Wil has spoken

TL;DR: We interviewed 28 people across almost 100 tasks, having them use AI to solve a product selection problem, and we ask them what brands people intend to buy, before using AI, then we check what brand they considered after. One AI research session cut GE's purchase consideration in half while lesser known brands like Rheem surged. The questions we wanted to answer: When someone has a task, what brands do they think would solve their problem before they search or use AI?

If you've been looking at the whole "do I have to do listicles" thing and throwing up in your mouth a little, this post is for you. Are you tracking this visibility KPI: Two and a half years ago, I started watching what was working in AI search. And what I saw made me nervous not because it wasn't working, but because it was working, and it shouldn’t.

The Stats 300% increase - In the frequency of people putting personal information into their AI prompts. 270% increase - In what we categorize as delegation prompts (i.e. do this thing for me). 83% decrease - in prompts that look more like keyword searches, than structured thoughts. 25% increase - in median prompt length Here's the full contrast from July 2025 to June 2026, in one frame: Question your AI prompt selection status quo: 1 - How did I pick the prompts I am tracking today?