A new working paper finds a paid ChatGPT ad visit earned $0.89 in revenue versus $2.45 for a paid Google Search visit, converting at about a third of the rate. Paris Childress asks whether ChatGPT ads are a brand channel priced like performance, then covers publishers suing Brave over its search index, missing AI click data in Search Console, AI Overviews in the brand knowledge panel and Turkey's antitrust probe.
A new working paper puts the first outcome-level numbers on ChatGPT ads. In the US, a paid ChatGPT visit brought in $0.89 in revenue versus $2.45 for a paid Google Search visit, and converted at 0.37% versus 1.17%. Paris Childress asks whether ChatGPT is a performance channel yet, or a brand channel priced like performance.
He also covers four publishers suing Brave over the search index AI assistants pull from, Google's silence on AI click data in Search Console ahead of a UK deadline, AI Overviews showing up in the brand knowledge panel slot, and Turkey's antitrust probe into AI Overviews and AI Mode.
The New York Times, the Daily News, the Chicago Tribune and the Orlando Sentinel sued Brave Software in federal court in New York. They allege Brave copied their journalism into its search index, resold it through its search API to AI companies, and that Ask Brave answers summarize their articles so readers don't visit. The suit targets the search layer AI pulls from rather than the model makers. If reselling an index is found to infringe, AI assistants could find sources harder or more expensive to get, and the same logic could reach Bing and Google.
Poorly, for now. The working paper "Can Advertising Fund Free AI?" by Kaiser and Schulze (October 2026) looked at nearly 1,900 shops and about ten billion sessions from June 2025 to August 2026, with paid revenue figures from 102 advertisers.
"I think there's still kind of an identity crisis here for ChatGPT. I do believe that it's really more like a brand channel." Paris Childress
Early search ads looked bad too, and conversational intent may sit higher in the funnel and pay off later.
Google has nothing to announce yet. Gary Illyes said the team wants to give more data that makes sense. Today the Generative AI report shows impressions only for AI Overviews and AI Mode combined, and AI clicks are folded into the normal performance report. The UK CMA requires impressions, clicks and click-through rates across AI features by December 3, with Google's first compliance report due January 3. Paris's advice: record your AI impressions by page now so you have a baseline when click data arrives, then compare it with AI-referred traffic in GA4.
Possibly. On desktop, AI Overviews for big brand names (Apple, Zillow, Coca-Cola) have been spotted in the right-hand slot where knowledge panels sit, flagged by David McSweeney and Chris Long. Google has not commented. Moving the AI Overview out of the main column could give organic links more room on brand searches. Search your own brand on desktop this week and screenshot what the panel says.
Hi, everybody. Welcome to The GEO Show on Tuesday, November 3rd. The GEO Show is brought to you by GEOforge, full self-driving for AI visibility. And I'm your host, Paris Childress. Let's get into the top story of today. Publishers are suing Brave over its index. The New York Times and three Tribune papers sue Brave over its index and its search API and AI answers.
The New York Times, the Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, and the Orlando Sentinel sued Brave Software in federal court in New York on Monday. They allege Brave copied their journalism into its search index and resold it through its search API to AI companies. They also allege its Ask Brave answers summarized their articles so that readers don't visit. Well, this suit goes after the search layer that AI pulls from, but not the model makers themselves.
So this is the first of its kind. So if reselling an index is found to infringe, then AI assistants could find it harder or more expensive to get sources. And what's interesting here is that these publishers are suing the company that sells the index and as opposed to suing the AI labs themselves. So they have already-- The New York Times has already sued OpenAI.
Now they are suing the index, which is supplying the data via retrieval to the AI labs. And Brave is a search engine, so if indexing and snippets are illegal for Brave, it would follow that that same logic will reach the other major search engines too, like Bing and Google. Brave says that its crawler has no distinct user agent and that its index feeds several AI assistants.
