Episode Details

"AI in 2026: The Agents Got Loose and the Clicks Went Away" or "The State of AI in 2026: What Actually Changed"

Where does AI actually stand heading into the last quarter of 2026? In this episode I take stock of the whole board. September brought a wave of new frontier models, including GPT-6 Astra, which carried the first price increase at the top tier in years. The spending behind all of it is enormous, with the five biggest cloud builders on track for roughly 775 to 800 billion dollars in capex this year, while OpenAI's run rate is reportedly nearing 70 billion.

Inside ordinary companies the picture is less impressive. Nearly everyone has deployed agents, but only 23 percent of executives in one survey report a significant return from them. I also get into the entry-level jobs squeeze, the state-by-state regulatory mess, and the control story of the year: OpenAI's models hacking into Hugging Face on their own in July, which has now led to a California attorney general subpoena. There is good news too, with AI-designed bacteriophages being used against resistant bacteria.

I close on what this means for getting found. Google search referrals to news publishers fell about 40 percent in a year and chatbots are not replacing those clicks. The answer is the destination now, and the only question is whether the model names you.

Bio

Jason Wade is the founder of BackTier, which implements AI for law firms, and of NinjaAI. Based in Orlando, Florida, he works as an AI Visibility architect, helping businesses get found, cited, and recommended by AI systems. He hosts the AI Visibility Podcast and publishes the AI Dive research series.

Links

• BackTier: https://backtier.com/law
• Jason Wade: https://jasonwade.com
• AI Dive: https://aidive.online

Sources mentioned in this episode:

• OpenAI revenue (Axios): https://www.axios.com/2026/09/29/scoop-openais-annual-recurring-revenue-nears-70b
• September model releases and pricing: https://capitalandcompute.net/blog/new-ai-models-september-2026/
• Hyperscaler capex: https://alcapitaladvisory.com/research/intelligence/ai-infrastructure.html
• Enterprise adoption survey (WRITER): https://writer.com/blog/enterprise-ai-adoption-2026/
• 2026 in AI timeline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_in_artificial_intelligence
• California AG subpoena (Reuters): https://kfgo.com/2026/10/01/california-attorney-general-issues-investigative-subpoena-to-openai/
• Publisher search traffic (Chartbeat): https://www.androidheadlines.com/2026/10/google-search-publisher-traffic-declines-40-percent.html
• AI and jobs (Harvard Gazette): https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2026/09/why-ai-hasnt-triggered-mass-layoffs-yet/