by Jana Spivey | Jun 8, 2026 | Blog
Everyone's been warning venues about AI for two years. Here's what actually changed and why the timing matters more than the trend.
I want to make a distinction that I think gets lost in most of the AI and marketing conversation: there's a difference between AI as a general technological trend and AI as something that changed how your potential customers find you this month.
The trend conversation has been going on for years. The second thing happened in May 2026, when Google completed its core update and fully deployed what it calls AI Mode, a version of search where, for a wide swath of queries, the answer to what someone types is no longer a list of links.
It's a generated response, written by Google's AI, that may or may not include a citation to your website.
WHAT ACTUALLY CHANGED
For most of the internet's history, search worked the same basic way. You typed something in, Google matched your words to pages it had indexed, and returned a ranked list of links. The entire discipline of search engine optimization (SEO) was built around influencing that ranking. Get your page high enough, people click it, they arrive on your site.
That model isn't gone. But it's no longer the primary experience for a large and growing category of searches. When someone types a question or a discovery query into Google today, something like "best small concert venues in Denver" or "outdoor event spaces near me this weekend" for example, they're increasingly getting an AI-generated answer at the top of the page before they ever see a list of links.
That answer was written by Google. Google decided what to include and whose information to trust. And critically, Google decided whether your venue was worth mentioning.
HOW AI SEARCH DECIDES WHAT TO SAY
Traditional search asked: does this page contain the right keywords, have enough credibility signals, and load fast enough?
AI search asks: do I understand this entity well enough to describe it accurately? Do enough trustworthy sources corroborate what this venue says about itself? Is the information consistent, current, and structured in a way I can actually read?
This is where some operators run into trouble because the infrastructure most venues have built over the last decade was designed for the old model. A combination of a good-looking website on Squarespace, a Facebook page with event listings, and a Ticketmaster or Eventbrite widget for tickets worked fine for a world where Google was matching keywords to pages. It works less well for a world where AI is trying to build a coherent picture of who you are and what you offer.
The signals AI search relies on are things like:
- Structured data on your site that explicitly tells crawlers what type of business you are, what events you're hosting, and when they happen
- Consistent information about your venue across third-party platforms with the same name, address, and description everywhere it appears
- Content on your site that AI can actually read (more on why this is a problem in the next post)
- Citations from credible sources that establish your venue as a real, active entity in your market
None of this is magic. It's a set of technical and content decisions that either are or aren't in place. Most venues are somewhere in the middle with a few things done, a few missing, some things actively working against them without anyone knowing it.
THIS IS NOT A REASON TO PANIC
I want to be careful here, because a lot of the AI and marketing content out there is written to produce anxiety. The message usually implies everything you've done is wrong, the algorithms are against you, and you need to buy something to fix it. I don't think that's true or useful.
What's true is that the rules changed, the change was significant, and it happened fast. What's also true is that the venues with the most to gain from this shift are independent operators. Not the big chains with corporate SEO teams, but the places that are genuinely part of their communities and have real things to say about what they do and who they host. AI search rewards specificity, authenticity, and depth. Those are things an independent venue can actually build.
The rest of this series walks through exactly what that looks like in practice from whether your site is technically readable by AI, to your Google Business Profile's new role, to the platforms that are actually feeding event data to AI search right now. You don't have to do everything at once. But you do need to know what you're working with.
Start with the question: does the AI version of Google know my venue exists, understand what we do, and trust what we say about ourselves?
If you're not sure, that's what the rest of this series is here to answer.
by Jana Spivey | Jun 8, 2026 | Blog
Independent stages are disappearing. Not all at once, and not without a fight, but the forces working against them are real, and the marketing landscape is shifting in ways that compound the problem. JAM Agency exists because someone needed to stand in the gap and build specifically for the people keeping live music, comedy, theater, and the arts alive.
AI-powered search is changing the way people discover events like yours.
And, unfortunately, that's not just a theoretical. When someone opens ChatGPT and types "live music venues in Austin," what happens? Where does that answer come from? Which venues show up and which ones don't, and why? What's the difference between a venue that gets cited in an AI Overview and one that's invisible to it entirely?
These aren't mysteries anymore. They're questions we can answer and I've spent a lot of time studying how search is evolving and helping businesses adapt to it.
That's a big part of why I started JAM.
Search Is Changing. Fast.
For more than two decades, we've been taught to think about search in terms of keywords, backlinks, and rankings. Those things still matter but AI-powered search adds a new layer. Instead of returning a list of links, tools like Google's AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity are generating direct answers. And to decide whose information gets included in those answers, looking at a broader set of signals to decide whose information to trust.
Your venue's website structure, schema markup, Google Business Profile, the way third-party sites describe you, and the consistency of your citations across the web now all play a role in helping AI systems understand who you are and whether you're a credible source.
