Get Quoted by AI: Three Habits.

Wave 294; Three Writing Habits; Google Update Finished; Google Search Profiles; ChatGPT Goes Memory Dreaming; Microsoft Scout; Desktop Hermes Agents; and Much More!

Author

Yoyao
June 06, 2026 • Est. Learning Time: 10 minutes

In partnership with

FIRST …

I see many people talking about writing for AI retrieval. Not many say or show what that actually means. So how do you make a passage self-contained?

Three structural habits make a passage extractable.

1. Lead with the answer. Put the claim in the first sentence, support it after. The engine lifts the top of the block, not the windup.

  • Yes: "A French press brews coffee by steeping grounds directly in hot water."

  • No: "There are many ways to brew coffee, and a French press brews coffee by steeping grounds directly in hot water."

2. Make each passage self-contained. If a sentence opens with "this," "that" or "as mentioned above," it leans on the paragraph before it and breaks when pulled out.

  • Yes: "Espresso uses around nine bars of pressure to extract the coffee."

  • No: "As mentioned above, espresso uses pressure to extract the coffee."

3. Name the subject, not a pronoun. A passage built on "they" and "it" loses its meaning the moment it leaves the page.

  • Yes: "Cold brew steeps grounds in cold water for about twelve hours."

  • No: "It steeps grounds in cold water for about twelve hours."

These three habits and more are baked into Floyi's content writer and editor agents. They draft passages to hold up under extraction, not just read well on the page.

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SEO + GEO

The May 2026 core update finished rolling out on June 2 at 05:40 US/Pacific, after starting May 21 at 08:40. Google first said the rollout could take up to two weeks, and the final status update confirms it was complete as of June 2.

If you’re ever thinking something’s up with Google, check out this Google Search Volatility Aggregator Tool on Search Engine Roundtable.

Aleyda Solis reports that the May 2026 core update shifted visibility toward the source type that best fit each query's intent, market, and expected result format. Her SISTRIX analysis of the US and UK from May 26 to June 2 found canonical reference brands gained 24% in the UK and 10% in the US, while reference aggregators and tools fell 29% and 13%. Forum and Q&A surfaces dropped 24% in the UK and 12% in the US, while UK ecommerce SERPs moved toward local-market retail, with ccTLD retailers up 20% and US .com marketplaces down 55% in the UK index.

Yevheniia Khromova and SE Ranking analyzed 100,000 keywords across 20 niches in New York before and after Google's May 2026 core update and found the update reordered results more than it rebuilt them. After the update, 76.03% of TOP 3 URLs, 88.39% of TOP 10 URLs, and 97.99% of TOP 100 URLs changed positions. Reddit's TOP 3 share rose to 10.24% from 8.56% after March, with gains in all 20 niches and a 54% jump in keywords where Reddit ranked first, while YouTube's regular TOP 3 share fell to 2.14% from 2.50%.

Johannes Beus and SISTRIX tracked 38 daily samples of 100,000 German-language ChatGPT responses and found a core-update-level citation change after the move from GPT-5 mini to GPT-5.5. The dataset covered 3.8 million responses and more than 100 million source mentions.

  • Citation drift spiked: The May 22-23 model change shifted domain distribution by 47% within 48 hours, compared with normal weekday drift of 1-2%.

  • Sources got tighter: The average number of cited sources per response fell from 30.9 to 28.4 after the GPT-5.5 switch.

  • Reddit won big: Reddit rose from 11,853 to 18,860 citations per 10,000 responses, a gain of 7,007 citations and 59%.

  • Local German sources gained: Welt.de rose 99%, faz.net rose 124%, bild.de rose 83%, and chip.de rose 24%.

  • International aggregators lost ground: Tripadvisor fell 53%, Indeed fell 47%, Expedia fell 60%, Rome2rio fell 60%, and YouTube fell 18%.

My Take: This is why I don't treat AI search tracking as a one-time benchmark. A model update can change the citation set without any change on your site. The work is building topical proof across owned content, third-party platforms, and category sources so you are not dependent on one citation pattern.

The Foundation and AirOps analyzed 28.5 million AI-generated answers to local business queries and found Yelp earned 512,680 citations in Q4 2025. Yelp captured 72.5% of local discovery citations in Google AI Mode, 62.1% in Perplexity, and grew citation volume 19x between September and November while the total AI citation market grew roughly 3x. The sharper finding is query-level: 91 to 97% of Yelp citations came from unbranded category searches like “best plumber in Austin,” while brand-name queries accounted for only 3 to 9% and produced roughly half the citation density.

My Take: I would start from the category prompt set, list which third-party sources win each question, then decide where profiles, reviews, Reddit threads, LinkedIn posts, and comparison content need attention. Your owned content still matters, but AI shortlists are being shaped off-site before the buyer lands on your domain.

