Episode 1 of AI for Marketers. We start with a fast news rundown, then the anchor tutorial: how to choose and evaluate an AI assistant for your own marketing work, and how to keep reading the field as models change month to month.
News this week (June 2-9, 2026)
- Google is adding an AI-search opt-out toggle in Search Console, driven by the UK Competition and Markets Authority and reportedly called a "world first". It won't take effect until June 17, excludes the Gemini app, and is not a ranking signal. Coverage from TechCrunch.
- Visibility check: Search Console now has generative-AI performance reports (impressions only, by page/country/device; no clicks, CTR, or queries), corroborated by pikaseo. Per Goodie's 2026 AI Search Traffic Report, ChatGPT's share of measurable B2B AI referrals reportedly fell from ~89% to 62.6%, Claude surged to 18.5% (a 27.2% April peak), Gemini 10.6%, Perplexity 7.3%. AI Overviews reportedly 2.5B+ monthly users.
- HubSpot upgraded its Claude connector to SQL-based retrieval and expanded its ChatGPT connector (release notes).
- Constant Contact launched an app inside ChatGPT for end-to-end email campaigns with publish-back.
Tutorial: picking and evaluating your assistant
Sort the seven major assistants by your real work, your data privacy, your existing stack, and budget (the ~$20/mo individual tier is the standard). Then read the field with your own brand-voice test, research/grounding test, and factual probe instead of trusting gamed leaderboards. The biggest pitfall: hallucination (~3.1-19.1%, citations worst at ~12.4%). Demand sources and click every link. Check data controls before pasting anything sensitive.