Three signals from one day. Google turned the Business Profile into a chat console (then a buggy one), Instagram handed users dials to tune their feeds, and new research showed AI recommends brands by association, not by how cleanly they are marked up.
The Local Console: Google Puts Your Profile in a Chat Box
Two moves on Google Business Profile, one deliberate and one a bug, and both deserve an audit this week.
- Google Connects Your Business Profile to Gemini A one-tap link lets owners query reviews, listings, and performance, draft or delete review replies, and update hours by chat. The write access can bypass the staging-and-approval workflow most agencies rely on.
- A Google Bug Quietly Added WhatsApp Numbers to Profiles Google bulk-added WhatsApp chat numbers to many profiles, often the business’s landline, which cannot receive WhatsApp. A product expert confirmed the bug and removal is re-enabled. Check the Chat field on every managed location.
The Recommendation Gap: Understood Is Not Recommended
New research separates being parsed by an AI model from being picked by it.
- Your Brand Is Recognized by AI but Still Not Recommended Across 14,140 model runs, three brands with identical Knowledge Graph descriptions split 71% to 0% in recommendation answers. What decides it is co-mention density, how often you appear beside the brands that define your category, not your schema.
The Feed Becomes an Interest Graph
Instagram hands users the dials that used to be invisible, and topical clarity becomes a reach lever.
- Instagram Brings ‘Your Algorithm’ Topic Controls to the Main Feed Users can now add or remove the topics that shape main-feed recommendations, not just Reels and Explore. Brands whose content lands in a clear topic cluster surface more; scattered calendars get harder to classify.