Google is launching Search profiles, a shareable space where publishers, creators, and brands can shape how they appear across Search. The profiles collect latest articles, videos, social posts, avatar, bio, website, and platform links, and users can follow a source so its content is more likely to appear in the home feed of the Google app. The first rollout is US-only and limited to publishers and creators with a sizable following. Google's eligibility note sets the content-platform floor at 100,000 subscribers or followers on YouTube, Instagram, or X, and 300,000 on TikTok.

Carl Handy made a handy tool to find search profiles - search.audits.com.

My Take: This is another sign Google wants source-level identity (topical and brand authority), not just page-level relevance. I would treat this like a public entity profile: consistent author data, linked platforms, content feed, and proof that the source is worth following.

Google is testing new Search Console controls that let site owners decide whether their content can appear in generative AI features like AI Overviews, AI Mode, and AI-powered Google app results. The opt-out removes traffic and impressions from those AI features, but Google says it will not affect ranking outside generative AI Search. Google is also rolling out Search Console visibility data for a subset of UK website owners, including impressions, pages, and countries where pages appear in AI responses.

My Take: This reads like Google trying to control the narrative around AI-driven Search. The message is "we are giving publishers control," but the trade-off is blunt: opt out and lose the AI surface entirely. They say it won’t affect rankings…but you know - it’s Google.

Google is launching dedicated Search Generative AI performance reports in Search Console for a subset of websites. The reports break out visibility from AI Overviews, AI Mode, and generative AI features tied to the Google app, while keeping that data inside the broader performance report. Site owners can see impressions, appearing pages, countries, devices for Search results, and date ranges from hourly to monthly.

HubSpot's State of AEO 2026 and Wix Studio's AI Search Lab both point to the same citation pattern: listicles, articles, product pages, and category pages are the safest on-page formats across answer engines. HubSpot found blog posts lead Google AI Overviews at a 42% citation rate and Gemini at 76%, comparison content leads ChatGPT at 95%, and product listings and landing pages lead Perplexity at 84%. Wix's dataset, built from more than 1 million citations across 75,000 AI answers, found listicles earned 21.9% of all citations, articles 16.7%, and product pages 13.7%.

Jason Koebler reports that moderators of r/biohackers banned new posts about peptides and hormone replacement therapy after saying companies were using the subreddit to influence AI search answers. The moderators said AI search engines increasingly pull from Reddit, and that peptide and HRT marketers were treating the community as an AEO channel by pushing content likely to be scraped by chatbots and Google AI Search. The article shows the darker side of off-site GEO: if Reddit becomes training and citation material, communities become targets for manipulation.

My Take: This is why Reddit strategy has to separate participation from spam. For legitimate brands, the play is not flooding threads with planted mentions. It is finding relevant conversations, answering with proof, and building a repeatable response workflow. A tool like the ReplyDeck Chrome extension can help with automatic Reddit replying by creating helpful personas.

Igal Stolpner says SEO agencies need a structured client memory system so AI work starts with account context instead of a blank prompt. His "client brain" splits knowledge into a static soul layer for brand, audience, positioning, voice, keyword map, and never-do rules, plus a dynamic memory layer for decisions, rejected angles, technical blockers, and client feedback. The setup can be as simple as Markdown files, a 90-minute account session, task-based loading rules, and regular maintenance so stale notes do not become confident errors.

My Take: This is exactly why Floyi starts with the Brand Foundation. Before AI can build a useful topical map, content plan, content briefs, or articles - it needs the company's entity facts, audience, offer, tone, constraints, and strategic direction. Without that foundation, you are asking a model to guess what your best account lead already knows.

SEO + GEO Ripples

  • Why so much SEO work no longer drives growth: Claire Taylor says SEO teams are still spending too much time on keyword lists, content production, and standalone on-page work when growth now depends more on entity strength, original research, distribution, AI visibility, and deeper analysis. She suggests comparing the last three months of SEO hours against the work that mattered five years ago versus the work that matters now.

  • Google Must Let Websites Opt Out Of AI Search Features In UK: Matt G. Southern reports that the UK Competition and Markets Authority imposed a new conduct requirement on Google Search that will let publishers opt out of AI Overviews and AI Mode, opt out of AI model training, and get clearer links in AI-generated results. Most requirements take effect six months after publication, with page-level AI Search controls due in nine months.

  • Google CEO Sundar Pichai Is OK With AI Mode Replacing Classic Search: Roger Montti reports that Sundar Pichai told NYT Hard Fork that Google is moving classic Search toward AI Mode as a continuum, while keeping sources and links in the product. Pichai said user metrics are positive and that Google is comfortable funding the AI Search model through a mix of subscriptions and ads.

AI

Nous Research says Hermes Agent now ships as a native desktop app for macOS 12+, Windows 10/11, and Linux, with one agent spanning Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, email, and CLI. There are also paid tiers that run through Nous Portal, with Free, Plus, Super, and Ultra plans that include monthly credits, access to 300+ models, and built-in tool use.