So this is gonna be a very interesting case to watch. Next story. A working paper has reported that a US ChatGPT ad visit earned 89 cents against $2.45 for a Google Search ad visit. A new working paper tracked online shops after ChatGPT ads launched. In the US, a paid ChatGPT visit brought in 89 cents of revenue against $2.45 for a paid Google Search visit, and it converted at about one-third of the rate. This paper is entitled "Can Advertising Fund Free AI?"
by Kaiser and Schulze, version one, published in October 2026. It looked at data from nearly 1,900 shops from June 2025 to August 2026 across around ten billion sessions. The paid revenue figures come from 102 advertisers. On the conversion side, conversion rate was just 0.37% for paid ChatGPT visits versus 1.17% for paid Google Search. If ChatGPT clicks paid back like search clicks, then one of those clicks would be worth about twenty-six cents.
The paper says actual prices run more than six times that, so suggesting a quite negative ROI. On the organic referrals side, ChatGPT referrals to shops fell an estimated five point nine percent in the thirteen weeks after ads launched. The ninety-five percent range runs from minus twelve percent to plus one point two percent, so the change may be zero.
After adjusting for faster US usage growth, the estimates about is minus seven percent to minus eight percent, according to Search Engine Journal. This is the first outcome-level comparison of ChatGPT ads against Google search ads that we have seen so far. But you may ask yourself, is ChatGPT a performance channel yet?
Or is it a brand channel which is priced like performance? I think there's still kind of an identity crisis here for ChatGPT. Its ad platform is kind of positioned against a performance channel, but I do believe that it's really more like a brand channel. Also, it's worth noting that early search ads looked pretty bad too, and conversational intent may sit higher in the funnel and pay off later.
Okay, onto the next story. Google has nothing to announce yet on AI click data in Search Console a month before a UK deadline. Google's Gary Illyes says there's nothing to announce yet on adding AI clicks and queries to Search Console. That's one month before the UK Competition Authority's deadline for Google to give publishers AI click data and click-through rates.
Illyes said on LinkedIn that the team wants to give more data, data that makes sense. The Generative AI report shows impressions only for AI Overviews and AI Mode combined. AI clicks are folded into the normal performance report. The CMA, the UK's Competition Authority, requires impressions, clicks, and click-through rates across AI features by December third, and Google's first compliance report is due on January third.
Well, this is good news for all of us that wanna track this. AI clicks are the most requested missing metric, and the UK rule now puts a date on it.
But it's unclear how this is gonna play out. Will regulators end up deciding how AI search gets measured? And if this is only in the UK, Google might build a UK-only or publisher-only feature that most brands never see. In any case, assuming that this data will arrive, it's important to record your AI impressions by page now so that you have a baseline when the click data arrives.
And I would also be interested to see when the click data does arrive, how that matches up to what's reported from Google Analytics as AI-referred traffic. Because as we've seen with SEO, those those numbers don't always line up, meaning the clicks that are reported in Search Console as organic search clicks versus the organic search clicks that are reported in GA4.
Next story: AI overviews for brand searches are spotted in the right-hand column. On desktop, Google's AI overviews for big brand names are moving out of the main result and into the right-hand panel where knowledge panels used to sit. Google hasn't said whether this is a test. David McSweeney flagged it on October 31st, and Chris Long also on November 2nd.
The example searches were Apple, Zillow, Coca-Cola, Google, and Search Engine Roundtable. There's no Google statement and no count of how many searches are affected.
So when someone searches a brand name, an AI-written summary may now take the knowledge panel's spot, which is an interesting test Google seems to be running. So is the knowledge panel being replaced by an AI summary, or are they gonna merge together? but moving the AI overview out of the main column could also give organic links more room on brand searches.
In any case, search your own brand desktop this week and screenshot what the panel says. This next story comes from Turkey. Turkey opens antitrust probe into Google's AI overviews and AI mode. Turkey's competition authority has opened a formal investigation into AI overviews and AI mode and has already ordered interim measures to protect news publishers.
Turkey is the third regulator looking at Google's AI summaries after Brussels and London.
