The answer depends significantly on what kind of business you are. According to BrightLocal’s 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey, 45% of consumers are now using generative AI platforms such as ChatGPT or Google Gemini for local recommendations – up from just 6% in 2025. That one data point speaks volumes about how fast things are moving.

A local service provider whose customers are asking Perplexity for recommendations right now has a different and more urgent problem than a B2B SaaS company with a long enterprise sales cycle. Most businesses are adapting their strategies mid-flight, tailoring their strategies to their specific industries and measurement goals.

What’s becoming clearer is where the real leverage sits – third-party coverage and off-site mentions are driving AI citation rates far more than owned content. Measurement tools built specifically for AI visibility are starting to emerge. And the businesses seeing the strongest results are those treating SEO and GEO as connected disciplines rather than separate ones.

We put the question to the specialists. Here’s what they said.

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Our Experts

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• Myles Anderson, CEO, BrightLocal
• Marcus Hearn, SEO Specialist, Another Concept
• Mindy Faieta, Head of Customer Success, Stateshift
• Monica Tomasso, Chief AI Visibility Expert, Monic AI Systems
• Jeremy Moser, CEO, uSERP
• Cathy Farmer, Head of GEO, Third City
• Ben Gibson, UK CEO, Cosmo5
• Jo Wilmot, PR Director, The Think Tank
• Kat Gibbons, Strategic Director, Bamboo
• Fiorela Imerai, Account Director, Wildcat Digital
• Hannah Spelman, Head of Organic Marketing, I-COM
• Andrew McLernon, CEO and Co-founder, Interlink
• Chris Pitt, CEO, GAIN Performance

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Myles Anderson, CEO, BrightLocal

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“Our 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey found that 45% – up from just 6% in 2025 – of consumers are now using generative AI platforms such as ChatGPT or Google Gemini for local recommendations.

“In the era of AI-driven search and zero-click results, local success is no longer just about ranking – it’s about becoming the most trusted and verified option in your market. Search engines now look for a consistent pattern of activity rather than one-off changes.

“The traditional SEO playbook is ready for an update, and businesses need to start taking a tailored approach to each platform. Google Business Profiles, websites and third-party directories are the sources of truth for AI – keep your information updated and accurate so LLMs and search engines can verify your legitimacy. On TikTok and YouTube, focus on content that answers questions: how-to and explainer videos for service businesses drive strong visibility in AI search. And don’t overlook Maps – our research found that one in five people conduct local searches directly in maps, which means your Google Business Profile deserves as much care as your website.

“Local SEO is only as good as the leads it generates. Focus on what actually matters by measuring the actions that drive revenue, not vanity metrics. The growth of generative AI search means brands must lean into Google’s E-E-A-T framework more than ever. Search success in 2026 involves maintaining a consistent presence across a wide variety of touchpoints and making sure your business is positioned as trustworthy and helpful to consumers.”

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Marcus Hearn, SEO Specialist, Another Concept

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“Your approach to GEO should really depend on the vertical in which you’re operating.

“F�ǰ� publishers, we’ve seen very little benefit from optimising to increase citations, and in terms of traffic it has effectively become a form of brand PR. Someone else is ultimately going to get cited if you’re not there, so it should still be on your radar but the time would be better spent optimising for Google Discover, which in our experience provides up to five times as many sessions versus organic search.

“F�ǰ� ecommerce and lead gen it’s slightly different, as the user is, for the moment, still required to visit your website to achieve their goal. For ecommerce, we’ve found implementing product-level reviews to be the most influential factor in increasing citations and recommendations. Product-level FAQs or bullet point summaries of key product information have also delivered positive results.

“One of our best performing clients for AI referral sessions, of which it sees around a 40% conversion rate, has none of the technical optimisations implemented. They simply have a strong SEO strategy, really great reviews, get natural recommendations on UGC forums like Reddit, and are active in digital PR. So therein probably lies your answer.”

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Mindy Faieta, Head of Customer Success, Stateshift

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“The old SEO playbook assumed a click was the prize, but that’s changing fast. When AI Overviews, ChatGPT and others answer the question right on the page, the click never happens, so chasing rankings for traffic that no longer shows up is wasted effort most of the time.

“What still works is being useful and being citable. AI tools pull from sources they can parse and trust, so the most important thing now is making your content easy for models to extract and quote. We bind the brand name and ICP language into the first 100 to 150 words of every post, structure it so an LLM can lift a clean answer, and lead with real data and direct quotes instead of surface-level summaries. But just being cited isn’t enough. You want to be mentioned by brand name. There’s not much benefit if AI uses your information without naming you.

“The biggest mistake I see founders make is dragging old SEO habits into this, especially the instinct to chase prompt volume and keyword breadth. GEO rewards depth, not coverage. The opportunity is that most businesses haven’t caught up yet. I recommend tracking your AI visibility with a tool like Peec AI, Otterly or Profound. And it’s more than the content on your own site. It’s the full digital PR picture: mentions on Reddit, LinkedIn and third-party outlets. Join the conversation where it’s already happening.”

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Monica Tomasso, Chief AI Visibility Expert, Monic AI Systems

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“One of the biggest shifts I’m seeing is that AI search is no longer a single-query experience. Users ask a question, refine it, compare options and continue the conversation in the same session. That means brands are no longer competing just to ‘rank’ once. They’re competing to stay in the conversation.

“What I’m seeing in practice is that the businesses performing best in AI search usually have enough depth and consistency for AI systems to keep returning to them as the conversation evolves. I often describe this as conversational persistence or conversation survivability.

