Field notes on generative search

Engineering observations, model behavior research, and pattern analysis for ranking in AI-first search.

Apple launched a foldable iPhone, Gemini kept searching rumours

Days after the iPhone Duo was unveiled, ChatGPT is pricing it, and pointing potential customers to apple.com. Gemini however, is still searching for the release date.

The labs are learning to recognise their own words

Anthropic will watermark text from Claude. Google has marked Gemini text since 2024. The compliance story explains the timing and nothing else. What matters is that model memory is built from a corpus nobody has ever graded - and that is changing.

Which brands does AI recommend in Mexico? We measured 14,000 answers

Read our Mexico Visibility Index - we analysed 14,000 AI answers to 700 questions Mexican consumers actually ask - in Spanish, across seven industries and 315 brands.

We hired our loudest critic: a Q&A with Pedro Dias, geoSurge's Founding Head of SEO

I run a company in AI visibility so the first thing I did when I found the sharpest critic of the space was email him to say he was right.

Hello Meri 👋

Let me set the scene - in July 2024 I did something slightly unhinged: I cold-emailed the CTO of Pleo and asked them to hire me.

Report: AI Searches What It Remembers

New report finds model memory predicts which brands get searched.

The Difference Between a Hallucination and a Vision

We just closed a $12 million oversubscribed seed round - I’m told it’s one of the largest in the AI visibility category to date. The obvious thing to write today would be a thank-you note. Instead, I want to tell you the honest version of how we got here, because the polished version isn't true, and the people I respect can always tell the difference.

geoSurge Raises $12m Behind a New Thesis For AI Visibility

Investors back geoSurge’s long-term AI visibility thesis with $12m

Brands are entering a new era where AI systems - not search engines - shape how companies are discovered, understood and chosen.

You can rank #1 and still be missing from AI answers

Ranking first in Google no longer guarantees visibility in AI answers. New evidence shows AI Overviews appear most often on question-led, high-intent searches, and many citations come from pages outside the traditional top 10. For brands, the risk is clear: you can rank well, but still be absent, misrepresented or replaced inside the answer that shapes the decision.