GEA Research Center

Pioneering research and actionable insights on Generative Engine Advertising, AI search optimization, and brand visibility in the age of conversational AI.

From understanding LLM behavior to optimizing for ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude — the Smalk blog is where marketing meets artificial intelligence.

Jul 22, 20264 min readAI Search
Aperçus IA en France : ce que deux ans d'expérience américaine nous enseignent

Aperçus IA en France : ce que deux ans d'expérience américaine nous enseignent

Google déploie les Aperçus IA et le Mode IA en France ce 22 juillet 2026. Deux ans après les États-Unis, voici ce que le marché français peut anticiper, et le nouveau contrat à écrire.

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Jul 18, 20265 min readAI Search
AI Search Business Discovery Is Replacing the Google Listing

AI Search Business Discovery Is Replacing the Google Listing

Google taught millions of businesses to get found with a simple listing. AI chatbots are rewriting that playbook — moving discovery from clicks to citations, on both sides of the market.

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Jul 16, 20263 min readAI Search
AI Search Is Draining Publisher Ad Revenue. What Replaces It?

AI Search Is Draining Publisher Ad Revenue. What Replaces It?

Ozone data shows publisher ad supply fell up to 40% in Q2 2026 while prices rose. Scarcity pricing is buying time, not a future. Here's the economy forming inside the AI answer.

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Jul 14, 20264 min readAI Search
The AI Citation Monetization Gap Nobody's Closed Yet

The AI Citation Monetization Gap Nobody's Closed Yet

Publishers can finally count what AI engines cite. Nobody's built the market to pay for it — and OpenAI's own ad math proves the gap is real.

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Jul 13, 20263 min readGEA
OpenAI's Ad Expansion Proves GEA Works. Publishers Still Aren't Paid

OpenAI's Ad Expansion Proves GEA Works. Publishers Still Aren't Paid

OpenAI's ad pilot hit $100M ARR in six weeks and is expanding into France, Germany and Ireland. Its own exec confirmed publishers get none of it. Here's the gap Smalk AI closes.

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Jul 13, 20264 min readAI Search
Inside the AI Recommendation Layer Your Website Can't Control

Inside the AI Recommendation Layer Your Website Can't Control

AI chatbots build recommendations from other people's content, not your homepage — and almost no one gets paid for supplying the evidence that wins the recommendation.

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Jul 5, 20265 min readAI Search
AI Answers Have Gatekeepers. The Missing Piece Is a Payment Rail.

AI Answers Have Gatekeepers. The Missing Piece Is a Payment Rail.

Fifteen domains control 68% of what AI engines cite. The governance debate is real, but without an ad model that pays publishers for feeding the answer, transparency alone changes nothing.

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Jul 4, 20265 min readAI Search
AI Search Took the Click. Now It's Taking the Signal.

AI Search Took the Click. Now It's Taking the Signal.

A field experiment confirms AI Overviews cut publisher clicks by 40%. But lost traffic is only half the problem — the quality signals that made content discoverable are disappearing with it.

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Jul 2, 20262 min watchRetail Media
Retail Media x Agentic Commerce: quels impacts? Video

Retail Media x Agentic Commerce: quels impacts?

Kristofer Moisan, Founder & CEO de SMALK AI, revient sur le 3e mind Retail Day consacré à la maîtrise de l’accélération de l’IA en 2026. Plus de 100 personnes étaient réunies à l’espace Onepoint à Paris le jeudi 25 juin 2026, pour assister à cette matinée de débats... Un événement du groupe mind.

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Jun 30, 20265 min readAI Search
AI Search Advertising in 2026: Beside the Answer, Not Inside

AI Search Advertising in 2026: Beside the Answer, Not Inside

eMarketer says 80%+ of US AI advertising in 2026 runs beside AI answers, not inside them. The money found the new surface — but not the native format, or the rail that pays publishers.

