Search marketers meeting in San Diego this week are doing so with a new set of signals to watch. brightonSEO and Hero Conf are underway on 15 and 16 September 2026 at the San Diego Convention Center, where the agenda spans SEO, AI search, content, digital PR, PPC, paid social and analytics across five stages and more than 150 talks.
That conference backdrop matters because Google has spent 2026 changing how website owners can see and manage their presence inside generative search experiences. The result is that discussions about rankings alone no longer capture the whole job of search strategy.
In June, Google introduced dedicated Search Console reporting for visibility inside generative AI features on Search and Discover. Those reports show impressions, pages, countries, devices for Search, and performance over time, giving site owners a separate view into where their pages appear inside AI features rather than only in the broader performance report.
By 31 August, Google said those insights had rolled out worldwide. Around the same time, Google also said it had expanded a Search Console control that lets website owners decide whether their links and content can appear in and help ground generative AI Search features such as AI Overviews, AI Mode and AI Overviews in Discover.
That combination changes a practical question for businesses: not just whether they rank in classic search results, but whether they are visible in AI-generated interfaces and whether they want to participate there at all. For marketers, measurement and participation have become linked decisions rather than separate conversations.
The new reports are not a replacement for established SEO work. Google’s own guidance still points back to familiar foundations: unique, non-commodity content, clear organization, good page experience, and strong images and video. What has shifted is the surface where that work may show up and the reporting layer attached to it.
For digital PR teams, that can alter what counts as a successful placement. A campaign built mainly around a backlink may still matter, but AI search introduces another route to discovery: a page being surfaced inside generated answers, previews or related links. That makes speed, clarity and source usefulness more strategically relevant.
Google has framed the change in consumer terms. In its June update on website owner controls and insights, the company said AI Overviews had more than 2.5 billion monthly active users and AI Mode had surpassed one billion monthly users. It also said people are asking Search new kinds of questions, creating new opportunities for brands, publishers and creators.
Those figures do not settle every debate about traffic, but they do explain why conference conversations around AI search are becoming less theoretical. When Google adds reporting for impressions within AI features, and a control for opting in or out of those features, it is signaling that this is now an operating environment marketers are expected to manage.
That could push businesses to treat AI visibility as a reporting category of its own. A useful first step is straightforward: separate conventional search performance from generative AI feature visibility, then compare which pages appear in each context. The available fields in Search Console suggest the most immediate questions to ask are where visibility is happening, on which devices, and for which URLs.
The opt-out control adds another strategic layer. Google said sites that opt out will not receive traffic or impressions from its generative AI features, while the setting is not used as a ranking signal for results outside those features. That makes the choice less about penalty risk and more about deciding how a site wants to trade reach, control and presentation.
For publishers and brands alike, that means AI search strategy is no longer only about optimization. It is also about governance. Teams may need editorial, SEO and legal stakeholders aligned on whether they want their material grounding AI responses, and if so, which parts of the site are most valuable to expose through that channel.
Adriaan Brits, CEO of Sitetrail, said: “The exciting thing about this year’s event in San Diego is that we’ve just updated NewsPass to deliver live news from independent media within minutes of submission. Today, the focus is shifting—it’s less about earning a backlink and more about getting cited by AI for speed and accuracy. If you're open to stepping away from the old playbook, this new era of search and discovery offers incredible opportunities.”
That view fits the broader direction of the platform changes. If search discovery increasingly includes generated answers supported by cited or linked sources, then content that is quickly published, clearly structured and easy to interpret may have an advantage over material designed around a narrower link-building playbook alone.
It also helps explain why brightonSEO’s San Diego program puts AI search beside content and digital PR rather than treating it as a specialist side topic. If the same page can influence rankings, referral traffic, AI feature impressions and brand discovery, then content production, technical SEO and communications work start to converge more tightly.
Businesses looking to adjust do not need a wholly new discipline so much as a sharper workflow. The evidence published by Google points toward monitoring AI feature impressions, identifying which pages are appearing there, and strengthening the qualities Google has repeatedly highlighted: uniqueness, page quality, organization and rich supporting media.
That is especially relevant for companies with large content libraries. The pages most suited to generative search may not be the ones previously built for a narrow keyword template. Explanatory resources, clearly segmented product information, and pages that answer specific questions in a structured way may become more important candidates for visibility review.
San Diego’s conference schedule does not determine where SEO is heading, but its timing captures a real inflection point. With brightonSEO now underway and Google’s AI search reporting and controls available globally, businesses now have clearer tools to measure it, decide whether to participate in it and organize content for it.
