https://datumpoint.co/points Points of view on AI search, AI visibility and B2B brand authority from Nick Clark, founder of Datum Point. en-gb https://datumpoint.co/points/zero-pick-report https://datumpoint.co/points/zero-pick-report Wed, 11 Nov 2026 08:00:00 +0000 Datum Point asked ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and Perplexity 90 questions across 15 B2B software categories, as a UK company with about 200 staff, and tagged 2,250 answers. 20% of the vendors an engine names in its landscape answer are never recommended by that engine in any buying question. We call this zero pick. The good news: 31% of the vendors AI recommends in specific buying questions were missing from its own landscape answer, so specialists can win the pick without winning the category. https://datumpoint.co/points/linkedin-ai-search-citations https://datumpoint.co/points/linkedin-ai-search-citations Fri, 16 Oct 2026 08:00:00 +0000 Semrush's analysis of 89,000 cited LinkedIn URLs ranks LinkedIn as the second most-cited domain in AI search, appearing in 14.3% of ChatGPT Search responses. But in a small test of the clickable links AI answers give readers, LinkedIn didn't appear in the top 100 domains for two B2B brands. LinkedIn shapes what AI says about your category; your own site and credible third-party coverage are still what AI tends to link to. https://datumpoint.co/points/ai-agents-b2b-buying https://datumpoint.co/points/ai-agents-b2b-buying Fri, 09 Oct 2026 08:00:00 +0000 In the space of a few months, Google, Meta and OpenAI have all launched AI agents that work autonomously, and Google's Gemini at Work announcements bring them into the workplace with their own email addresses and roles. B2B research will increasingly happen inside these agents, which choose their own sources. Getting onto an agent's shortlist depends on the information you publish and earn, which counts for more now, not less. https://datumpoint.co/points/publishers-ai-payments-stealth-crawlers https://datumpoint.co/points/publishers-ai-payments-stealth-crawlers Fri, 02 Oct 2026 08:00:00 +0000 Google is paying around 100 publishers through an AI contribution pilot, with amounts ranging from more than $1 million a year to under $1,000 and no published formula. At the same time, 300 media executives lobbied the US Congress for the Stealth Bot Prohibition Act, which would force AI crawlers to identify themselves. There is still no rulebook for how brands or publishers are credited, measured or paid when AI systems use their content. https://datumpoint.co/points/zero-click-ai-overviews-ai-mode https://datumpoint.co/points/zero-click-ai-overviews-ai-mode Fri, 25 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000 Google is testing AI Overview links that open a follow-up question in AI Mode rather than sending users to the cited website, and a similar 'Dive deeper' feature in Google Discover. Both tests are early and Google has published no data, but the direction is clear: being cited by Google's AI no longer guarantees a visit. B2B brands should strengthen owned channels, keep messaging consistent and build assets buyers have to visit your site to get. https://datumpoint.co/points/chatgpt-ads-attribution-gap https://datumpoint.co/points/chatgpt-ads-attribution-gap Fri, 04 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000 OpenAI says ChatGPT Ads has reached a $1 billion annualised revenue run rate. The bigger issue for marketers is attribution: if even paid clicks from ChatGPT are hard to see in Google Analytics, the unpaid mentions where AI simply describes your brand to a buyer are invisible. B2B brands should treat AI mentions as a leading indicator and invest in authority, not just trackable clicks. https://datumpoint.co/points/ai-search-rewards-brand-mentions https://datumpoint.co/points/ai-search-rewards-brand-mentions Fri, 28 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000 AI search engines don't simply reuse Google's rankings. Around two in three AI citations come from pages outside Google's first page, and brand mentions correlate roughly three times more strongly with AI visibility than backlinks do. For B2B brands, being talked about consistently by credible third parties now does more for AI visibility than another round of link building.