The MadTech Podcast

In today’s MadTech Daily, we discuss Amazon being sued over its use of Twitch streamers’ videos to train AI models, UK digital infrastructure investment reaching dot-com era levels amid the AI data center boom, and Shein preparing to debut in Hong Kong at a valuation well below earlier expectations.

In today's MadTech Daily, we cover WPP's court filing against Richard Foster's whistleblower claims; Meta's decision to strip advertisers of the ability to exclude ad placements, and preliminary talks between Paramount and California officials over its $110bn Warner Bros Discovery acquisition.

In this episode of The MadTech Podcast, Amy Banks, head of SEO and GEO at Havas Media Network, joins ExchangeWire COO Lindsay Rowntree to discuss the evolution of search.

LLMs have transformed search, pushing the ad industry towards a zero-click era. With the declining importance of search engine rankings, Amy outlines what replaces click-through as the number brands should actually be watching. The conversation dives into whether generative engine optimisation (GEO) is a lasting, standalone discipline, or if it will eventually fold back into SEO once the market matures.
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0:00 Introduction
1:53 Bringing GEO into SEO teams
5:52 LLMs and zero-click search
9:28 Optimising for LLMs vs. Google
15:30 Combining GEO and paid ads
23:21 Will GEO eventually collapse into SEO?

In today’s MadTech Daily, we cover OpenAI expanding its ChatGPT ads pilot to 31 European markets, Apple’s latest spyware alert wave appearing to be its largest yet, according to a digital rights group, and Taboola striking an exclusive programmatic display deal with NBC News.

In today’s MadTech Daily, we discuss critics arguing that Google’s new Search Console feature masks the decline in AI-driven traffic, Alibaba’s Qwen becoming the world’s most downloaded open-weight AI model, surpassing Meta and Google, and an IAB report finding that Australian agencies are pushing for greater transparency in programmatic DOOH.