Google and OpenAI Are Both Changing What 'Search' Means This Week
Google Business Profiles Now Shows What Its AI Collected About Your Business
The "Collected Info" tab just went live, and it could be quietly hurting your local rankings
What's the News:
Google has officially launched a new “Collected Info” tab inside the Google Business Profile dashboard, giving owners visibility into information Google’s automated assistant has gathered about their listing through phone and chat conversations. For months, Google has used automated calls, texts, and WhatsApp messages to the verified business number to keep profiles current. This is the first time that collected data has been visible and editable by the business itself. Owners can now review exactly what was gathered and delete anything inaccurate directly from Search and Maps.
Why It Matters:
Google has been quietly editing Business Profiles via AI for months without giving businesses a way to check its work. For any client with a physical location, wrong service details, incorrect hours, or outdated attributes directly affect local ranking and whether the right customers find them. The risk isn’t just a bad user experience; AI-collected misinformation can propagate into Maps, local Search results, and AI Overviews before anyone notices it’s wrong.
Bad data Google added on its own can quietly depress local pack rankings, and it’s far easier to catch now than to trace back later.
Marketers Should:
Add the Collected Info tab to the monthly Google Business Profile audit checklist for every client with a verified Business Profile
Log in and review what Google’s automated assistant has added. There’s a reasonable chance something is outdated or wrong
Delete inaccurate entries immediately; it takes two minutes and can prevent weeks of guessing why a listing is underperforming
Flag anything deleted to the client so they know what Google added without their input
Conversational Search Is Already Changing What "High-Intent" Looks Like
Silverback’s own account data shows queries are getting longer and most Search programs aren't built to catch them
What's the News:
Search is getting more conversational, and it’s showing up in both organic and paid data. Across Silverback’s client portfolio, the average organic Google query grew roughly 15% longer year-over-year from 3.4 to 3.9 words, with five-word-plus queries nearly doubling their share of impressions. The same lengthening showed up in paid search: non-brand query length rose year-over-year across every match type, though not evenly. Non-brand Exact still captures the shortest queries (~3.2 words, +11% YoY), while Broad (~3.4 words, +5% YoY) and Phrase (~3.8 words, +3% YoY) are absorbing more of the longer, conversational volume.
Why It Matters:
Most paid Search programs were built around short, keyword-style queries, and that assumption is quietly expiring. Match type determines how much of this shift an account even sees; tightly-matched accounts see less of the growing conversational volume, cede it to competitors and AI-driven answer surfaces, and lose ground on exactly the high-intent queries they’re counting on.
Average query length is a leading indicator worth watching, not a curiosity. The accounts that adjust now will meet demand where it’s already growing.
Marketers Should:
Audit non-brand match-type mix and make deliberate room for Broad and Phrase to catch long-tail, conversational queries
Test Google’s AI Max as a way to extend reach into that conversational volume
Pair any match-type expansion with disciplined search-term review and negatives so it drives qualified volume instead of waste
Track average query length monthly as a leading indicator, not just a reporting footnote
OpenAI Is Turning ChatGPT Ads Into Conversations
"Sponsored Agents" could replace the landing-page click entirely
What's the News:
OpenAI is testing “Sponsored Agents,” a new ad format where users who see an ad in ChatGPT can open a separate, clearly labeled conversation with a business-sponsored agent to ask follow-up questions before clicking through to the advertiser’s site. OpenAI says these chats stay walled off from ChatGPT’s own answers, and advertisers still don’t get access to private conversations. The company is also expanding Ads Manager with natural-language campaign creation, AI-suggested copy and imagery, auto-translated ad text, and its first CRM/ecommerce integrations with HubSpot and Shopify.
Why It Matters:
OpenAI is assembling a full ad platform: self-serve manager, creative generation, CPC buying, and now a native format built around dialogue instead of a click. Sponsored Agents shift some of the selling job from the landing page into the conversation itself, and the HubSpot and Shopify integrations start connecting ChatGPT campaigns to CRM and product data agencies already touch.
If the agent handles the Q&A a landing page used to, success depends more on how well it’s briefed than on traditional copy or page design.
Marketers Should:
Treat this as an early test, not a proven channel: there’s no existing playbook to lean on yet
Start thinking about agent briefing as its own discipline, since it’s replacing some of the work a landing page used to do
Watch for the option to appear on live ChatGPT ad accounts. We already have clients running ChatGPT ads
Report back on early performance signals as soon as Sponsored Agents becomes available to test
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