Author: Michael Bürgi

Happy 250th Birthday, America! As one of three host countries of the 2026 World Cup, you received a bit of a gift from the U.S. Men’s National Team, which is on to the round of 16 having beaten Bosnia and Herzegovina on July 1 to advance. Today the team faces Belgium in hopes of getting one step closer to the final match at the Meadowlands stadium in the swamps of New Jersey on July 19. 

The real gift — and it’s been a bit of a surprise — is the fact that the World Cup has been nothing short of a major success, for FIFA (the ruling body of international football), rights holders Fox and NBCUniversal and for football fans who have been treated to some top-quality football (soccer) and startling upsets. The lead-up to the start of the World Cup had seen a flurry of worry and bad-news reports of unfilled hotel rooms, fears of ICE raids outside stadiums and exorbitant ticket pricing. 

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Marketers have been trying to game LLM responses to suit their brands since users began turning to AI for search.

In recent months, they’ve become aware that AI search responses aren’t just a user touchpoint that needs attention, but a competitive arena in which they might influence the way their rivals are perceived — and have to guard against their rivals doing the same to them.

Despite the well-publicized issues with AI hallucinations and bias, web users tend to perceive AI results as neutral. When a response supplies positive information about a brand, that works in marketers’ favor. When an AI Overview or ChatGPT response goes in the other direction, it can become a serious problem for a brand.

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