What changed in AI in 2025, and what should businesses do in 2026?

Welcome back to another GO AI episode. This is a special duo episode we do every year: we recap the previous year and give you a look at what could be coming in 2026. Ours isn’t as cool as the Spotify wrap-ups with your top artists and how many minutes you listened, but for AI, I feel like we have some real meat to talk about.

If you’re in the top 1% of our listeners, thank you for tuning in. We appreciate you nerding out with us.

To start, what did we get right? In last year’s recap we said AI agents would become huge in 2025, and a shout-out to Connor on that one. Last January I flew to Arkansas for the National Auction Association, and I’m going again this year for their digital summit. I was speaking to auction company owners who were already getting ready to implement their own AI avatars and AI agents. People thought we were crazy, but we were on the money.

I think it was still a pie-in-the-sky concept last year. Not only were we accurate, it moved a lot faster than either of us anticipated.

Early in the year there was a limited release of ChatGPT’s Operator, which could use your browser for you and do a bunch of different tasks, but only at the highest tier of an OpenAI subscription. Then this past fall we saw AI browsers come out, where you could tell it to go to a website, find information, and summarize information from a bunch of different websites. It merged the traditional large language model experience, a separate place where you go to type a prompt, with the internet and other apps, so AI could interact with much more than just bringing you text or images. That was the big theme of AI.

I didn’t anticipate the AI browser push, and how interacting with AI models inside the browser has evolved. I wasn’t thinking there, and I didn’t see it.

It took a lot of people by surprise how many AI browsers rushed in: Perplexity’s Comet, then ChatGPT Atlas. Then Google announced Disco, its own AI browser, with a feature called GenTabs that can pull data from a bunch of different websites and create a small app for you within a tab in real time.

I read that headline and two sentences in I thought, this is one of the things we talked about last year, the gap between these AI models. Google just came to the table as the elephant in the room. Are they going to be the big leader in 2026? That’s the prediction that comes to mind for me.

One of the major themes of early 2025 was DeepSeek, which showed the AI race can be anyone’s race. It doesn’t have to be decided by who has the best talent or the most data centers and compute. It can be innovation and nose to the grindstone.

What that connects to for business owners is that the models called the best, or with the most brand visibility, are not necessarily what enterprise clients are choosing. A surprise for some people was that Anthropic started to overtake better-known AI companies like OpenAI or even Google, because Anthropic puts an emphasis on guardrails, data privacy and safety. That was the theme for business owners this year, versus what gets called the best in the media, on model ranking platforms and in the hype over whether Gemini 3 is better than GPT-5.

From an academic standpoint, watching this race is like watching Formula One. But that’s not practical for most of the operators we talk to. They’re looking at what is scalable and safe for their organization over the next 12 to 24 months, because the technology is changing so much, and there’s uncertainty about making big investments with all that change. The performance gap between the best models isn’t that big. It’s one thing to talk about it at the Formula One level, but day to day, across the Midwest and nationally, I don’t see people making big investments at that level.

No. As the performance gaps close, how much variance are you really going to get between AI models? On top of performance, you need to ask: is it scalable for your business’s needs, and is it right-sized for your business? That could be the key word here. Look for right-sized AI. Don’t go for the biggest, brightest and flashiest with tons of features. Focus on what you need.

We heard it from multiple guests this year: go in with a specific problem you want to solve if you’re looking at an AI model, rather than implementing AI and then question-mark profits. Where’s the problem, and does AI fit into solving it?

Exactly, and that’s what we should be talking about. We talk about big concepts and the big race, but at a bare-bones level it’s how quickly can I even integrate this? Depending on the size of your business, change creates friction, and these are big changes. Beyond right-sized, I think it helps to implement a platform that’s very clear on the problem it solves and provides clarity, not complexity.

I’ll do a shameless plug for our AI app, built on Parallel AI, so kudos to David Richards and Todd Krise. Another concept we should be talking about is how safely AI models can be integrated and connected with your business. That’s a question small business owners should be solving for. Parallel AI has the top models integrated, so you’re not paying a thousand a month for your team to have all these subscriptions, and you can connect it to your own DNS, your own email, and your own secure database and software.

When you make these business operating decisions, think about safety and the actual return for your team. Will this prevent your team from having all these other subscriptions outside your network? Is it safe and contained? I also like that it has an all-in-one white label you can resell. I know a lot of people chase the shiny object, but that was never David and Todd’s main motivator. It was to solve a problem. The right companies will align with businesses like yours: safe, secure, and thinking about small businesses when they scale, integrate and change. Those are the leaders you want in your corner when you implement AI.

One of the things that really changed the game in 2025, speaking of right-sized AI, is the growing feature of connectors. Not just certain AI agents but pretty much all AI models can now connect to a business’s data, whether that’s Google Drive or, like you said, a DNS. That makes it much easier to integrate an AI system with any data source your business works with. It’s one of the biggest trends of 2025 and will stay massively important in 2026: once businesses pick an AI model, how do they customize it to their own needs? From a cost-savings standpoint, it also means they don’t have to build from the ground up. They can take what’s already available and integrate their existing data with it.

