Welcome to our March Digital Digest!

This month it’s all about visibility, and where to find it, as Meta signs AI licensing deals with major media outlets and cracks down on posts with external links. Plus, we’re taking a look at the changes on the horizon, including the world-wide rollout of the first ever Discover Update and the new AI transparency rules coming into effect on 2nd August.

All this, and more, in our latest Digital Digest. 

Preparing For The Discover Update

The rollout of the first Discover-only Google Update is set to continue.

Google’s first Discover Core Update officially completed its rollout on 27th February, 3 weeks after it launched. As we clarified in our previous Digital Digest, this update initially only affected English-language users in the U.S, but with plans to expand globally it’s time to prepare for the upcoming changes to the Discover experience.

Alongside the first confirmed Google update of the year, the search engine also rolled out new recommendations for appearing in Discover. These updated guidelines include:

• Creating helpful, people-first content.
• Producing unique insights into current topics.
• Avoiding clickbait, sensationalism, and similar tactics.
• And providing a great page experience.

So take the time to implement these suggestions and remember to wait at least a full week after a core update has completed before making any new changes.

International AI Safety Report

The 2026 International AI Safety Report is out now.

With at least 700 million people currently using AI systems each week, the need to identify vulnerabilities and put technical safeguards in place remains central to managing AI-related harm. However, only with a shared understanding of AI can critical decisions around its risks and utilisation be made.

Chaired by Prof. Yoshua Bengio and supported by a network of experts from around the world, the newly published 2026 International AI Safety Report responds to the global mandate made at the 2023 AI Safety Summit to research, assess, and understand AI.

The Report contains research into AI systems and their rapidly evolving capabilities, and aims to address the gaps in existing risk management frameworks; work that is crucial to the long-term adoption of AI technologies, especially since (at the time of publishing) implementing safeguarding initiatives remains largely voluntary.

EU Artificial Intelligence Act

New AI transparency rules are set out in Article 50 of the EU Artificial Intelligence Act.

Article 50 of The EU Artificial Intelligence Act will come into force on 2nd August 2026 with the aim of improving the transparency and detectability of AI systems and their output.

Titled ‘Transparency Obligations for Providers and Deployers of Certain AI Systems’, this new entry into The Act outlines the obligations of AI system providers, which include ensuring that:

• The systems clearly inform users that they are interacting with an AI during their first interaction.
• Emotion recognition systems disclose their operation to all users and process personal data in accordance with the relevant EU regulations.
• All artificially generated output (such as audio, image, video or text content) is disclosed as AI and marked as such in a machine-readable format.
• All deep fake content (including generated or manipulated images, videos, or audio content) is disclosed.

The Article does stipulate that AI-generated text does not need to be disclosed if it has been reviewed, edited, and approved by the humans responsible for its publication. This currently only applies to text that focuses upon matters of public interest, and if any of the above apply to your operations, then it’s time to review your AI disclosure strategies before 2nd August.

Meta AI’s Licensing Deals

Meta AI continues to enter into discussions and deals with major news outlets.

Meta has recently struck an AI licensing deal with News Corp, the parent company of major publications including New York Post and The Wall Street Journal.

This multiyear deal – which will see the media conglomerate receive up to $50 million annually – allows Meta access to copyrighted US and UK content in order to develop its artificial intelligence tools. Meta has already entered into agreements with CNN, People, USA Today, and Fox News, and this newest arrangement is the next step in the organisation’s efforts to offer real-time content and breaking news on Meta AI.

News Corp itself also has existing agreements with other AI platforms, including a 5-year licensing agreement with OpenAI which was signed last year and is reported to be worth $250 million. With referrals to news sites diminishing, many traditional news outlets are establishing similar licensing deals with AI companies to maintain their digital presence and deliver accurate, up-to-date news to online users.

Zero-Click Social Posts

The dominion of zero-click search has officially reached social media.

We already know that social media companies are trying to keep users on their platforms for as long as possible. The ‘infinite scroll’ prerogative, known for maintaining a user’s attention with content from creators and AI, as well as their friends and family, has been widely publicised; however, you might not know that these same platforms are now limiting the reach of organic posts too.

Official Meta recommendations advise businesses and individual creators to publish no more than two posts per month that contain external links. This includes links to blog posts, industry publications, independent reports; even your own website. LinkedIn, a platform that first shrunk their link previews way back in 2023 in an effort to discourage clicks, has also followed suit, quietly penalising posts by dropping their organic reach.

These platforms want to keep users within their own systems and will not promote posts that direct users to external sites, no matter how valuable or insightful these linked resources are. In this new social sphere, we recommend saving your 2 weekly linked posts for your most important announcements and repurposing the content you would usually link to as videos, carousels, and reels.

The Digital Digest

For more information on how the AI era is impacting traditional news media, click here.

For more information on the recent Discover update, click here.

And for advanced AI and SEO optimisation services that build brand credibility, click here!

We will see you next month with a brand new Digital Digest for a brand new quarter.