“Companies optimise only for the first question. The real opportunity is building enough connected expertise, trust signals and conversational content for AI systems to confidently continue recommending the brand throughout the buyer journey.”

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Jeremy Moser, CEO, uSERP

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“Every GEO and AEO solution on the market tells you to publish significantly more content to ‘show up in AI engines.’ Structure that content for LLMs. Spin off 100 programmatic posts per month. Chunk your content. Listicles. Comparison posts. While publishing great content in multiple formats on core keywords and prompts is a good foundation, that’s one of the smallest pieces of the puzzle. It’s table stakes now. Everyone is doing it.

“As a business, you don’t actually want more citations in AI. You want more mentions for decision-making prompts. You want your brand to be recommended when someone asks ChatGPT ‘what are the best solutions for XYZ’ more than you want ChatGPT to cite your article as a source for an informational, broad prompt.

“And the best way to make that happen? Off-page SEO, link building, brand building and PR. AI engines only pull from your site 8% of the time when recommending you. Meaning 92% of the time an LLM gives a brand recommendation, it’s pulling from other websites that mention and discuss the topic.”

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Cathy Farmer, Head of GEO, Third City

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“The old SEO playbook assumed one thing: the user would click. That assumption is now broken. AI platforms like ChatGPT Search, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews are synthesising answers directly from source material, and the visit never happens. Ranking first means nothing if the model answers the question before the user reaches your site.

“What still works is credibility at scale. LLMs draw on patterns across everything that’s been published about a brand, not just your own website. Third-party coverage in high-authority publications, consistent messaging across owned and earned channels, a clear and distinctive point of view that actually exists in the world – these things matter more now than ever.

“What’s broken is the feedback loop. Traditional SEO gave you rankings, click data and clear signals. GEO doesn’t. You’re not optimising a page, you’re shaping how a model understands your brand across hundreds of sources. To get any meaningful read on that, you need to run queries at volume and track patterns. That’s exactly why we built our own AI visibility tool, GEOView, which runs LLM searches at scale so clients can see how, and how consistently, they’re being cited. It starts with understanding where you actually stand.”

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Ben Gibson, UK CEO, Cosmo5

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“The core of the problem is that ranking and reaching an audience are no longer the same thing. Businesses are holding their positions in search results and still watching traffic fall, because the question is being answered before anyone clicks through. That breaks the assumption the old SEO playbook was built on.

“What still works is authority. AI systems weight trusted media coverage, thought leadership, structured content that addresses real questions and signals from peer communities and review platforms. The brands surfacing consistently in AI-generated responses tend to have a coherent presence across the sources these models draw on, not just a well-optimised website.

“The opportunity lies in treating SEO and GEO as connected rather than parallel. Content built around genuine user intent, distributed across credible sources and reinforced by consistent brand signals serves both. Visibility is moving upstream, and those that understand where in that journey they are being defined, and by what, are the ones better positioned for where search is heading.”

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Jo Wilmot, PR Director, The Think Tank

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“One big change we’re seeing: a few months back, we were telling prospects about GEO and AI search and the reaction was somewhere between a blank stare and ‘I’ll worry about this when it’s time to worry about it.’ Over the last six weeks, that’s changed. Every company that approaches us for PR services is asking us if we can help get them discovered in GEO. With about 90% of AI search citations coming from earned media, according to a recent Muck Rack report, the answer is definitely yes.

“AI pays attention to media coverage in a way that makes it a direct input into whether AI surfaces you. Since AI cites it when delivering instant answers, humans have to pay attention too.

“F�ǰ� companies that have already invested in SEO for years, your money wasn’t wasted. AI search is still informed by the fundamentals of good SEO. But the added layer is getting coverage in the media, whether that’s in big outlets or niche, relevant trade publications. Different LLMs use different media sets – research shows that Claude cites niche titles more than ChatGPT. So depending on your audiences and which LLMs they use, you might need to select different campaign approaches.”

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Kat Gibbons, Strategic Director, Bamboo

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“AI hasn’t killed SEO, but it has fundamentally changed what success looks like. For years, the goal was winning clicks from search results. Now, the challenge is winning visibility and trust in a world where AI tools answer questions without sending users to a website.

“What’s broken? The old playbook of producing high volumes of keyword-led content designed to rank. If your strategy relies on being the tenth version of an answer, AI will summarise it before a user ever sees your site.

“What still works is creating genuinely useful content rooted in expertise, experience and originality. AI models need sources, opinions and evidence to reference. Brands that publish unique insights, expert commentary and real-world perspectives are more likely to be surfaced than those repackaging information already available elsewhere.

“The opportunity is to think beyond rankings and focus on discoverability. People now encounter content through AI-generated answers, LinkedIn posts, industry publications and peer recommendations as much as traditional search. SEO is no longer about being searchable; it’s about being the source that AI, journalists and industry peers choose to reference. That’s a much bigger opportunity than a click.”

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Fiorela Imerai, Account Director, Wildcat Digital

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“AI search is not killing SEO, but it is making lazy SEO much harder to hide. If a strategy is built around generic blog content, broad keywords and traffic for traffic’s sake, it’s going to struggle, because AI Overviews, ChatGPT Search and Perplexity can answer a lot of those basic queries without sending anyone to the site.

“The brands that will win in 2026 are the ones that become harder to summarise without citing. That means sharper product and service pages, genuinely useful expert content, clear answers to real customer questions, strong technical foundations, structured data and authority signals beyond the website itself – reviews, digital PR, industry mentions and credible third-party coverage.

“What is broken is the idea that SEO is only about rankings and sessions. Those still matter, but they are no longer the full picture. The question for businesses is no longer just ‘are we ranking?’ It is ‘are we giving search engines and AI tools enough confidence to choose us as the answer?’”