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Jun 30, 202610 min watchAI Search
 Smalk AI : monétiser l’influence des agents IA pour réinventer l’Open Web Video

Smalk AI : monétiser l’influence des agents IA pour réinventer l’Open Web

Smalk AI part d’une constat : à l’ère de ChatGPT, Perplexity ou AI Overviews, ce ne sont plus seulement les internautes qui visitent les pages… mais des agents IA délégués par les humains. Et ces visites ont une valeur économique à monétiser. Explications avec Kristofer Moisan, cofondateur de la société.

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Jun 29, 20265 min readCannes Lions 2026
My Cannes Lions 2026 Highlights: AI Search Ate the Croisette

My Cannes Lions 2026 Highlights: AI Search Ate the Croisette

Twenty years of Cannes argued about the ad. This year argued about whether brands and publishers even appear inside the AI answer. My highlights, decoded.

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Jun 19, 20265 min readAI Search
ChatGPT Ads Reach Buyers Google Can't — On Content No One Pays For

ChatGPT Ads Reach Buyers Google Can't — On Content No One Pays For

ChatGPT is monetizing demand keyword search was never built to reach. But the new ad economy runs on publisher content — and not a cent flows back to the source.

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Jun 3, 20265 min readAI Search
Planning for Google Zero: How Publishers Survive the Citation Economy

Planning for Google Zero: How Publishers Survive the Citation Economy

Publishers are now modeling life with no Google traffic at all. The smart ones aren't waiting to find out if Google Zero is real — they're re-architecting for a web where citation, not the click, is the unit of value.

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Jun 2, 20265 min readAI Search
Google's Preferred Sources Gives Publishers Visibility, Not Revenue

Google's Preferred Sources Gives Publishers Visibility, Not Revenue

Google brought Preferred Sources into AI Overviews and AI Mode. It's a visibility upgrade for incumbent brands — not the payment rail the citation economy actually needs.

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May 30, 20265 min readAI Search
Google Is Quietly Building Its Own AI Search Network

Google Is Quietly Building Its Own AI Search Network

Preferred Sources, carousels, and Highly Cited badges aren't features. They're Google assembling an owned-and-operated AI Search network — controlling discovery and monetization while publishers supply the content.

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May 29, 20265 min readAI Search
The Buy Side's AI Blind Spot Is Becoming a Structural Risk

The Buy Side's AI Blind Spot Is Becoming a Structural Risk

AI chatbots aren't just draining publisher traffic — they're quietly eroding the open internet's ad inventory. Media buyers who haven't repriced this shift yet are running out of time.

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May 28, 20265 min readAI Search
Microsoft Says Open the Gates. Google Keeps Closing Them. Publishers Need a Third Option.

Microsoft Says Open the Gates. Google Keeps Closing Them. Publishers Need a Third Option.

Microsoft is begging publishers to let AI crawlers in. Google's AI Mode keeps eating the clicks that funded them. The link economy is collapsing into a citation economy with no payment rail. That's the missing layer.

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May 27, 20265 min readIA Search
Pay-Per-Crawl Isn't Enough: Publishers Need an AI Search Ad Model

Pay-Per-Crawl Isn't Enough: Publishers Need an AI Search Ad Model

For 20 years the contract was simple: create content, attract audience, monetize. The audience is now agentic — and pay-per-crawl is not the ad model the open web needs.

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May 26, 20265 min readAI Search
AI-First Media Has Arrived. Google I/O 2026 Just Made It Official.

AI-First Media Has Arrived. Google I/O 2026 Just Made It Official.

DNVB conquered Shopify. Social-first media conquered the feed. After Google I/O 2026, AI-first media — built to be ingested and cited by LLMs — is the next native-distribution category.

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May 25, 20265 min readRecherche IA
The Zero-Click Era Is Here. The Citation Economy Begins.

The Zero-Click Era Is Here. The Citation Economy Begins.

Publishers are not panicking about Google's AI Search overhaul. They are resigning. That is the tell. Here is the parallel economy taking its place.

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May 24, 20265 min de lectureAI Search
Google I/O 2026: When the Agent Searches, Who Pays Publishers ?

Google I/O 2026: When the Agent Searches, Who Pays Publishers ?

Google I/O 2026's Gemini Spark searches the web for you overnight. When the clicker is a machine, the ad economy built on the human click has no billing event.

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