The hottest story of the year will be the worldwide move from search engines to AI search. It will affect both searchers and every website that has ever been searched. While things get sorted out, it’s going to feel as though the Internet will be one big beta test.

Using traditional search, you open your browser, type in a simple query such as “down jacket,” and you’ll be shown a long list of websites ready to sell you a down jacket. The ones that appear early in your result list have either bought a sponsored placement or have optimized their site for surfacing high in traditional search result lists.

In contrast, AI search starts with ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini or another AI platform. You’ll have the opportunity to ask far more nuanced questions such as “I need a washable red down jacket that weighs no more than 1 pound and can withstand Icelandic winters.” The answer will require websites to optimize their content in entirely new ways and to personalize their search answers, demonstrating their prowess in understanding their customers' intent. 

What does this mean? The entire internet will be rebuilt on a new model. And that new model is going to be costly to businesses that have invested heavily in their current Internet presence. They’ll now need to invest a again to focus on an AI search world where they have less control and more unknowns. 

Since AI often answers a query directly, users may never visit the original websites. This is already causing the emergence of “zero-click searches.” Answers will be summarized by AI. For web publishers, this will mean lower site visits and fewer clicks, translating to less ad revenue. Traditional SEO would optimize for keyword rankings and snippets of information. AI-generated search results will force websites to think in terms of clear answers and more structured content. For a deeper dive, visit Perplexity’s summary.

How popular was I Love Lucy, the 1950s sitcom? According to Stat Significant, it measurably disrupted daily American life:

• Marshall Field's, one of the country's largest department stores, changed its Monday evening hours in response to a noticeable drop in foot traffic during the show's airtime.
• CBS, the sitcom's broadcast network, received several complaints from Parent-Teacher Associations requesting the show be moved from its 9 pm time slot so their children might go to bed earlier (while also being able to watch the series).
• Telephone companies and municipal water departments reported a substantial decline in activity during the show's broadcast, and New Yorkers frequently complained of taxi shortages during the show.
• And I Love Lucy had staying power, running for 6 years and 180 episodes. 

Of Sitcoms and Shared Moments 

The sitcom (think of programs such as Friends and Cheers) has fallen on hard times. Why? It’s difficult to schedule regular commitments to episodic watching in an age when you can rewatch on your own time. Shared moments have become less critical. If you miss it, it will still be there, which takes away the urgency. 

The closest time-slotted Internet corollary I can think of as a shared moment was not a sitcom, but HQ Trivia, a game show that came out in 2017. You would download the app and then at exactly 3 PM and 9 PM EST you would be given a series of increasingly difficult multiple-choice trivia questions. If you answered one wrong, you were eliminated from the contest. If you answered them all correctly, you shared a pooled prize that could be as much as $400,000, which made it a very expensive game to produce and maintain.

In NYC, my hometown, people would exit the subway at 2:55 just to be in a place where they could get online and participate. In my apartment building, we’d gather round the doorman (he knew sports) to help us clinch a win. The series ended due to infighting and financial troubles. But for a brief moment, the Internet brought people together for a shared moment in time.

Google Beam: 3D Meetings So Close You Can See the Nose Hairs
At InfoComm, behind closed doors, I got to see the next iteration of video conferencing and it's most definitely 3D and realistic. HP provided the screen and audio hardware component, Google provided its Beam software. And the companies worked with Zoom, as well as other messaging systems (not MS Teams) to offer a breathtaking 3D video conferencing solution designed to make you feel a true presence with the other person in the meeting. 

The magic? It's a display screen with lots of cameras built into its bezel. Google Beam uses its

AI to stitch together the camera images to create a lifelike presence. When I tried the system out, the other person in the meeting handed me an apple (the fruit) that I could almost feel and taste.

Roblox Gives Kids Simulations About Grown Up Topics
On Roblox you can play an ICE agent and barge into another player’s house to have them deported. You can patrol borders and knock on doors. You can protest, too, according to User Magazine, which has documented the phenomenon. The question is whether this game is a version of cops and robbers, or an instructive community lesson in how ICE might work. 

AI Summaries Of Events Could be the New Swag 
You dutifully attend an event session, sitting as attentively as you can. But in the end you struggle to remember the key takeaways. Two new products, Voxo and Rozie AI, ingest the input from conference sessions and panels, and automate handsome, actionable takeaways.

Rozie can ingest conference content and use AI-generated summaries to provide insight, analytics, and even translations. Image credit: Rozie AI 

Planning for Uncertainty
I just spoke to a good friend in the events business who can’t get his lanyards and name badges through customs — it’s been a month. Skift Meetings just released a survey on the impact of Trump administration policies on the meetings industry. It revealed that 9 out of 10 planners are concerned about rising costs due to tariffs and the loss of international attendees. Almost a third (29%) have already changed locations due to geopolitical conditions.