What’s going on in marketing right now: October 2026

October was a busy month for anyone working in search, social, paid media or web development. AI keeps reshaping how people find brands, Google is changing how we measure SEO and the ad platforms are handing more of the heavy lifting to automation. Here’s what happened and what it means for your marketing and for your clients.

SEO and search

Google Search Console is getting dark mode

A small one to start. Google previewed a dark mode for Search Console at an industry presentation in early October. Google Search itself has had a dark theme for years, so it’s a welcome catch-up for anyone who spends long days in their reports. No game changer, but your eyes will thank you.

The September spam update has finished

Google’s September 2026 spam update started on 24 September and finished rolling out on 8 October. That’s a two-week rollout, where the last few spam updates wrapped up in two days, and some SEOs felt the impact was closer to a core update.

Google says sites hit by the update should check they meet its spam policies, and that recovery can take months. That makes now a good time to audit any AI-assisted content. Thin, mass-produced or unedited AI copy is exactly the kind of thing that puts rankings at risk. Every page should earn its place with genuine expertise, a clear purpose and a human edit.

Rank tracking tools are struggling

If your SEO tools have shown some strange movement lately, you’re not alone. Since September, Google has been making life much harder for third-party rank trackers. It’s blocking proxy networks, serving more captchas and, in some cases, feeding scrapers deliberately wrong results.

The last part is the tricky one. Nozzle found around 8% of the results pages it collected had been tampered with, and Ahrefs puts the figure at between 5% and 20% depending on the data provider. Most of the big tools have added filters and corrected past data, but some keyword positions may still look like false drops.

The practical takeaway: treat sudden ranking changes with caution, sense-check them against Google Search Console and warn clients before their monthly reports go out. Read our full guide to what’s happening with rank tracking [link to follow].

Rankings are shaking again

Google hasn’t confirmed a core update, but it’s been a bumpy end to the month. Search Engine Roundtable reported a bigger spike in ranking volatility on 27 October, following smaller unconfirmed shifts on 16, 20 to 21 and 24 October.

With rank trackers still unreliable, it’s easy to misread what’s happening. If a client’s positions or traffic have moved, check Search Console before drawing conclusions, and give it a few days to settle before making big changes.

AI search and GEO

Gemini 4 Argon arrives in AI Mode, with links back

On 13 October, Google started rolling out Gemini 4 Argon in AI Mode worldwide. For now it’s available to Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers, and Google says it’s better at handling complex, multi-step questions and following instructions across a conversation.

The bit that matters for marketers is the links. When Gemini 3.8 Flash launched in AI Mode, its answers came without links to websites. This time, links are back in the responses. That keeps generative engine optimisation (GEO) firmly on the agenda: if AI answers can still send people to your site, it pays to be one of the sources they cite.

AI Overviews now appear on over 80% of searches

AI Overviews are no longer the exception. Data from Semrush, SE Ranking and seoClarity suggests they now show for more than 80% of Google searches, up from around 50% in June 2025 and about 15% the year before. Coverage varies by sector, so it’s worth checking how often they appear for the searches that matter most to you.

Social posts appear in 68% of AI Overviews

A new SE Ranking study covered by Social Media Today looked at 100,000 keywords and found links to social platforms in 67.66% of Google AI Overviews. They also showed up in around a third of AI Mode answers and 8.4% of ChatGPT responses.

YouTube was the most cited source in AI Overviews, while Reddit and LinkedIn led the way in ChatGPT. The lesson is simple: an active, useful social presence now does more than build engagement. It helps your brand appear when people ask AI tools for recommendations, so social and search strategies should be planned together rather than in separate silos.

Paid media

Google Ads now pulls promotions from your website

From 12 October, Google Ads started automatically adding offers from advertisers’ websites to their ads. If a landing page promotes a deal like “20% off this weekend”, Google can turn it into a promotion asset without anyone setting it up.

For now it only applies to Search and Performance Max campaigns that have location assets and no manual promotion assets. Accounts are opted in by default, and you can switch it off in the account-level automated assets settings.

It sounds handy, but it puts your website in charge of what your ads promise. An expired sale banner or a regional offer left live could end up in front of searchers. Before the Black Friday and Christmas rush, make sure every offer on your site is current, or add manual promotion assets to the campaigns where you need full control.

