Back

Nov 03, 20251 min read

Watch our full session with Rand Fishkin on AI hype vs. reality here, and learn whether the current AI bubble is about to pop & what you should do about it

AI Hype vs Reality: What actually works in marketing (w/ Rand Fishkin)

Advanced PPC strategies

Episode timestamps:

0:00 - Coming up
01:25 - Intro
04:45 - Is Rand an AI optimist or pessimist?
06:26 - Are we in an AI bubble (in marketing?)
08:48 - Is it the same as the Dot-Com crash?
10:13 - ChatGPT 5 & AI overhype
12:22 - Is Google dead? (+ Research)
17:48 - The attention economy
21:07 - Why web traffic has declined
26:04 - The marketing mindset shift
31:29 - Is attribution broken?
36:22 - Should you advertise on AI platforms?
39:47 - ChatGPT’s Instant Checkout
42:37 - AI platforms will screw you
43:45 - How to cheat LLMs
48:15 - What marketing leaders need to focus on now
52:19 - Final thoughts

Overview

AI hype is everywhere. But what does an AI future look like for marketers?

Is AI genuinely the future, or just an over-hyped bubble that'll eventually burst, causing chaos in the process?

In this episode of The Paid Media Lab, Rand Fishkin (Co-Founder/CEO of SparkToro and many, many other companies) joins us to cut through the noise.

Rand shares fresh data on how people really use AI tools like ChatGPT, what’s driving the “AI bubble,” and whether claims of Google’s supposedly inevitable death at the hands of AI hold any truth.

We also cover:
• What SparkToro’s data says about Google vs ChatGPT usage
• The real reason your organic traffic is falling
• How to adapt to the rise of zero-click marketing
• Whether the AI economy is the dot-com bubble repeating itself, or whether it's something else entirely
• Why attribution is broken (and what to measure instead)
• How to make your brand visible inside AI models and search results

It’s an honest, data-driven look at what works in marketing today, minus the hype.

Don't have time to watch? Get the written highlights from the episode here.