✅ AI
The AI answer box is becoming paid inventory
ChatGPT’s advertiser count jumped from about 300 to 820 in a single quarter — Booking, Intuit, Home Depot and L.L.Bean among them — and the ad load roughly doubled. Every answer engine runs the same arc: an organic-only stretch, then paid slots wedged into answers people already trust. The window that’s closing is the free one — the stretch where earning the citation costs nothing but the work.