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Hannah Spelman, Head of Organic Marketing, I-COM

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“A winning SEO strategy in 2026 must prioritise brand visibility across all search spaces, not just website traffic. While direct traffic remains important, the rise of AI Overviews and AI-powered search tools means users increasingly find answers without visiting your site. A modern SEO strategy needs to account for this reality and actively work to get your brand into these new spaces.

“This shifts how success should be measured. You should also track brand mentions and impressions in AI Overviews and LLMs like ChatGPT, as well as your market share against competitors, looking at how often your site appears versus your main competitors. That said, website traffic hasn’t disappeared. Commercial and transactional queries still drive conversions, making on-site optimisation critical. Pages that do generate traffic must be well-optimised, fulfil search intent and convert users effectively.

“The solution isn’t to abandon SEO. Google’s own AI optimisation guide confirms that solid SEO fundamentals are essential for appearing in these new spaces. Instead, adopt a consistent, integrated strategy that secures visibility across traditional search results, AI Overviews and LLM responses. The competitive advantage lies in appearing everywhere your audience is looking.”

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Andrew McLernon, CEO and Co-founder, Interlink

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“F�ǰ� a winning SEO strategy in 2026, ranking is no longer enough. When AI Overviews appear in more than half of all search results and 70% of B2B searches include an AI-generated answer, appearing at the top of the page no longer guarantees a click, let alone a conversation.

“What’s broken is the assumption that search behaviour signals buying intent in a way that’s actionable. Click-through rates drop by nearly 50% when AI summaries are present, which means a significant volume of queries are now resolved directly within the results page. The buyer gets their answer and moves on without ever visiting a website.

“F�ǰ� B2B businesses specifically, this accelerates a problem that already existed. Buyers form opinions, build shortlists and develop category preferences before their behaviour becomes visible to vendors. AI tools are making that hidden phase longer and harder to influence. By the time a prospect’s activity registers in a CRM or intent platform, the evaluation process is often already well underway.

“What still works is substance. AI systems surface content that is authoritative, specific and genuinely useful, so the quality bar has gone up, not down. The real opportunity is for businesses willing to build presence beyond their own websites. Third-party credibility, through contributions to industry publications, consistent association with the right topics and presence in trusted communities, shapes how AI tools represent a brand and whether they recommend it.”

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Chris Pitt, CEO, GAIN Performance

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“AI Overviews, chatbots and generative search are changing how people discover and evaluate brands, but they haven’t changed what actually wins. The journey is messier, more conversational and far harder to track: buyers bounce between AI summaries, social feeds, forums, reviews, traditional search and messaging long before they ever hit your site. Yet underneath that complexity the fundamentals of SEO remain. Experience, relevance, authority, technical performance and offsite signals – it’s all still there.

“The brands that come out on top are the ones that show up consistently, credibly and memorably across all commercially relevant touchpoints, not just in one channel’s dashboard. What has shifted is the centre of gravity: individual platform metrics are less useful in isolation, while commercially relevant, targeted brand visibility has become the key performance outcome. Off-page tactics like branded mentions, digital PR and link acquisition are now core brand infrastructure, because they fuel both search and AI visibility. As AI handles more of the mechanical optimisation, the real human advantage moves upstream into strategy and creativity.”

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For any questions, comments or features, .

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But if your VPN can see your traffic, does that mean your VPN provider can actually see what you do online? It’s a bit of a grey area, considering a lot of providers make promises of zero logs and complete privacy.

Put simply, there are things they can see and things they can’t. There are also certain protocols that a reputable provider should follow, which less-reputable ones are not likely to do. Here is what you need to know and how to tell the difference between the two.

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The Purpose Of A VPN For Online Privacy

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VPNs have three main tasks that all play a role in securing . The first thing that they do is encrypt your Internet traffic so that outsiders can’t see which websites you visit.

Then, they hide your real IP address by using their server’s address instead and your true location becomes unknown.

Lastly, your traffic is confined to a secure server, almost like a tunnel, before it reaches its final destination being the website that you want to visit.

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Can A VPN See Your Online Activity?

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Technically yes, a VPN can see your online activity to a certain extent. But it also depends on who your service provider is. Before you panic, here is a closer look at what specifically they can see, and what they can’t.

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Things They Can See

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Your VPN service provider will be able to see what your real IP address is because you have to connect to their server from your physical location. They can also see which VPN server you choose to connect to as well as the timestamp of your connection so every time you log in or out.

If they do keep logs, then they will also be able to see the exact websites that you visit.

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Things They Can’t See

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VPNs won’t be able to see private information such as your passwords and what you actually do on the websites that you visit or any payment details.

If the website itself is , which most are nowadays, its content won’t be visible either.

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The Issue Of Logging Policies

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A lot of VPN service providers will advertise themselves as no-log services. But of course, this can mean wildly different things depending on who the company is.

Reputable providers will not keep track of your search history and websites you visited nor the files you download or your IP address. They wouldn’t even store your timestamps or the amount of bandwidth you used per session.

On the other hand, some companies will keep a record of your IP address, browsing activity, usage patterns and all those things that leave a trail. Typically, these companies are the ones who .

Why?

Often, they sell this data to third-party companies for advertising purposes in order for them to still make a profit without charging for their VPN services. Remember, if you’re not paying for a product, you become the product.

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Choosing A VPN That Won’t Track You

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The honest truth is that some VPNs, especially the free and low-budget ones, often do collect your data. Others might store some information like your usage and connection times but these don’t really identify you as a user. The VPNs who are privacy-first will collect nothing that is actually identifiable.

