When A Search Query Becomes A Standing Instruction via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern
All Paid Media PPC News Social MediaAdvertising Video Advertising Columns Ask A PPC ExpertNEW PPC Pulse Guide Your ChatGPT Calls Are Hiding in the 'Direct/Other' Bucket Calls from ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity land in 'direct/other.' This checklist shows six steps to track them as their own source. Digital Marketing All Digital Marketing Analytics & Data Ecommerce Lead Generation Content Marketing Social Platforms Google YouTube Reddit LinkedIn TikTokNEW WordPress Other CMS Platforms Webinar Fix The Product Pages AI Shopping Agents Skip In this webinar, learn to rewrite spec-sheet product copy into the words shoppers use, and make product pages readable to AI. SEJ Live Webinars Rundowns PodcastNEW Ebooks All Resources Webinar Fix The Product Pages AI Shopping Agents Skip In this webinar, learn to rewrite spec-sheet product copy into the words shoppers use, and make product pages readable to AI. SEJ ⋅ AI Search When A Search Query Becomes A Standing Instruction Google's AI Mode monitoring and OpenAI's dots keep working after a request. Tasks, sources, and controls differ, as do the questions about site visibility. What they share is that the request stays active even after the user leaves. For local businesses or retailers, this means that later updates could include information that appeared after the initial search. I like to think of a request that stays active as a “standing instruction.” That’s my own term, not an official one from Google or OpenAI. I also covered the Sept. 28 rollout and the help pages for dots on Sept. 30. Google’s Search Console documentation includes AI Mode in its reporting, but the pages reviewed for this article do not explain how monitoring updates are counted or identified separately. Google Alerts helps you stay informed about topics you care about by converting them into regular searches. According to its help page, you enter a topic, select your preferred notification frequency, choose the site types, set a language and region, and specify the number of results. Google will then email you “whenever we find matching search results.” OpenAI’s side has a precedent too. Its release notes date scheduled tasks in ChatGPT to January 2025, with support for future and recurring tasks. The July 9, 2026 entry introducing ChatGPT Work says Work can use scheduled tasks “that run once, repeat on a schedule or trigger, or monitor for changes.” The current Scheduled tasks help page defines monitoring tasks as checks that “send a notification when a relevant update occurs” and can “use information from previous runs.” Recurring checks were available on both sides before this week. Google’s monitoring and OpenAI’s dots handle ongoing requests differently, including which sources they can reach and what they return. Google’s account of the gap in the older tools came from Liz Reid, VP of Search, at I/O in May. In an interview Roger Montti covered in July, she described people who “have to keep checking and checking and checking,” and a stock-tracking request with a specific set of parameters where, in her words, “Nothing’s going to do that.” Google’s I/O post in May introduced information agents that “look across everything on the web, like blogs, news sites and social posts,” plus Google’s real-time finance, shopping, and sports data. Reid wrote that an apartment hunter can “brain dump all of the exact requirements” and the agent “will continuously scan for you.” The company’s I/O roundup said you create one by adding “keep me updated” to a search, and that updates arrive “along with helpful links to explore further on the web.” His Sept. 28 post refers to “info monitoring capabilities” rather than “information agents” and explains that Search will “continuously check across changing info on the web” and suggest tasks during searches. It doesn’t repeat the links language from May and June, and talks about updates and suggested tasks instead. Reid’s May post also mentions that the agent sends a synthesized update “with the ability to take action.” It doesn’t specify what action is taken, who is responsible for taking it, or if approval is needed. Additionally, the September post doesn’t mention any actions. None of the May announcements and June and September posts reviewed here explains how Search decides which sources to include in an update. OpenAI’s launch post describes dots as “always-on agents” with their own cloud computer, their own browser, and access to a person’s connected apps. The getting started page says a dot “can take on ongoing responsibility and keep making progress between conversations.” Assigned work is what most resembles Google’s monitoring. OpenAI’s Tasks and memory page describes a dot that “keeps working between conversations and follows through as things change.” It can “decide when to pause and wake up to continue,” and a user “can also specify a time or a supported event that should trigger work.” For recurring tasks, the page suggests that users specify what to check, the timing, the changes that should trigger notifications, and where to deliver results. Event monitoring relies on the connected service being able to support it. As the same page mentions, “Connecting Slack or another source alone doesn’t create a monitoring task.” Proactive research runs alongside assigned work and does not require a new request. The privacy and safety page explains that a dot can gather helpful updates by reading permitted connected sources and saving private notes, even before anyone asks. Its research tools can’t directly message others, change content through plugins, or control browsers or computers. Additionally, the Tasks page highlights that this research can connect new information to previous work, like noticing that a release decision conflicts with a draft shared last week. That limit puts a browser-based website watch outside of proactive research. The computers and apps page describes a cloud computer and browser that the dot uses for its work, and mentions that “Some websites block cloud browsers or require further verification.” Dots are rolling out to Pro users outside the European Economic Area, Switzerland, and the UK, as well as to Business Premium users across all supported regions. The Enterprise beta is off by default. Illustrative comparison, not product screens or internal architecture. Add “keep me updated” to a search and set the criteria. Google checks changing information across the web and its real‑time data. Earlier Google descriptions said updates could include links to the web. Examples of information: web pages, news, blogs, social posts and shopping data. Web content + Google’s real‑time finance, shopping and sports data Example task: “Track competitor announcements and summarize key changes.” A dot can use connected apps and a browser/cloud computer for assigned work. Apps shown are examples; use depends on the task. When you look at them together, Google’s monitoring and OpenAI’s dots have something in common. They both aim for a goal that the user sets, then check the information later to see if it meets that goal. This is my own analysis, not an official statement from either company. Google’s May post highlights that you’ll receive a notification “when listings meet your needs.” OpenAI’s Tasks page suggests that dot users tell the system which changes deserve a notification. In both cases, once you set the criteria, the system applies it to information that arrives later. Google chooses the source categories that Search checks. For a dot, access depends on connected accounts and granted permissions. Task instructions can specify which sources to use. However, none of the pages reviewed here explains how a specific source is selected for a given update. The May post talks about a synthesized update, while OpenAI’s launch post focuses on results retrieved for review, like drafts, analyses, and suggested actions. Google’s June post states that updates happen “the moment new info is available,” whereas a dot operates on a schedule, responds to a supported event, or acts on its own timing between conversations. The documentation clearly shows that only one side describes whether an action follows and what approvals are in place. OpenAI’s safety page explains features like Custom Rules and Auto-review, including user-defined limits, automatic checks, and steps like password changes that are returned to the individual. Meanwhile, Google’s side only mentions the “ability to take action” from the May post. Google’s leadership has described this direction before. In an interview Roger Montti covered in April, Sundar Pichai pointed out that “a lot of what are just information seeking queries will be agentic search,” and that users “will do long-running tasks, can be asynchronous.” These are Google’s projections, not confirmed behaviors. Google’s feature is embedded in Search, providing updates derived from web content and real-time data. As described in September, what it returns is an update. Dots are general-purpose agents capable of using linked apps and a browser, managing their notes alongside ChatGPT’s memory, and executing or preparing actions within OpenAI’s guidelines. The launch announcement and help pages refer to them as agents rather than search tools. They’re separate tools, not versions of each other.
Source: Search Engine Journal
This article has been carefully curated and reformatted for educational and informational purposes. Full credit goes to the original publisher.
📚 Visit more helpful articles on Joab Peters Blog
No comments