My Take: Instead of many others offering OpenClaw-in-a-box services, Nous is offering their own plans. I actually switched from OpenClaw to Hermes after OpenClaw updates kept breaking my stack, and Hermes is more stable. Hermes gives me a cleaner control layer while Paperclip handles the browser-side capture and research flow.

OpenAI says ChatGPT is rolling out a new dreaming-based memory system for Plus and Pro users in the US, with more countries plus Free and Go users coming over the next few weeks. The system moves beyond saved memories by using a background process to synthesize context across conversations, keep preferences current, and retire stale facts when time passes. OpenAI says the new architecture cuts the compute needed to serve dreaming to Free users by about 5x while giving Plus and Pro users more memory capacity.

Microsoft is introducing Autopilots, a category of always-on agents that act in the background under enterprise permissions and policies. Microsoft Scout is the first example, built into Microsoft 365 across Teams, Outlook, OneDrive, SharePoint, desktop, browser, local resources, and model context protocol servers. Scout can coordinate meetings across time zones, flag key meetings, prepare materials, identify deliverables, block calendar time, and surface stalled decisions before they become blockers.

Microsoft also launches Web IQ, a suite of grounding APIs that connects AI systems and agents to fresh web pages, news, images, and videos. The system builds on Bing's global index, then reworks retrieval, ranking, passage selection, and orchestration for agent workloads that need repeated evidence gathering inside tight latency limits.

My Take: This is search infrastructure being rebuilt for agents instead of humans. The important phrase is passage-level evidence, because agents don't need a list of blue links. They need compact proof they can use inside reasoning. That is also why AI search optimization can't stop at ranking pages. You need content sections that are easy to extract, trust, and reuse as evidence.

Microsoft redesigned the Copilot app and in-app Copilot experience around a task-aware prompt surface, progressive disclosure, and faster performance. Microsoft says the new Copilot app loads more than twice as fast, cuts perceived load time by over 50%, and improves complex chat response time by 10% at the 95th percentile. After the new in-app experiences rolled out, Copilot usage rose 27% in Word, 33% in Excel, 43% in PowerPoint, and 30% in Outlook across the measured commercial user windows.

AI Ripples

  • ChatGPT is now letting you send emails directly from ChatGPT. Would you trust OpenAI to keep your emails private though? I’d make sure the emails you send are innocuous and nothing private.

  • Google will pay SpaceX $920M per month for compute from October 2026 through June 2029 for access to about 110,000 NVIDIA GPUs, CPUs, memory, and related components. Google called it bridge capacity for higher-than-expected Gemini Enterprise demand, and the filing gives both companies a 90-day termination option after December 31, 2026. Anthropic already agreed to pay SpaceX $1.25 billion through 2029.

  • Microsoft AI chief says company was “set free” from OpenAI to pursue superintelligence: Mustafa Suleyman says a renegotiated OpenAI contract gave Microsoft formal authority to pursue superintelligence with its own researchers, data pipelines, and custom silicon. Microsoft announced seven in-house MAI models at Build 2026, including the 35-billion-active-parameter MAI-Thinking-1, while Frontier Tuning lets enterprises customize models inside secure compliance boundaries.

LINK BUILDING + DIGITAL PR

Vince Nero explains that strong journalist pitches need a clear "why now" hook, not just a relevant source or good story idea. He breaks the timing layer into four usable angles: seasonality, trends, recurring events, and breaking news, then says the hook should appear in the subject line and again in the first or second sentence of the email body. The piece also cites journalists who say timeliness helps reporters see reader relevance and gives editors confidence that the coverage will feel current instead of promotional.

NEWS

Alphabet's June 2026 investor presentation transcript from Sundar Pichai and Anat Ashkenazi, and the Search numbers are the story. Google says AI Overviews has over 2.5 billion monthly users, AI Mode has passed 1 billion monthly users, and Search revenue grew 19% year over year last quarter. Alphabet also expects 2026 CapEx of $180-190 billion, says Gemini serving costs fell 78% in 2025, and says core AI response costs are down more than 30% since Gemini 3 launched.

My Take: This is why I would not bet on Google quietly retreating from AI Search. The company is telling investors that AI expands Search usage, supports ads on longer queries, and justifies a massive infrastructure buildout. For SEO operators, the question is not whether AI Mode becomes part of Search. It is how to earn visibility when Google turns more searches into agentic, multimodal, action-ready sessions.

WAYS WE CAN WORK TOGETHER

Floyi - Build Topical Authority that wins in Google and AI Search. Don’t just plan your content strategy - make it unstoppable.

TopicalMap.com Service - Let us do the heavy lifting. We handle the research, structure, and strategy. You get a custom topical map designed to boost authority and dominate your niche and industry.

Topical Maps Unlocked 2.0 - Unlock the blueprint to ranking success. Master the art of structuring content that search engines (and your audience) love - and watch your rankings soar.

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