So the question you should really be asking is does your��VPN track your activity?

If you’re unsure or you are still in the processing of choosing a service provider, here’s what you need to know.

Choose a paid VPN: 90% of free VPNs will track you so choosing a paid plan with will save you most of the stress.

Look for independent no-log audits: If there aren’t any audits available, it’s a sign that they are logging some kind of information.

Read the privacy policy: This will give you a clear indication of what the company does with your data. If there is any mention of sharing it with trusted partners or storing logs for security purposes, that’s a red flag which means they will likely track you.

It all comes down to choosing the right provider to give you peace of mind when securely browsing the Internet. No, VPNs are not magical invisibility cloaks, but they can protect you if they are trustworthy.

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The ONS also found that 54% of businesses reported higher hourly wages in April this year than in March. Meanwhile, 23% said they would respond to future employment cost increases by reducing employee numbers.

A lot of business owners are also starting to take another look at plans for retirement and expansion, as well as the everyday spending decisons. It can become harder to make decisions froma. hiring perspective when wage bills and pension contributions, etc. go up within a short space of time.

Jules Robertson, co-founder of Tally Workspace, said, “This morning’s ONS figures reinforce what many SME leaders have been feeling for some time – the cost of employing people has risen significantly, and that inevitably affects hiring decisions.”

She added, “When two-thirds of businesses are reporting higher staffing costs, it’s not just a line on a balance sheet. For smaller businesses in particular, rising wages, National Insurance contributions and pension costs can have a direct impact on growth plans, recruitment and investment decisions.”

This creates new commercial opportunities for companies and startups selling AI software…

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Could AI Companies Benefit From Higher Staffing Costs?

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The ONS survey did not ask businesses about AI but the findings do, hoewever explain why AI startups may be finding a gap in the market.

Many AI startups sell software that handles admin and support work, and the software is often marketed as a way for smaller teams to get work done efficiently without needing more staff.

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This becomes relevant when employers are not as willing to expand their workforce and this can be seen with the rise in lean startups built around automated systems. Robertson said, “Most SMEs aren’t looking to stand still. They want to grow, hire and invest in their teams. But when employment costs rise sharply, businesses naturally become more cautious about taking on additional headcount, particularly in entry-level roles where the return on investment may take longer to realise.”

Businesses who are trying to hold back on recruiting, spending money on software might sound like a better alternative than commiting to the long term cost of new employees. Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean companies are replacing workers with AI, but what it does mean is that software vendors are entering discussions that previously were based on recruitment.

The ONS found that 44% of businesses said they would respond to future employment cost rises by just increasing prices and 38% said they would absorb those costs within profit margins and it looks like tech spending could be the alternative they go for.

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Is A New Customer Base Emerging For AI Startups?

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Again, in an environment where these costs are going up, tech companies selling productivity software may find more customers willing to consider new tools.

Robertson said, “SMEs remain incredibly resilient, but growth depends on confidence. If businesses are expected to play a bigger role in tackling youth unemployment and building future talent pipelines, they need an environment that makes hiring feel achievable rather than increasingly costly.”

She concluded, “The conversation shouldn’t just be about creating jobs. It should also be about creating the conditions that give businesses the confidence to offer them.”

And it’s not that AI is replacing work – what the latest ONS data does show is that employers are reassessing spending decisions as staffing costs increase. That environment could create favourable conditions for AI startups selling software designed to help businesses achieve more with existing teams.

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The package has four components: Chips Act 2.0, which refreshes the 2023 semiconductor legislation and creates an excellence label for European chip manufacturing regions; the Cloud and AI Development Act (CADA), which aims to triple EU data centre capacity within five to seven years and establishes a sovereignty framework for cloud and AI in public sector workloads; a new Open Source Strategy scaling up European alternatives in AI and cybersecurity; and a Strategic Roadmap for Digitalisation and AI in Energy, which promotes AI “trained on European data and developed by European companies.”

For UK founders selling into European markets, timing is key. The package is moving through the Commission while the UK-EU relationship is still settling post-Brexit, and the regulatory distance between the two is growing rather than shrinking.

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What The Package Actually Does

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At the heart of the initiative is CADA. It highlights the EU’s struggle to compete in the cloud, holding less than 13% of the global market while US giants – AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud – secure the vast majority. CADA sets out to address that directly, with a binding target of 50% sovereign cloud adoption across EU public sector workloads by 2030. It also creates a formal sovereignty assessment framework, meaning EU governments will need to evaluate cloud and AI providers against defined sovereignty criteria before procurement.

Chips Act 2.0 builds on the original legislation’s goal of reaching 20% of global semiconductor production by 2030, adding an excellence label for European chip regions and measures to bring manufacturing physically closer to major customers including data centres and cloud providers. The Open Source Strategy is the least prescriptive of the four components but signals EU intent to invest in home-grown AI and cybersecurity tooling as a deliberate alternative to US-built incumbents.

The full package requires endorsement from all 27 member states and European Parliament approval before any of it becomes binding. Implementation timelines remain unclear, and the package will face lobbying from US technology companies with significant European operations. However, the trajectory is clear: the EU is building a framework that systematically preferences European providers for public sector technology contracts.

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The Brexit Complication

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Since Brexit took the UK out of the Single Market, British companies don’t automatically count as ‘European’ under the EU’s sovereignty rules – that has two practical consequences. First, UK founders using US cloud infrastructure – AWS, Azure, GCP – for EU customers, particularly public sector ones, may face compliance hurdles as the sovereignty requirements come into force. Second, as EU procurement actively preferences sovereign-certified European providers, UK businesses competing for those contracts will face a disadvantage they didn’t have before.

