The AI Class Outperforms Skeptics

This Week

We have a lot of updates from Section this week. They just released an AI proficiency report showing how AI super users outperform their colleagues and what you need to do to join them. They’re also hosting a free webinar on AI and data privacy this week so you can brush up on using AI responsibly.

In other updates, Moz has a cheat sheet on using AI for your SEO tasks, Google releases Gemini Live, and Hubspot has launched a free AI Search Grader for your brand. We’ve also pulled the highlights from CB Insight’s latest research on AI Agents.

Read on.

Protect Your Data from AI

AI data privacy might not be a huge concern as an individual – but if you work at an enterprise, you have to be vigilant about your company’s data.

In Navigating AI Data Privacy, Section CEO Greg Shove will walk through tangible steps to avoid sharing confidential, sensitive information with AI. He’ll also teach you to set up a policy that helps your team use AI responsibly. 

Join Section on August 21, and you’ll walk away with applicable strategies to protect your company data while still benefiting from AI. 

Register at the Section website.

How the AI Class is Outperforming Skeptics

According to Section, an “AI Class” is emerging in the workforce. These AI superusers immerse themselves in AI, prompting it more effectively, using it more strategically, and getting bigger productivity gains (12+ hours each week) from it than their colleagues.

Section says there are three factors influencing the AI class:

1. Approval

95% of the AI Class works in companies that openly approve of AI use. In contrast, most Skeptics work in companies that don’t take a stance on AI use.

2. Daily Use

50% of people in the AI Class say that AI is their number 1 productivity tool, and almost 90% use it every day. 

3. Strategic

60% of the AI class are saving between 10% and 30% of their time each week with AI because they’re using it as more than a content creator. 83% use it as a research assistant, and 95% as a strategic thought partner.

Another section of the report shows that the AI Class is 30% more productive than AI Skeptics. 

Here are three steps to boost your team’s AI proficiency:

1. Make your stance on AI clear

Define your company's AI policy and clearly state what’s expected of your team. Most AI Skeptics work in companies that are non-committal about AI. Silence breeds fear and low proficiency.

2. Give your team access to a paid LLM

AI superusers are more likely to have access to paid tools. Start your team on a paid plan so they can access more advanced features.

3. Set up formal training

The AI proficient are the most likely to receive company support, largely in the form of AI training, from their employer. The study shows that AI superusers score 8.6 out of 10 on prompting effectiveness compared to AI newcomers, who scored 2.7 out of 10.

Download the full report at Section. 

How to Use AI for Better SEO

SEOs and marketers often feel pressure from management to use AI, even when they don't fully understand its limits. As Britney Muller from Moz points out, it's important to explain to decision-makers what AI can and can't do.

AI is particularly useful for tasks like language translation, content summarization, content creation, and writing support—especially when creativity or new ideas are needed.

However, AI struggles with things like common sense, consistency, being completely accurate, high-level strategy, reasoning, and understanding context. Some of these tasks are better handled by simpler tools, like Decision Trees or Facebook's Prophet, making AI unnecessary.

AI should be viewed as a tool that assists with tasks rather than a complete solution. It can help you get about 60-70% of the way to your goal. It's important for you (and your management team) to have realistic and clear expectations for AI.

Watch the video and read the article at Moz. 

Google Launches Gemini Live

Google launched Gemini Live last week and says it's the first “truly helpful AI-powered mobile assistant.” 

Gemini Live is a mobile conversational experience that lets you have free-flowing conversations with Gemini. You can brainstorm pitch ideas or have a conversation about your personas. You can even interrupt mid-response to dive deeper on a particular point or pause a conversation and come back to it later. It’s like having a sidekick in your pocket who you can chat with about new ideas or practice with for an important conversation.

Gemini Live comes with 10 voice options and integrates with your other Google apps and tools.

Google warns that while this new AI experience unlocks capabilities, it can sometimes behave in unexpected ways or provide inaccurate information. This might be a warning not to be too surprised if it suggests putting glue on pizza. To help address this, Google says they’ve incorporated new models like Gemini 1.5 Flash that are faster and provide higher-quality responses.

If you want to try Gemini Live, it starts rolling out this month in English to Gemini Advanced subscribers on Android phones and will expand to iOS and more languages in the coming weeks.

Google also recently launched updates to its Worksuite AI capabilities, including a new look for the side panel in most applications like Gmail, Docs, Sheets, and Slides. You can now select product-specific suggestions like “find attachments in my emails” when you’re in Gmail; in Docs, you might see “rephrase part of this document;” or in Sheets, Gemini may suggest “teach me how to use conditional formatting.”

For the latest on Gemini Live, visit the Google Blog.

How Your Brand Stacks Up in AI Search

HubSpot’s AI Search Grader is a free tool designed to help you gauge your brand’s presence in large language models (LLMs) and AI-driven search results. The tool makes it easy to assess brand visibility in AI search, without the need for deep AI expertise.

The AI Search Grader gives an overall grade reflecting your brand's performance across AI search engines. It also includes a brand sentiment score, a share of voice score that compares your brand's visibility with competitors, and a personalized analysis that highlights strengths and weaknesses and suggests improvements.

All you need to do is pop in your URL, and you’ll get the full report. 

You can access the grader here.

AI’s Killer Function is Coming Soon

The idea of autonomous AI agents — LLM-powered bots that can independently reason and execute tasks is the next step after chatbots and copilots. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has described agents as “AI’s killer function.”

While much of the tech remains limited in its ability to execute tasks reliably, use cases are gaining traction in applications like customer support and sales.

CB Insights mined their startup, financing, business model, and buyer interview data to map the AI agent landscape and take a peek into the future. 

Here’s what they found: 

• The state of AI agents: Investment is surging, but limitations—most notably, agent reliability—remain. 

• Leading horizontal applications and impacts: The landscape of VC-backed agent startups is dominated by a focus on horizontal applications and general productivity workflows.

• Emerging industry applications and opportunities: While few agentic companies focus on single industries, companies are emerging to target workflows across financial services, industrials, and more. 

Download the full report to get all the data and insights.