September 2026 Digital Marketing Updates: 7 Signals to Watch

AI isn’t just being asked anymore. It’s being trusted to act. New research this month put real numbers behind that shift. A Fiverr survey found generative engine optimization is growing faster than any other holiday marketing service this year. Separately, new research from Semrush found that AI chatbots talk more than half of users out of a purchase, and that the vast majority of people who use AI to research companies would consult it before hiring a local business. Meanwhile, the AI surfaces doing that research kept multiplying: Meta introduced Muse, a personal AI agent that can book, buy, and negotiate on someone’s behalf; Apple unveiled iPhone Duo with a new Siri and a feature that surfaces context the moment someone calls a business; and LinkedIn expanded its verification tools while continuing to crack down on generic AI content.

Here are the digital marketing updates that matter most from September 2026 and what they mean for your business. At EisnerAmper, we help businesses translate shifts like these into practical growth and marketing strategies. We stay on top of the latest updates, so you can focus on growing your business. Get in touch to learn more.

1. More Than Half of AI Users Have Been Talked Out of a Purchase

New research from Semrush, surveying more than 2,300 U.S. consumers, found that 57.5% of AI users have decided not to buy something based on information an AI chatbot gave them. Among consumers overall, 74.15% say they’d be at least somewhat less likely to buy a product if a chatbot flagged mixed or negative reviews. AI chatbots are proving just as capable of screening businesses out as recommending them in.

Among people who use AI to research companies, 87.41% would at least occasionally consult AI before hiring a local business, and nearly a third (31.48%) say they always would. More strikingly, 42% believe AI actually gives better advice on local businesses than it does on large companies, and another 43.7% think it handles both equally well.

What this means for your business: For home services companies, law firms, healthcare providers, and more, this means your website, reviews, and listings are being fact-checked by AI before a prospect ever picks up the phone. Outdated hours, a missing service page, or a thin review profile can quietly rule you out at the exact moment someone asks whether you’re open Saturday or whether you handle their specific need.

2. Apple Unveils iPhone Duo, With New Features

On September 9, Apple introduced iPhone Duo, its first foldable iPhone, alongside iOS 27 and Siri AI, a more conversational and personally-aware version of Siri. Pre-orders open October 16, with availability beginning October 23, starting at $1,999.

Among the new iOS 27 features arriving across the lineup, one is worth every service business’s attention: Call Context, which proactively surfaces relevant information, like a confirmation code or reservation number, right in the Phone app the moment someone calls a business.

Siri AI itself is built to draw on a person’s messages, emails, and on-screen activity to take action and answer questions, and Safari’s new Notify Me feature lets users track a webpage for changes like restocks or price drops. Across the board, Apple is pushing more of the assistant’s intelligence toward understanding personal context and acting on it, not just answering isolated questions.

What this means for your business: Call Context is an early preview of where phone calls are headed: the operating system itself is starting to enrich a call to your business using the caller’s own data. The direction matters for any business that lives on inbound calls: the more accurate and consistent your details and call-routing setup are, the better these AI layers support a caller instead of confusing them during the holiday scheduling crunch.

3. GEO Emerges as the Holiday Season’s Fastest-Growing Marketing Service

A new Fiverr 2026 Holiday Marketing Index, built from a survey of freelance marketing specialists across eight countries, found that 67% of search specialists report rising client demand for generative engine optimization (GEO), compared with 56% who report rising demand for traditional search rankings. The specialists surveyed still call traditional search the stronger long-term investment and recommend businesses fund both rather than picking one, since visibility now depends on showing up in both kinds of results.

Discovery alone isn’t earning trust, though. Sixty-nine percent of user-generated content freelancers report rising holiday demand, as businesses bet that an unscripted video from a real person still earns more trust than anything AI can produce on its own.

What this means for your business: This survey is framed around retail, but the underlying signal applies well beyond it. The fastest-growing marketing investment this fall isn’t a paid promotion, it’s making sure AI engines can find, understand, and accurately recommend your business.