UK founders selling into Europe already carry a dual regulatory burden: EU AI Act compliance on one side, the UK’s own pro-innovation framework on the other. The Tech Sovereignty Package adds a third layer – sovereignty certification for cloud and AI – that UK businesses will need to manage from outside the bloc. The UK government has indicated it’s engaging with the European Commission to assess CADA’s impact ahead of the upcoming UK-EU Summit, but no formal position has been announced.

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Is The UK Aligned, Diverging Or At Risk Of Being Left Behind

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The UK and EU are taking distinctly different approaches to AI and digital infrastructure, and the divide is growing.

The UK’s strategy is pro-innovation and market-led: light-touch regulation, sector-based oversight and an ambition to become a global AI leader through private investment rather than state-driven industrial policy. The EU approach is the opposite – comprehensive risk-based regulation combined with a state-backed infrastructure buildout designed to create European alternatives to US technology.

According to analysis by Forrester, UK firms are expected to accelerate past EU counterparts in production AI deployment, partly because lower regulation and no language gap make adoption faster. France is already replacing Zoom and Teams with domestically developed alternatives. If EU member states move toward sovereign cloud and open-source AI at scale, UK businesses selling those markets will need European partnerships or European infrastructure to remain competitive for public sector contracts.

For UK startups and scaleups with European ambitions, the practical checklist is short: audit which cloud infrastructure you’re using for EU customers, monitor EU procurement rules as CADA moves through the legislative process, and consider whether a partnership with an EU-based provider makes sense ahead of the sovereignty mandates coming into force.
The package still has a long road through Brussels before it becomes binding – but the direction has been set and the time to prepare is before the requirements land.

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Fraud is no longer only one stolen card or one fake account. It is synthetic identities, account farms, bots, mule networks, bonus abuse, phishing, payment manipulation, chargebacks, fake leads and account takeovers popping up across thousands of sessions at the same time.

By the time a human analyst sees the full picture, the fraudster might already be gone, off to the next thing.

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Why Humans Are Hitting A Limit

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A good fraud analyst is still valuable. Very valuable, actually. Humans get the bigger picture, the business nuance, customer behaviour, and the awkward edge cases better than any model by itself. The issue is scale.

An analyst can review a case. Modern scoring engines can evaluate large numbers of signals in real time, while AI-assisted analytics help improve detection quality over time. Device history, IP geolocation, behavioural patterns, transaction velocity, account links, session timing, email structure, document signals, wallet behaviour, previous fraud clusters all at once.

This is where modern becomes useful: not because it mysteriously knows who is guilty, but because it can rank risk across gigantic volumes of activity before a human team even realises where to look.

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What AI Sees That People Miss

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A single fresh device may be normal. A fresh device plus copied input, proxy use, repeated browser configuration, similar account creation time, and links to old bad users? That seems different, really.

AI is strong because it reads combinations. Human analysts often need a very clear trigger: suspicious payment, failed sign in, refund abuse or chargeback. The scoring engine can identify elevated risk before visible fraud occurs.

Instead of producing a black-box verdict, modern fraud platforms can show exactly which triggers contributed to the risk score. Analysts can review activated rules, device links, behavioural anomalies, and transaction context, making investigations faster and easier to validate.

Rather than relying on a single signal, risk decisions are often built from multiple factors working together. Visibility into those factors helps teams improve policies, reduce false positives and respond faster to emerging threats.

Why Speed Matters So Much

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Fraud teams used to look mostly at what happens right after the transaction. But now it is not enough. In a lot of businesses, the dangerous moment shows up earlier.

In TransUnion’s 2024 fraud report they said 13.5% of global digital account creation transactions in 2023 were flagged as suspected digital fraud, so account creation became one of the riskiest steps in the customer journey. That figure explains why the playbook changed. If you wait until the first payment abuse, or the chargeback shows up then too late.

Modern AI systems can track the entire journey and continuously refresh risk ratings while the user is moving through it. A legitimate user glides along. A suspicious one gets slowed down, questioned, throttled or redirected to a human case review before the meaningful harm actually starts.

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Why This Matters For The Business Side

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Fraud detection is not only a security job now. It touches revenue, customer experience, regulatory compliance, and investor confidence

A slow fraud process can hit a company in a bunch of ways:

• Real fraud gets through before anyone reacts
• Good users get blocked by blunt rules
• Support teams drown in manual reviews
• Withdrawals, deposits or onboarding become slower
• Risk teams spend too much time on low-value alerts

Analysts should not spend their days clicking through obvious junk. Their time is better spent on complicated cases, improving controls, checking edge decisions, and hunting down new fraud methods that keep changing. Otherwise the system stays noisy while the real signals stay hidden.

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AI Also Protects Good Users

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Here is the bit people often miss: stronger fraud detection is not just about denying more accounts. It is also about denying fewer legitimate ones. AI can add context, it can tell when a new device is not meaningfully risky, when a quick transaction really matches normal history, or when a user looks unusual but still not dangerous.

That helps reduce false positives, and false positives matter a lot. They lead to support tickets, lost revenue, and angry customers.

put the global average breach cost at $4.4 million, which shows how costly weak security and slow reaction time can get. Faster detection and containment were a big reason the average dropped from the year before, because the damage just stacks up when incident response lags a little too much.

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Human Analysts Are Not Going Away

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The best fraud squads use AI to sift through the noise and human expertise to handle the thorny items. Analysts look into model alerts, inspect odd signals, tune the rules, double check conclusions and map what’s happening back to real business context.

