Welcome to our November Digital Digest! 

We’re here with a rundown of everything that is currently happening in the world of digital marketing, right up until a new algorithm update, AI model, or internet outage changes everything … shall we see if we can make it until next month?!

Emotional Reliance On AI

OpenAI updates ChatGPT guidelines to identify and respond to signals of ‘relationship building’.  

In our last Digital Digest, we explored the upcoming changes to OpenAI policy regarding content production restrictions (OpenAI Removes Content Guardrails). These user measures were intended for online safeguarding purposes but have now been removed as part of the platform’s drive to treat ‘adults like adults’. 

Despite this, Open AI’s commitment to user safety remains intact, according to a recent company article categorising ‘emotional reliance on AI’ as a safety issue. According to the publication, OpenAI collaborated with mental health experts to set new GPT-5 guidelines that identify signals of an ‘unhealthy attachment’ to the model, and to guide users who demonstrate these behaviours towards real-world support mechanisms.

Introducing Gemini 3 

The launch of Google’s ‘most intelligent search model’ yet.

On November 18th, Google began rolling out Gemini 3 Pro – the first of the new Gemini 3 models – in AI Mode. This new launch is already being hailed by Google itself as its ‘most intelligent model’ ever, promising advanced reasoning, multimodal understanding, and an unprecedented ability to interpret user intent and deliver highly relevant content for challenging queries.

Gemini 3 is supercharging search by combining all of Gemini’s capabilities together into one model, including its generative capabilities. Whilst previous models were limited to text-only answers, Gemini 3 is able to simulate visual elements within its responses, including images, tables, and grids, and Google will use the user feedback that it receives in these first few weeks to further refine the model.

The Global Cloudflare Outage 

A failure within Cloudflare’s network has an impact across the globe.

The launch of Gemini 3 on November 18th may have been slightly overshadowed by the Cloudflare outage that occurred on the same day. The significant outage blocked traffic to websites across the internet and greeted visitors attempting to access these pages with an error message that confused users worldwide.  

The outage was caused by a technical problem with Cloudflare’s internal server, which prevented the pages from loading and was resolved some hours later. The affected pages delivered 500 and 429 errors, which can cause traffic to drop and may even result in a URL being removed from the index if they persist. However, it’s unlikely that the outage lasted long enough to cause such long-term disruption.  

These server errors also temporarily slow down crawlers, so keep an eye on your Search Console and GA4 reporting software over the next few days. Crawl and traffic activity should return to normal and reveal any SEO issues that persist, which you can then tackle by adapting your on-page SEO or internal links.

How To Appear in AI Overviews 

Which searches, keywords, and query types activate these AI-generated snippets? 

Google’s AI Overviews may appear on 20.5% of all SERPs, and for 21% of all keywords, but what exactly triggers Google to generate these targeted overviews? If your end-of-year marketing aims include increased visibility in AI Overviews (AIOs), then you should be optimising your content in line with these trends:  

• AIOs are more often generated in response to longer queries. Queries containing seven or more words activate them 46.4% of the time, whilst single-word queries do so only 9.5% of the time.  
• Since AIOs appear for over half (57.9%) of question queries, and 66.5% of the keywords that trigger AIOs are questions, you should directly answer FAQs in your content.  
• Surprisingly, local searches are very unlikely to trigger AIOs, as they activate for only 7.9% of all local search queries.  
• Searches that include brand-specific keywords trigger AIOs just 23.7% of the time, whilst 76.3% of all AIO-triggering keywords are non-branded. 

The Holidays Are Coming 

Reactions to Coca-Cola’s Christmas advert claim that the magic has been lost.

After last year’s AI-generated ads sparked an online backlash, you’d think Coca-Cola would be hard at work on a heartwarming Christmas advert set to restore faith in the magic of their campaign. Instead, the brand has doubled down and released a full-length advert generated entirely by AI.  

The ‘holidays are coming’ advert has long been the flagship of Coca-Cola’s seasonal campaign, but the use of AI to capture the magic of Christmas has dulled its festive sparkle for many consumers. Since the brand has a global client base and an established presence in the Christmas market, many view the campaign as a missed opportunity to take a stand for artistic integrity and against an increased reliance on AI for creative endeavours, with some critics even speculating that the controversy itself is an intended outcome of the campaign.

The Digital Digest

If you experience a temporary error on your website, an unexpected dip in traffic, or want to talk through any of the developments mentioned in this months’ Digital Digest, we are only ever a phone call away.  

Give us a call on 0121 308 0219 or fill in our contact form today to talk to a member of our team. We’ll also be back next month with our final Digital Digest of the year, so don’t forget to join us then for a look at all the headlines that are set to shape the industry throughout 2026.