Friday, May 16, 2025
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Hi, it’s Chad. Every Friday, I serve as your AI guide to help you navigate a rapidly evolving landscape, discern signals from noise and transform cutting-edge insights into practical leadership wisdom. Here’s what you need to know:
1. Paper Trail: AI Research Decoded
Bridging the Gap: Aligning LLM Metrics with Real-World Business Value
New research reveals a critical misalignment between how AI models are evaluated and how businesses actually use them, offering middle market leaders a practical framework for making smarter AI investments. Here are a few key insights:
- Current AI evaluation benchmarks miss two of the six most commonly used capabilities in real business environments, leading to potential misallocation of technology investments
- Organizations should evaluate AI based on coherence, accuracy, clarity, relevance, and efficiency rather than abstract intelligence metrics
- Google Gemini outperforms competitors across four key business-relevant capabilities, potentially offering advantages for middle market organizations seeking practical AI solutions
Read our full analysis of each of these research papers at AI for the C Suite
2. Sound Waves: Podcast Highlights
Our latest episode featuring my conversation with former Peace Corps volunteer Andy Hilliard, founder and CEO of Accelerant, drops this coming Monday, May 19th. Discover how AI is transforming offshore software development while Andy Hilliard reveals why human-first, AI-second is the winning approach for middle-market companies leveraging global talent. Subscribe for free today on your listening platform of choice to ensure you never miss a beat.
New episodes release every two weeks.
3. AI Buzz: Fresh Bytes
Here are several interesting articles that caught my eye.
- Google searches are falling in Safari for the first time ever — probably because of AI (See my thoughts on this below)
- Amazon develops a robot that ‘feels’ touch, just like its human workers
- A new AI translation system for headphones clones multiple voices simultaneously
- Top 6 Agentic AI Design Patterns
4. Algorithmic Musings. The Search Revolution: Why Google’s Safari Decline Matters Now
The world of search experienced a seismic earthquake the other week… and barely anyone even blinked.
During his testimony in the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust lawsuit against Google, Apple’s Eddy Cue made the striking revelation that Google searches in Safari had declined for the first time in 22 years.
This is known as traffic cannibalization and it’s a watershed moment signaling the rise of AI search alternatives like Perplexity, ChatGPT and Claude which offer a fundamentally different search experience than traditional tools like Google.
This is not the first time I’ve called out this shift (See here, here and here). Yet this is the first time it’s shown up in a tangible way. So, lets try this again…
NOW HEAR THIS: If your organization depends upon inbound traffic/leads and your site is built around SEO you need to rethink your strategy RIGHT NOW. Not tomorrow. Not at your next quarterly offsite. NOW.
This is an inflection point and if you’re not paying attention or taking it seriously… well, you’ve been warned.
The Canary in the Digital Coal Mine
When Eddy Cue emphasized that Google search traffic in Safari had declined for the first time in 22 years, calling it a “fundamental shift” in how users discover information online, we’re witnessing the beginning of a sea change in digital behavior.
Remember Blockbuster? They had the chance to buy Netflix for a mere $50 million back in 2000 but passed because they couldn’t see past their existing business model. Their CEO famously laughed the Netflix team out of the room. Who’s laughing now?
This isn’t some minor blip. Gartner has predicted traditional search engine volume will drop by 25% by 2026. The evidence is mounting: 71.5% of people are now using AI tools for search, with 14% turning to these tools daily. Even more telling, 20.2% of users have changed their primary search platform within just the last year.
The way people seek information is transforming. We’re moving from keywords (“Miami beachside hotel”) to natural language conversations (“Can you find me a beachside hotel in Miami with vacancy on May 23rd?”). This isn’t temporary. It represents a fundamental rewiring of how humans interact with information. And this doesn’t even account for the pending rise of AI Agents that will change the model yet again.
Three Critical Actions Your Organization Needs to Take NOW
1. Develop an AI-Ready Content Strategy
Traditional SEO won’t cut it anymore. You need content that’s optimized for AI consumption:
- Create comprehensive, authoritative content that AI systems will recognize as high-value
- Structure information with clear headings, concise definitions, and logical flow
- Include rich, structured data markup that helps AI systems understand your content
Don’t just chase the algorithm – become the source that no AI can afford to ignore.
2. Build Direct Relationships That Bypass Search Entirely
Search engines (traditional or AI) have always been middlemen. Cutting them out is known as disintermediation so reduce your dependence on these intermediaries:
- Double down on email list building and community development
- Create valuable content that drives first-party data collection
- Develop strategic partnerships for direct referrals
Remember, you don’t own your Google ranking – but you do own your customer relationships.
3. Experiment with AI Search Engine Optimization
This is the Wild West right now, and that means opportunity for the bold:
- Start testing how your content appears in AI search results
- Analyze which competitors are being cited by AI systems and why
- Experiment with formats more likely to be referenced (research reports, data visualizations, unique frameworks)
The organizations that figure this out first will have an enormous competitive advantage.
Don’t Become a Digital Dinosaur
To quote myself from another context (oh, the hubris!), “Multiple, overlapping storms from both short- and long-term problems and trends are raining unrelenting, accelerating change. Now is not the time to grab an umbrella, but it is time to learn how to dance in the rain.”
The search landscape is changing faster than most organizations can comprehend. The 22-year streak of Google search growth in Safari didn’t just end because of a bad quarter – it ended because we’re witnessing the birth of an entirely new paradigm in information discovery.
Don’t be Blockbuster in a Netflix world. Don’t be the taxi industry watching Uber rise.
Instead, see this moment for what it truly is: an opportunity to reimagine how your organization connects with its audience in fundamentally more valuable ways.
Want help navigating this brave new world of AI search? Drop me a line and let’s figure out how to future-proof your digital strategy together.
5. Elevate Your Leadership with AI for the C Suite
Subscribe today because your organization deserves the competitive edge that only cutting-edge AI insights can provide.
Don’t let your organization fall behind in the AI race. AI for the C Suite’s insights and tools are designed to keep you ahead of the curve.
Questions or need personalized guidance? Reply to this email – we’re here to help.
As we navigate this unprecedented fusion of human and machine intelligence, remember: the best leaders aren’t just adapting to change – they’re actively shaping it. Until next week, keep pushing boundaries.
Chad