👀 AI Search trend spotted this week (month? year?)…

🟣 AI is becoming more and more ‘human’ in how it judges our content.

It wants proof. Not declarations.

I'm basing this trend on my analysis of two data-driven studies from two SEO experts: Kevin Indig and Lily Ray.

Two different angles. The same underlying signal.

AI no longer takes your word for it.

▶️ Kevin Indig frames it at the strategic level: With equal on-page optimization, two brands can be cited at completely different frequencies. The gap comes from off-site reputation.

The model reuses the trust already granted to third-party sources — it doesn't form a fresh opinion on you with every query.

Your own blog? One of the weakest signals out there.

Makes sense: the model has no reason to believe what you claim about yourself.

▶️ Lily Ray confirms it at the tactical level in her great post. lilyraynyc.substack.com… Same mechanism, one notch down — at the page level.

"Alternatives to" and "X vs Y" pages are the new SEO/GEO gold mine.

The advice making the rounds everywhere: crank them out at scale.

Except Google and OpenAI increasingly favor objective third-party reviews over brands that grade their own homework.

A page where you compare yourself to your competitors and declare yourself the winner — without actually having tested both — becomes a low-quality signal.

The thread connecting the two:

AI discounts anything that smells like self-promotion. At the scale of your strategy and at the scale of a single page, the rule is the same.

• What you say about yourself counts for little.

• What others say about you — and what you can actually prove — counts for everything.

For a comparison page to still work, it'll take facts. Real testing. Verifiable claims. Not a promise dressed up as a review.

📍 So here's where we've landed: the algorithm now rewards the same thing a skeptical human would.

Show me you actually did the work — don't just tell me you're the best.

When artificial intelligence starts demanding human authenticity — we've truly seen it all 🙄.

What a great time to be alive 😬.

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I decrypt AI Search trends through a deeply AI Search researched monthly curation. I share all my findings in my newsletter, AI Search Decoded. The June edition lands in your inbox tomorrow morning. Stay tuned.