ChatGPT is testing visual ads

OpenAI announced on 5 October that it will test a new visual ad format in ChatGPT. The ads appear while ChatGPT generates an image, are clearly labelled and sit separately from the image itself. Testing is starting in the US with a small group of advertisers.

OpenAI also expanded its measurement partners, adding integrations that let advertisers send conversion data from the tools they already use. The visual format is US-only for now, but it’s a clear sign that AI assistants are becoming ad platforms in their own right. It’s worth starting to think about how your brand would show up there.

ChatGPT Ads will now rewrite your ads by default

OpenAI is switching on “creative enhancements” for ChatGPT Ads for new and existing campaigns. Using your ad, your landing page and the conversation it appears in, the system can rewrite headlines and descriptions, translate your copy, resize images and send clicks to a different page on your website. These versions can run without you reviewing or approving each one.

OpenAI’s own messages give different start dates of 29, 30 and 31 October, so the safest assumption is that it’s already live. Here’s what to do:

• Check your settings now. You can switch enhancements off in Ads Manager under Manage settings, at any time.
• Check every live campaign. Campaign-level settings override the account default, so turning it off for the account won’t cover a campaign where it’s switched on.
• Don’t rely on the reporting. Results aren’t split between enhanced versions and your original ads, so you can’t easily tell what’s working.

For brands in regulated sectors, or with strict tone of voice and messaging rules, the safest move is to opt out and only test enhancements on a single campaign you’re watching closely.

Social media

TikTok doubles down on AI ad tools, but brands need to stay in control

At Advertising Week New York in early October, TikTok unveiled a raft of AI-driven ad products. They include in-app checkout, a conversational shopping assistant, an AI agent that captures and qualifies leads and a new Smart+ workflow that pulls your own assets, AI-generated creative and creator content into one place for approval. Most of these don’t have UK launch dates yet.

The timing was awkward. Days later, the National Trust paused all its TikTok advertising after AI-generated adverts promoting its membership appeared on the platform. The charity said an automated TikTok Ads feature had created them in error, and marketers were quick to point out how out of step they felt with its usual brand.

The lesson for every brand on TikTok: check your ad groups for AI-generated variations you didn’t create, and make sure the setting that automatically adds newly generated assets during delivery is switched off unless you actively want it. Automation can save time, but your brand still needs a human signing it off.

Shoppable image carousels come to TikTok Shop in the UK

TikTok Shop has given UK sellers shoppable image carousels, so products can be sold from a swipeable set of photos without making a video. TikTok recommends five to seven images per carousel. It lowers the barrier for brands with strong product photography but little video content, and it’s a quick win for testing new products.

LinkedIn tests a split “Network” and “For You” feed

LinkedIn is testing a feed with two tabs: Network, showing posts from people you’re connected to or follow, and For You, showing recommended posts from outside your network. LinkedIn’s chief product officer has confirmed the test, which is only live for a small number of users for now.

If it rolls out, it could change how B2B brands earn organic reach. A big follower count won’t guarantee visibility in the For You tab, while a smaller account sharing genuinely useful expertise could reach people who’ve never heard of it. That favours specific, first-hand insight from real people across a business, not generic posts. LinkedIn has also been cracking down on low-quality AI content, so the same principle applies: say something worth reading.

Web and security

Critical PHP flaws: check every site

Two cybersecurity firms, helped by AI, have found critical security flaws in PHP that had gone unnoticed for at least ten years. The PHP Group has released a security update and is urging everyone to move to the latest patched versions. The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) recommends that all organisations identify every system running PHP.

PHP powers WordPress, so this affects a huge number of websites, including many charity, housing and hospitality sites. Some organisations have already taken platforms offline while they carry out checks. If your website runs on WordPress, make sure your host or web team has applied the update, and keep WordPress core, themes and plugins up to date too.

What it all means

The common thread this month is automation. Google, TikTok and OpenAI are all handing more decisions to AI, from which offers appear in your ads to what your creative looks like. That can save time and money, but only if someone is keeping an eye on what goes out in your name, especially if you’re doing work on behalf of your clients that might see criticism thrown back your way.