August AI Search Updates in Conductor: Track Google AIO, AI Mode & More

“How is my brand really showing up in AI search?”

It’s the most critical question in marketing, and today, getting the answer just became much clearer. We've rolled out a massive update to AI Search Performance, giving you the market's most comprehensive view of the AI landscape.

In the last few weeks alone, we've shipped:

• Full visibility into Google AIO & AI Mode
• Smarter, more strategic ChatGPT tracking (Auto vs. Search)
• An upgrade to the latest GPT-5 model
• And much, much more…

This isn't just about keeping pace; it's about giving you the tools to get ahead. Let's break down what's new.

Unprecedented Coverage: Win Your Space in Google's AI

With over 90% of search market share, Google is the front door to the internet. As they integrate AI directly into their results, your visibility there isn't just an option—it's the new battleground for relevance and traffic.

We now give you the tools to see and strategize for this shift:

• Google AIO (AI Overviews): This tracks the AI-generated answers that appear directly within the traditional Google SERP.
  • Why is this critical? AI Overviews are being pushed to billions of users by default. This feature is the new "position zero," answering user questions before they ever have a chance to click on a link. Monitoring your mentions and citations here is essential for understanding your brand's authority and protecting your organic traffic from getting "scooped" by Google's own answers.
    
    
• Google AI Mode: This tracks your presence in Google's dedicated, fully conversational "AI Mode" tab.
  • Why is this critical? This is Google's vision for the future of search—an interactive, chat-based experience. Unlike other AI tools that require users to go to a separate destination, AI Mode has a "no-friction" advantage because it's built right into the search engine people already use. Tracking your performance here is key to future-proofing your content strategy for the coming wave of conversational search.
    

Strategic Insight: ChatGPT 'Auto' vs. 'Search' Mode

To build a winning AI strategy, you can't just track results; you must understand the mechanics behind them. A crucial mechanic in ChatGPT is its decision to either use its internal training data or perform a live web search for an answer.

By default, a user interacts with ChatGPT in its standard "Auto" mode. However, for deeper research, a user can instruct it to perform a live web search, as seen in the latest GPT-5 interface here:

This distinction is critical. And now we allow you to track both:

• ChatGPT (Auto): This is the default user experience. In this mode, the AI uses its own judgment, automatically switching between its internal training data and performing a live web search if it decides the prompt requires more current information.
  
• ChatGPT (Search): This mode forces the AI to only use the live web for every answer, completely bypassing its internal training data.

So, which mode should you track?

It depends on the types of questions you’re looking to answer to inform your business strategy:

• Track Auto to inform short-term strategy. This mode shows you what your audience sees right now. It's your real-time barometer for brand perception. Use it to spot and react quickly to inaccurate information or negative sentiment before it spreads.
  
• Track Search to inform long-term strategy. This mode is your diagnostic tool for content planning. It helps you understand what content the AI finds and trusts on the live web and what opportunities to capture proactively. For example, if competitors are being cited for a topic where you aren’t, that’s a gap you can work on addressing now. If certain publications are cited for key topics, those are relationships you can build now to build authority over the long-term.

This dual-tracking capability gives you a level of strategic control that simple scraping tools cannot. You can now build a sophisticated AEO plan that balances immediate content plays with long-term brand building.

Stay on the Cutting Edge: Now Powered by GPT-5

The AI models themselves are getting smarter, and we’re committed to making sure you’re always using the latest and greatest technology.

All ChatGPT tracking is now powered by the newest GPT-5 model, ensuring your insights are based on the most current and capable version of the LLM and that best reflects how users are searching today.

Lightning Round: Workflow & Analysis Upgrades

And don’t miss all the other enhancements we’ve rolled-out to improve your workflow and deepen your analysis:

• Sentiment Analysis: Go beyond mentions and understand how your brand is being discussed with positive, neutral, or negative sentiment scoring tied directly to the source.
  
• Mentioned Brands per Prompt: See exactly which of your tracked brands were mentioned in a prompt's results and track changes over time to spot wins and address declines.
  
• Deeper Prompt-Level Insights: Instantly see how a response was generated ('Search Mode') and whether an AI answer appeared at all ('Response Generated', which isn’t always the case for AIO), giving you more clarity on your data.
  
• AI Topic Map Integration: See which tracked and recommended topics align to the content opportunities identified in AI Topic Map (in Conductor Creator), seamlessly connecting your content strategy workflows to performance measurement.
  
• Improved Topic Configuration: Enjoy a smarter, faster setup experience with updated search engine selection and cached topic recommendations that load instantly.