This partnership really matters. Purely automated blocking, without any oversight, can turn risky. It might drive unfair outcomes, fail to catch freshly emerging fraud logic or weaken user confidence.

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Why This Matters Right Now

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Fraudsters already run automation, and they tend to adapt quicker than manual teams can respond, especially when volumes spike. So the main question becomes, how well companies run the system: clean data, models you can explain, human review in the loop, and feedback cycles that get sharper over time.

AI isn’t exactly replacing fraud analysts, it’s shifting the whole job, if you look close.

There is less of the manual searching, more deep investigation, less repetitive checking. For modern organisations this change is kind of huge, because fraud doesn’t wait in a neat queue anymore, it just keeps moving.

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When people think of AI they often think chatbots and image generators. European businesses are using the technology for something less visible. They are using it for ocean mapping, carbon management and environmental monitoring projects that once demanded huge amounts of manual labour.

Sasha Rubel, Head of Public Policy for Generative AI at AWS, believes the discussion has entered a different stage. She said, “The conversation around AI and climate is shifting in an important way. We need to move beyond the question of whether technology can help, and focus on how we use it to address the defining challenge of our time: preserving the planet.”

Her comments come as businesses look for tools that can better help turn environmental commitments into day to day activity.

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What Is AI Already Doing In Europe?

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Talk about AI often speaks of future possibilities, but Rubel’s examples are already happening now:

“Across Europe, AI is already being deployed to address some of our most difficult environmental challenges. Carbon is being mineralised into building materials by companies like Paebbl. Zero-emission vessels from startups such as XOCEAN are mapping our oceans at scale. These are examples of AI helping in the present, on operational infrastructure, delivering measurable results.”

The projects come from different areas of the economy. One turns carbon into construction materials. A second sends autonomous vessels into the sea to gather environmental data without producing emissions.

Neither project looks anything like the consumer AI products that dominate tech news. Their value comes from gathering information, analysing conditions and helping organisations make environmental decisions faster than traditional methods allowed.

Rubel sees that work as one tool available to Europe. She said, “But the opportunity will only be realised if businesses treat sustainability as a design principle, not a reporting obligation. This means embedding environmental accountability into every architectural decision, every procurement choice, every product roadmap. Europe has set its Net-Zero targets. If we stay committed, and ensure that AI becomes one of the defining tools of our climate response, we can close the gap between ambition and action.”

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What About The Environmental Cost Of Technology?

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World Environment Day also brings up a less discussed fact. The devices people use every day come with environmental costs long before they are in our hands.

Arjen Steenbergen, ESG Manager at Trust International, says many discussions concentrate on disposal, when manufacturing often creates the biggest footprint.

He said, “World Environment Day is a timely annual check-in reminding us that meaningful climate action is rarely driven by a single breakthrough. More often, it is the result of incremental improvements made consistently over time.”

More than 80% of a headset’s climate footprint can be generated during manufacturing. Global e-waste is expected to exceed 80 million tonnes by 2030.

Steenbergen said, “The challenge facing the electronics industry highlights exactly why this approach matters. More than 80% of a headset’s climate footprint can be generated during manufacturing, while global e-waste is expected to surpass 80 million tonnes by 2030. These figures show that sustainability cannot be treated as an end-of-life issue but as a concern at every stage of a product’s lifecycle, from sourcing materials and manufacturing to packaging, use, and eventual disposal.”

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How Can Small Decisions Make A Difference?

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Trust International says environmental work often comes down to hundreds of choices that consumers don’t even notice.

Steenbergen said, “At Trust, we have focused on every decision regarding the creation, sourcing and eventual clearance of our products. Over the past year, this has included increasing the use of recycled materials, reducing plastic and foam packaging by 25% and 32% respectively, and continuing to strengthen the standards and certifications that help validate our progress. Achievements such as maintaining EcoVadis Gold status for five consecutive years demonstrate the value of turning ambition into measurable action.”

Those changes may not sound as bad when viewed individually. Packaging materials, sourcing decisions and product certifications do not usually generate front page coverage. Environmental progress often comes from work of that kind.

Steenbergen believes businesses will ultimately be judged on evidence instead of just promises.

He said, “As scrutiny around environmental performance continues to grow, businesses will increasingly be judged not by the sustainability targets they announce, but by the progress they can demonstrate. Independent certifications and transparent reporting play an important role in moving the needle for the industry to deliver meaningful results and, most importantly, for the betterment of the earth.”

That thought feels especially relevant on this year’s World Environment Day. The conversations about climate are often around future targets but the examples from AI developers, ocean mapping companies, carbon technology businesses and electronics manufacturers look more at work that’s already in progress.

The post World Environment Day 2026: How Tech Is Impacting Europe’s Climate Footprint appeared first on 91̽��.

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Why Is Finland A Strong Base For IoT Innovation?

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Finland’s innovative wireless infrastructure (5G/6G leadership), rigorous testing settings, strong open-data rules, and solid public-private partnerships make it a global leader in IoT innovation. These components provide the perfect environment for creating robust, low-power connected devices.

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What Is Driving IoT Growth In Finland?

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Finland’s vast terrain, severe seasonal climate, and leadership in mobile technology are the main factors driving the country’s Internet of Things (IoT) growth. These elements, along with government support and robust Industry 4.0 manufacturing, are expected to significantly expand the Finnish IoT market.

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The Challenges Facing IoT Startups In Finland

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Finland’s IoT entrepreneurs confront a distinct combination of market realities and systemic obstacles. Although the nation’s strong ICT ecosystem and tech-forward culture provide a solid foundation, founders face challenges such as the high cost of expanding hardware, worldwide market saturation, tight EU cybersecurity and privacy compliance, and limited domestic B2B commercialisation.

