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StrategyLatest8 June 2026· 16 min read

How to build a brand memory layer for AI on Google Cloud: the A‑to‑Z guide

Your AI tools are brilliant and amnesiac, every session starts from zero. A brand memory layer fixes that: a permanent, governed store of your brand’s context that any AI can read. Here’s how to build one on Firebase and Google Cloud, run the build like a disciplined agile team, and wire it into Claude Code, Google Antigravity, Codex or any assistant you prefer.

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Strategy7 June 2026

Shopify’s Universal Commerce Protocol: what agentic checkout means for D2C brands

Shopify has published an open standard, co-developed with Google, for letting AI agents complete a whole shopping journey by conversation. Forged from billions of transactions and backed by millions of merchants, the Universal Commerce Protocol is the plumbing of agentic commerce, and it changes how D2C brands get found and bought.

5 min read →

Strategy6 June 2026

Google Marketing Live 2026: what it means for D2C brands

Google Marketing Live 2026 was, in a sentence, Google rebuilding the ad stack around AI as the interface. Across Search, YouTube, Commerce and Apps, one theme runs through everything, and it changes how D2C brands get found, chosen and bought.

5 min read →

AI Search6 June 2026

You can finally measure AI Overviews: Search Console’s new gen-AI reports

On 3 June 2026 Google gave site owners a dedicated Search Console view of their visibility inside AI Overviews and AI Mode. Here’s what the new generative-AI performance reports show, and the one metric that’s conspicuously missing.

4 min read →

Google Ads5 June 2026

Performance Max for D2C brands: a practical 2026 playbook

Google’s most automated campaign type can be a D2C brand’s highest-leverage channel, or a quiet budget incinerator. The difference is almost entirely in the inputs you hand the machine. Here’s how to run Performance Max profitably.

4 min read →

Microsoft Ads4 June 2026

Microsoft Ads for D2C brands: the channel your competitors ignore

Most D2C brands skip Microsoft Advertising, and most should not. It is smaller than Google, but the audience and the economics are different in ways that favour considered, higher-value purchases, and you can be live this afternoon.

4 min read →

AI Search29 May 2026

What is AEO? The D2C brand’s guide to Answer Engine Optimisation

Search is splitting in two: the old list of blue links, and a new layer of AI answers that quote sources instead of ranking them. Answer Engine Optimisation is how you earn a place inside those answers, here’s the complete primer for D2C brands.

12 min read →

AI Search22 May 2026

Google AI Overviews & AI Mode: the D2C playbook for staying visible

AI Overviews now sit above the organic results for a large share of queries, and AI Mode turns search into a conversation. Here’s how D2C brands earn citations, protect traffic, and adapt to a search page that increasingly answers before it links.

11 min read →

Strategy15 May 2026

Engineering product pages that AI answer engines love to recommend

Your product page was built to convert a human who already clicked. In an answer-engine world it also has to convince a model to recommend you before the human ever arrives. Here’s how to write and structure pages that do both.

10 min read →

AI Search8 May 2026

Getting your brand cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity and Copilot

The new answer engines each pick sources differently, and none of them work like Google. Here’s what we know about how ChatGPT Search, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot choose who to cite, and how D2C brands earn a place in their answers.

9 min read →

Strategy1 May 2026

Measuring AEO: the KPIs that matter when the click disappears

Answer engines often satisfy a query without sending a click, which breaks the attribution model most D2C brands rely on. Here’s a practical framework for measuring answer-engine visibility, influence and downstream impact when the old metrics go dark.

10 min read →

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