4. LinkedIn Doubles Down on Trust With New Verification Tools

LinkedIn expanded its verification features in September 2026, building on a base of more than 115 million already-verified members. A new peer verification option lets connections confirm each other’s work or education experience, adding a badge once enough confirmations come in. Company Page admins who’ve verified their own Page can now instantly remove impersonator accounts claiming false employment, and LinkedIn is piloting a requirement that anyone claiming current employment at select companies verify it.

Separately, LinkedIn shared an update on its effort to reduce AI slop, the low-effort, generic content the platform says lacks a real point of view. Since launching a “Seems like AI slop” feedback button in August, more than a million members have used it, and LinkedIn says views of AI-slop-classified content are already down 40%. The platform is also blocking hundreds of thousands of automated comment attempts every day.

What this means for your business: For businesses that rely on LinkedIn for referrals, hiring, and thought leadership, this is a genuinely useful update: verified profiles get roughly 50% more post engagement and nearly 90% more profile views. Getting your team’s profiles verified and locking down your company Page against impersonation is a low-effort move worth making this quarter.

5. Meta Launches Muse, a Personal AI Agent

On September 8, Meta introduced Muse, which Meta positions as a mass-market personal AI agent rather than a power-user tool. Unlike a typical chatbot, Muse is built to take action: it can fill out forms, book travel, negotiate on a person’s behalf, and check out using Link by Stripe, working from a dedicated secure virtual machine that keeps passwords and payment details hidden from the agent itself. It’s free for most everyday use, with paid tiers for people who want to do more.

Adoption has been unusually fast. Muse overtook ChatGPT as the top free app on both the Apple App Store and Google Play in the U.S. and Canada within its first two weeks.

What this means for your business: Muse is an early, high-adoption example of an AI agent that doesn’t just recommend a business, it acts on someone’s behalf: filling out an appointment request, comparing providers, or handling a booking. If an agent is the one submitting your intake form or contact request this winter, the accuracy of what it’s working from, your hours, your service menu, your booking rules, determines whether it gets things right the first time or creates a service problem your team has to untangle manually after.

From Meta.

6. Google Rolls Out Holiday-Season Agentic Commerce Tools

Google announced a round of holiday-focused updates for retailers on September 16. AI performance insights in Merchant Center, which compare a brand’s share of voice against competitors across AI Mode and AI Overviews, are now available. Google is also inviting retailers into a Business Agent beta for YouTube ads, letting shoppers ask product questions without leaving a video, and expanding checkout capabilities through its Universal Commerce Protocol integration hub.

Google reports that merchants following core feed best practices see a 5% average increase in conversions the following month, and that in testing with lululemon, richer conversational product details were incorporated into AI Mode recommendations 50% of the time.

What this means for your business: This one is squarely aimed at retailers, but the underlying lesson isn’t: structured, accurate, detailed information is directly rewarded by AI systems, whether it lives in a Merchant Center feed or a Google Business Profile.

7. Deloitte Projects a Record $1.7 Trillion Holiday Season

Deloitte’s annual holiday retail forecast projects total holiday sales of $1.70 to $1.71 trillion between November 2026 and January 2027, up 4.0% to 4.8% from the same period last year. E-commerce is forecast to grow even faster, between 7.5% and 8.4% year over year, reaching $316.1 to $318.9 billion.

Deloitte points to disposable personal income growth of 4.5% to 5.2% as a key driver, alongside continued value-seeking behavior: consumers switching brands and retailers and using promotions to stretch their budgets, aided by digital tools for research and comparison.

What this means for your business: Even outside retail, this is a useful reminder of scale and timing. The volume of digital research, comparison, and AI-assisted decision-making happening between now and January is only growing.

The Bigger Picture from September 2026

September’s digital marketing updates point to the same shift from two directions at once. AI tools are increasingly acting on people’s behalf, whether that’s Muse filling out a form or Call Context enriching a phone call, rather than simply answering questions. And the businesses adapting fastest aren’t necessarily the ones spending the most on ads; they’re the ones making sure their basic information is accurate and ready for AI.

At EisnerAmper, we help businesses translate shifts in search, AI visibility, and local presence into practical strategy, identifying what needs updating now, what can wait, and where the highest-impact opportunities are for your specific business. If you want a clear read on where your local SEO and AI visibility stand heading into the holidays, get in touch with our team for a free assessment.