This conversation is moving so fast because new models and upgrades enter it what feels like daily. I think business owners should create a separate budget for this under operations. It’s not as easy as signing up and getting your feet wet. If you’re an operator with little to no experience in 2026, get a consultant, spend a day in a discovery session, and get clear on direction before you start buying and investing, especially if this isn’t your expertise. If you’re in manufacturing or a service business, get somebody who understands AI and the operations of your business.

Take it from us: it’s constantly changing, with reversals, new trends, surprise apps and announcements. Business owners are inundated with this on LinkedIn, Instagram, wherever they scroll: here’s another tool, am I falling behind if I don’t have this in my business? Step back and look at the bigger picture of the industry and what will really matter for your business. Missing every new trend does not mean you’ll fall behind, and you can still stay ahead if you’re solving problems. What’s the utility of the AI for you?

Here’s my weird example. Remember the fitness renaissance with the monthly subscriptions and the 21-day programs, where if you bought this you’d look like the fitness models? It became a huge affiliate industry. At the end of the day, you can still wake up without the 21-day road map or the cool gear and do push-ups, sit-ups and run, and get in the shape you want. I know that’s a silly example, and so human, but it’s the same with AI.

Before you start implementing and buying what’s shiny, do the basics. Go to ChatGPT or Perplexity, spend two hours a day for seven days, and realize what you don’t know. If you get into the habit of being intentional every week with how you use and practice with AI models, you’ll know quickly whether you should hire or invest in somebody to lead the way. And to your point, Connor, you’ll see what problems you can solve. The more you practice as an owner and operator, the faster you’ll recognize the problems and gaps this technology can fill. To me that’s the quickest, smartest and most cost-effective way to start implementing in 2026 if you haven’t yet.

In 2025 we saw larger adoption of consumer AI tools, as well as agentic AI for consumers. Guardian Owl Digital began as an SEO company, so we watch how consumers use AI to reach businesses online, and that’s only going to get more common. It’s going beyond the question-and-response conversations in Gemini or ChatGPT. Online shopping is being integrated into AI models like ChatGPT, where instant checkout lets people find your products in chat and buy without going to a different browser. People can go on Amazon, talk to Rufus, its AI model, and set it to auto-buy a product if it drops below a certain price.

Live shopping, Connor. This is the time to go on offense. When the ball’s out in front of you, you go for it. If you’ve invested in social media, or you’ve been scared to get out there, now’s the time for video, YouTube and your audience. If you show up when someone searches, it’s one click and they buy your product, because the AI model they trust recommended you. This is a huge opportunity for your brand to show up in AI models, and that goes back to SEO and optimizing every digital channel you have. I look at it like an electrician: we’re going out and running the wiring. It’s exciting, and there’s no better time than now to go on offense.

Some quick tips for business owners: make your content more conversational, and include more details than you think you need, more than you traditionally would for search, because people can ask ChatGPT or Amazon’s Rufus any question they can think of about your product. If the AI can’t answer it, it might find another product. AI models speak conversationally, so your content needs to be more than a few keywords or key phrases. Think in key sentences, key paragraphs and entire pages that AI will search through quickly. People normally compare two or three websites; AI can compare exponentially more.

You’re giving me flashbacks to 2023, when we launched the AI podcast and people said, yeah, sure, guys. It felt very early.

Hearing you talk about it, some businesses aren’t ready to implement AI. You need a new website, or a new Google Business Profile. You’re not AI-ready, so maybe 2026 is about getting AI-ready. If you’re just tuning in or at the start of this conversation, take a step back and look at your digital footprint first, because poor data in means poor data within these AI models. If users come to your website and don’t have a good experience, the AI model will stop showing that business. Now more than ever, you want your digital brand to show up the right way.

A key takeaway that isn’t out there enough in AI content for business owners: it’s about more than AI inside your business. The other side is how your customers are using AI to reach you. How could potential customers find you through AI? That’s the other side of the coin of AI implementation: how AI is being used outside your business in ways that could affect your bottom line.

I just had a client call about billboards, which is great. A lot of businesses forget how much direct mail and traditional advertising play a role in their media mix. If you’re looking at your traditional and digital advertising right now, get smarter about how you connect the two, because you need to be in more places. That means your radio, podcast ads, OTT and social media all aligned on your message. If it’s January and you’re thinking, wait, I’m not even ready for AI, take a step back and look at your brand as a whole: how you show up across all these platforms, and whether you’re aligned. That may reinvent some of your marketing strategy so you can be present in AI models with the right, congruent message. Slow down, take a pause, and do that first.

New Year’s resolution: take it easy for a little bit, then get back into it. And the other one, right-sized AI. That’s our wrap-up. Take a deep breath, it’ll be okay. Think of right-sized AI, and for your New Year’s resolution, think of the problems in your business you want to solve, then start thinking about AI. Think about the utility rather than AI first. Take a pause and think first.

Thank you all for tuning in for another year. Twelve months flew by, and we appreciate you listening and visiting our nest more than you know. Keep tuning in to GO AI. We’ll have more great guests this year and more AI video content from Guardian Owl, featuring Jenna and the rest of the team, on YouTube, YouTube Shorts, LinkedIn, Instagram, anywhere you follow us. Leave comments, because we want to give you what you like. We’re here to be educational, so be honest. You’re safe here. Bye.