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Top IoT Startups in Finland to Watch

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The growth of the IoT scene in Finland is only starting. Because of this continuous growth, more and more startups are opening their doors in Finland. This includes:

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1. Skyfora

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With Skyfora, atmospheric researchers, weather stations, and weather measurement organisations may measure the weather more accurately while lessening the environmental impact of weather measurement detritus. Additionally, our AI-powered severe tropical storm forecasting model enables insurance firms, financial institutions, and disaster management specialists to offer services for individuals and businesses.

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2. Rollyy

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In dynamic settings like parking lots, fleets, and urban mobility hubs, Rollyy creates autonomous mobile EV charging robots along with a software platform for energy orchestration. Without the need for specific parking places or fixed charging infrastructure, their technology combines robotics, battery storage, power electronics, cloud software, and connection to deliver energy directly to vehicles.��

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3. Emission Eye

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Emission Eye uses AI-driven Digital Emission Twins to evaluate data in real time, employs robust onboard IoT modules to communicate directly measured ship emissions, and anchors cryptographic proofs on blockchain infrastructure. Beyond compliance, the Digital Emission Twins provide ongoing optimisation and predictive insights that enhance operational decision-making, fuel efficiency, and emissions reduction.��

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4. Katana Concierge

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For hotels, commercial real estate, and Airbnb, Katana Concierge is a subscription-based virtual hosting service. It enables hosts to greet visitors in person and maintain contact with them even when they are not physically there. For a monthly subscription, we offer the concierge hub, cloud services, and client apps for both hosts and guests. Concierge Hub is a virtual assistant, home automation hub, and smart lock with key distribution.

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5. Steelbridge

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In order to assist manufacturers and technology providers in adhering to the EU Data Act, Steelbridge offers a regulatory technology (RegTech) SaaS platform. They assist businesses in the IoT, Industry 4.0, automotive, healthcare, and energy industries in managing safe and legal data exchange from linked devices.��

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6. Salusfin

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Increased energy efficiency, security, and safety are made possible by Salusfin’s IoT solutions, which also give you visibility and control over your building or site. They provide a Demand-Response service for B2B partners in which they use machine learning algorithms to optimise energy use. As we have done for AEON, their solution can be white labelled or rebranded with a customer-focused aesthetic.

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That figure has grown faster than most organisations anticipated; the governance infrastructure around those deployments hasn’t kept pace, and security budgets remain sized for a slower rollout. The reality is that Claude is already embedded across many enterprise environments with limited visibility into how it’s being used.

at no cost for organisations running Claude across their business – including Claude AI, Claude Code and Claude Cowork.

The paid platform continues to offer the full advanced capability set; the free tier is designed to give any organisation a functional governance starting point with minimal setup time.

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What The Free Tier Covers

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The no-cost offering is focused on discovery and visibility: user, model and agent discovery, agent access graphs, tool call visibility, token usage and cost tracking, and conversation threads. The intent is to give security and IT teams a clear baseline picture of Claude activity across the business before moving to policy enforcement or deeper controls.

“Deploying Claude is the starting point,” says Pakshi Rajan, Chief GenAI and Product Officer at Portal26. “What organisations need upfront is the infrastructure to discover all Claude AI, Claude Code, and Claude Cowork usage, surface all conversations and tool calls, govern it, protect it, and . Portal26 is the only platform that provides foundational capabilities free of cost, making security extremely accessible and high-value enterprise Claude deployments a reality.”

In its April 2026 blog post, Anthropic acknowledged that while it has begun to provide some oversight tooling, ultimate responsibility for governance and controls rests with the deploying organisation.

According to Portal26, the primary security exposure exists in the shortfall between Anthropic’s out-of-the-box capabilities and true enterprise security demands.

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Advanced Capabilities And The Broader Platform

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Beyond the free tier, the fully integrated platform adds: comprehensive security and risk detection, real-time security policy enforcement, token policy and cost enforcement, MCP controls and policy enforcement, enterprise integrations into IDP, SSO, SIEM and incident response platforms, and access and privacy controls. These are available at Portal26’s standard pricing.

The platform also addresses – undiscovered AI tool usage outside sanctioned channels. Portal26 claims organisations using the platform detect three times more Shadow AI than those relying on legacy security providers, with ten times more security coverage overall. For enterprises where agent usage is expanding faster than IT visibility, this detection layer has become the starting point for any serious governance programme.

“Portal26 gives organisations the full-lifecycle AI management capability they need to move from cautious experimentation to confident, scalable, and measurable Claude adoption – securely, and at speed,” says Arti Raman, CEO of Portal26. “Most importantly, Portal26 provides critical governance and security capabilities for Claude free of charge, making it widely available and accessible to Claude users everywhere.”

The free AI governance and security offering is available now at

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British fitness technology business 10XU has appointed its Co-founder Kaleigh Frost as Chief Executive Officer to lead the business in its next phase of growth and global expansion.

Frost takes over as the group has passed one million global users and reached profitability, after co-founding the company with serial entrepreneur Steve Clarke in 2019. Clarke, previously CEO, moves to the role of Executive Chairman.

The leadership transition marks the formal start of 10XU’s next phase as a platform business operating and scaling a portfolio of digital fitness and wellbeing products, including a joint venture with Sir Mo Farah, alongside strategic partnerships with major global brands, including Sky, Visa, Vodafone, Samsung, McDonald’s and John Lewis and Partners.

Founded originally as��WithU��Group and now rebranded as 10XU, the business was ranked the fastest-growing company in the Leisure & Entertainment category of the Financial Times FT1000 in 2025, reporting a compound annual growth rate of 245.8%. The company has raised £11.5m in private investment to date.

