding” and rapid AI-assisted development, and the hidden security risks emerging in production environments
Multi-model usage across organisations (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini) and the lack of consistent AI usage policies
Google’s Gemini World Cup advertising push and what it signals about mass-market AI adoption strategies
The competitive battle between Google and OpenAI, and how distribution and marketing may shape AI dominance
Google Discover “search profiles” update and its potential impact on publisher visibility and content surfacing
Moz research on AI search skills vs traditional SEO, showing fundamentals still dominate hiring expectations
How AI skills are being evaluated in real hiring scenarios, with emphasis on applied experience over buzzwords
Publisher backlash against AI training data scraping, including growing scrutiny of Common Crawl usage
Concerns around AI-generated “slop,” content quality, and authenticity at scale
Wider sustainability questions around AI infrastructure, carbon footprint, and long-term system impact
Final reflections on industry responsibility, regulation lag, and where SEO and digital marketing are heading as AI accelerates
Featuring: Christian Goodrich & Laura Iancu
AI Search Trust Shifts, Google Regulation, Health AI Risks & LLM Rendering Research | 15 Jun
A wide-ranging episode this week exploring the growing trust gap across news and AI, regulatory pressure on Google in the UK, the rapid expansion of AI into health decision-making, and deeper technical insights into how AI systems interpret and retrieve web content.
In this episode:
AI-generated journalism at scale, including World Cup reporting workflows where publishers pre-write templated articles for multiple possible outcomes and use AI to publish instantly when events happen
The UK CMA’s proposed changes to Google Search, including increased transparency requirements, ranking fairness challenges, advance notice of core updates, and whether six months is realistic for implementation
The ongoing decline in global news trust, with Reuters Institute data showing record-low confidence levels (37% globally, 30% in the UK) and rising reliance on social and video platforms
The growing use of AI for health-related queries, including studies suggesting 1 in 4 users experience serious issues after following AI health advice and high usage for mental health support despite risks
A wider discussion on why users increasingly trust AI over healthcare systems in some contexts, driven by limited GP access, time pressure, and perceived empathy from chatbots
A Messi x ChatGPT promotional campaign and the broader trend of AI platforms integrating with global sports marketing and celebrity-led advertising
The Anthropic “Fable vs Mythos” situation, exploring internal model releases, Pentagon involvement, US national security concerns, and the wider geopolitical tension around frontier AI access
The debate around AI governance, guardrails, and whether governments should restrict access to the most powerful models versus keeping them publicly available
Daniel Foley Carter’s AWR insights on declining SEO performance, including reduced CTR for top positions (~40%) and lower engagement depth across search results, plus reflections on burnout in the industry
The rise of AI SEO hype and “Mountain AI” case studies, questioning exaggerated growth claims from agencies and the pressure this creates on in-house teams and leadership expectations
Structured data and AI search behaviour research, including how AI assistants interpret JavaScript rendering and why some models fail to process client-side content during grounding
A study on LLM.txt adoption showing that while 28% of websites now use it, 97% of those files are never actually requested by AI systems, raising questions about its practical value
Wider commentary on AI trust, transparency, and how organisations should think about visibility in AI-driven discovery systems rather than relying on legacy SEO assumptions
Featuring: Stanislav Farkas & Laura Iancu
Latest Monthly Digital Marketing News Episode
The Monthly Round Up shows cover the most significant monthly developments and trends across the fields of SEO, AI, search, and digital marketing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. How often is the show released? New episodes usually drop most weeks, with round up shows posted monthly.
Q. Who is the show for? In-house marketers, agency SEOs and digital marketing practitioners who want a no-fluff weekly briefing on what's actually happening in search and AI.
Q. Where can I watch or listen? Every episode is on YouTube and Spotify. Links are above.
Q. Who hosts the show? Sean Barber — in-house SEO at Macmillan Cancer Support and founder of Search With Sean. Every week, I am joined by different guests who work in digital marketing.
Can I be a guest on the show? Yes — head to the Contact page to get in touch.
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