“We’ve spent the past few years building with intention and focusing on substance: the products, the technology, the partnerships,” Frost said. “The next phase is about scale, and about what becomes possible with technology that can hyper-personalise wellbeing experiences and improve how we move, train, recover, and travel. That’s what 10XU means to us, multiplying what people are capable of.”

The����portfolio comprises:

WithU��–��The original����mobile fitness coaching app, with a library of more than 2,500 trainer-led workouts.

Mvmnt��–��A TV-first fitness platform, using AI-powered real-time body-tracking technology, available via TV partners including Sky, and on mobile and web app.

TrvlWell��–��A travel wellness app developed as a joint venture with the Collinson Group, the global travel experiences company behind Priority Pass.

URUNN��–��A hyper-personalised running platform co-founded with Olympian Sir Mo Farah and British athlete Adam Clarke.

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Before co-founding 10XU, Frost was Marketing Director at David Beckham Ventures, where she was part of the leadership team that oversaw the acquisition of XIX Entertainment and led the launch of Inter Miami FC into Major League Soccer.

She also drove global brand partnerships for the business, including with L’Oréal and��Unicef.

Earlier in her career, she was Growth and Strategy Lead at AKQA and Mobile5, working across accounts including Nike, PepsiCo, Chelsea FC, Renault and MTV.

Before that she helped scale Global Personals, a digital business named in both The Sunday Times Fast Track 100 and the Deloitte Technology Fast 50, and went on to found her own social-first branding agency, working with WelleCo, Manchester United and Kin Football Agency.

In 2019, she co-founded��WithU��with Steve Clarke, identifying a gap in the market for accessible, audio-first fitness coaching delivered by trusted and experienced trainers.

Clarke said: “Kaleigh has shaped the direction of this company from day one. She’s an exceptional operator and brand builder, and there’s no one better placed to lead 10XU into its next phase.

“This structure plays to our strengths: she runs the business and I focus on the long-term opportunities and partnerships.”

Frost added: “Steve and I have built this business as genuine partners from day one. This isn’t a handover, it’s a sharpening of focus now that we are ready to be much louder about what we’re building, and why it matters.”

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Meta Business Agent, launched globally this week, is an AI agent that handles customer conversations end-to-end across all three platforms – answering questions in the customer’s language, recommending products from a catalogue, booking appointments, qualifying leads and closing sales, all automatically, with no human required unless you want one.

According to Meta, more than one million businesses had already been using earlier chatbot experiences on WhatsApp and Messenger before this launch. The Business Agent pushes much further – it integrates directly with third-party platforms including Shopify and Zendesk, so the agent can act on the business’s behalf – pulling inventory data, creating checkout links, confirming bookings – rather than just replying to messages. Meta says agents can be up and running within minutes.

Brands built on social commerce and messaging pipelines need to watch this space closely.

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How Meta Business Agent Delivers

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The real power exists in self-managing AI agents running inside your customer messages.

A customer messages a brand on Instagram asking about sizing and delivery. The Business Agent responds using the brand’s tone, recommends products from the linked catalogue, confirms stock, processes payment or creates a checkout link and can book a follow-up delivery slot – all within the same conversation, without a human in the loop. A human is only alerted when the query escalates beyond what the agent is configured to handle, such as a return or a complex complaint.

Businesses with existing Shopify or Zendesk integrations can connect those systems directly, allowing the agent to access real data rather than scripted responses. There’s also a reporting layer: the Business Agent delivers briefings on missed conversations, tracks conversion and gives operators visibility over what the AI handled and what it escalated.

Safe scaling is built right in for enterprise rollouts, with Meta hinting at paid tiers to follow.

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Who in the Market Needs This Most?

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Your current messaging setup dictates exactly how much this matters.

For direct-to-consumer startups in fashion, beauty, bespoke goods, food delivery and personalised services that already sell via Instagram or WhatsApp threads, this is an immediate priority. These businesses match Meta’s ideal use case, offering a huge ROI potential through 24/7 automated sales.

Service businesses that use messaging to book appointments and qualify leads – salons, clinics, local trades, independent consultancies – are in the medium-priority bracket. The Business Agent can book, qualify and escalate without any manual handling; this fixes the broken economics of chat sales for anyone still relying on manual human hours.

Enterprise B2B businesses with complex sales cycles are lower priority for now. The agent can help with lead qualification and routine queries, but high-value deals still need human relationship management. The platform is built for volume and velocity, not negotiation.

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Is This The Moment AI Customer Service Stops Being Optional?

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If your business runs on chat, the answer is a clear yes.

WhatsApp alone has billions of active customer-to-business threads. Once a significant portion of businesses on the platform are responding instantly, recommending accurately and converting inside the chat, slower competitors will feel it. Response speed and 24/7 availability are about to become expected by customers rather than appreciated.

The real question for startups: does this level the playing field or favour big business? Larger retailers with existing Shopify and Zendesk infrastructure can launch these integrations from day one. Smaller businesses without this setup will have to build the foundational tech pipeline first. The tool is open to everyone, but the biggest edge goes to the fastest, smartest implementation.

A few caveats bear flagging. Effectiveness depends heavily on integration quality and how carefully the brand tone, escalation rules and privacy constraints are configured. Poorly set up agents will create customer experience problems faster than they solve them. And Meta’s data handling practices mean businesses will need to think carefully about GDPR compliance before connecting customer data pipelines to the platform.

Meta has handed businesses a 24/7 sales team at a fraction of the human equivalent – the only question left is how fast it can be launched.

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