The challenge is that AI visibility can be difficult to measure. With traditional SEO, you could search for a keyword and see where you ranked. Today, many venues don't realize they have a visibility problem until attendance slows, traffic drops, or competitors begin appearing in places they don't.
I'd rather help venue operators get ahead of those challenges than react to them later.
WHAT JAM ACTUALLY DOES
JAM Agency is a specialized division of Emery Marketing, my digital marketing agency.
Between Emery and JAM, we've spent years helping organizations improve visibility through SEO, paid search, content strategy, and digital marketing. Along the way, I noticed something that never sat right with me: too many agencies focused on reporting marketing metrics while losing sight of the outcomes that actually matter to their clients.
Marketing should support business goals. It shouldn't create more confusion. JAM was built to bring that philosophy specifically to the live events industry.
We help independent venues, event organizers, and live experience operators:
- Understand how visible they really are in search and AI-powered discovery tools
- Identify the issues that may be limiting their visibility online
- Strengthen their digital presence so they're easier to find and easier to trust
- Build sustainable marketing strategies that support long-term growth
- Stay informed as search and AI continue to evolve
Most importantly, we believe in making marketing understandable. No jargon, no mystery, no bloated recommendations designed to justify a retainer. Just honest assessments, practical recommendations, and strategies tied to real outcomes.
JAM is also a Google Certified Partner with three active Google certifications. We manage over half a million in Google Ads spend across active client accounts, and our SEO (search everywhere optimization) clients have seen results ranging from 350% traffic increases in six months to 6,250% growth over five years. The credentials exist. But the reason JAM exists is simpler than that: independent stages matter, and they deserve marketing built for their world.
ABOUT THIS BLOG SERIES
We've published a series of 21 blogs exploring how AI-powered search works, what venue operators should know about it, what actually influences visibility, and where I think people are getting distracted by hype. The first one is entitled, "Finding Your Venue in the AI Era."
Some topics will get a little technical but don't worry, most won't! Everything is written with busy venue operators like you in mind: the people who don't have time to spend hours digging through SEO blogs hoping to find something useful buried halfway down the page.
My goal is simple: help you understand what's changing, what matters, and what actions are worth your time.
I'll share what I know, what I'm watching closely, and where I think the industry conversation is headed.
Let's get started!
by Jana Spivey | Jun 7, 2026 | Blog
This is where we write about the thing most venue operators don't have time to research but probably should: how AI-powered search is changing the way people discover venues and what to do about it.
When someone asks AI for a wedding venue or Google serves an AI-generated answer for "outdoor concert spaces near me this weekend," the venues that show up aren't just the most popular ones. They're the ones whose digital presence is built in a way that AI systems can read, trust, and cite.
That's a learnable thing.
It's also a fixable thing, for most venues, without a massive budget or a full marketing team.
We write here for the independent operator, someone running a real venue who wants honest, practical information without the agency pitch attached to it. Everything here is free. We share what we know because we think you deserve access to it, and because the venues that do this work well are going to be in a very different position two years from now than the ones that don't.
Start anywhere. The series builds, but every post stands on its own.
SERIES NAVIGATION
01 | The foundation
What JAM is, why AI visibility matters for venues, and what this series covers.
- Why JAM Agency Exists
02–16 | The education
How AI search works, what venues need in place, and where most operators have gaps.
- Google AI Mode Isn’t the Future. It’s What Search Became Last Month.
- Fans Are Using AI to Find Their Next Show. Does Your Venue Rank?
- Is Your Squarespace Site Invisible to AI? Probably.
- Local Search Changed. Is Your Venue Ready?
- Schema Markup: What It Is, Whether Your Venue Has It, and Why AI Cares
- The AI Citation Problem: Why Consistency Across the Web Matters More Than Ever
- More Ways to Show Up: The Platforms Actually Feeding AI Your Event Data
- 60% of Searches End Without a Click. What Now?
- Google Ads Is Probably Losing You Money. Here's What to Do About It.
- How to Challenge Your Marketing Agency on Monthly Reports
- Marketing Is the #1 Challenge for Independent Venues. It Doesn't Have to Stay That Way.
- The Live Nation Lawsuit Verdict: What Independent Venues Should Be Watching Next
- AI Tools Your Team Can Use This Week (Without a Tech Background)
- Your Email List Is the Only Marketing Audience You Actually Own
- What I'm Still Watching in AI Search: Google AI Mode, Preferred Sources, and the Bing Question
17–20 | Going deeper
A three-part deep dive into each strategic layer, with frameworks you can actually use.
- Deep Dive: Website Visibility, AI Crawlers, and the Event Calendar Problem Every Venue Should Know
- Deep Dive: How to Build a Digital Presence AI Actually Trusts
- Deep Dive: Writing Event Content That Gets Cited, Not Just Indexed
- We'll Be at NIVA 2026 Conference on June 10. Here's What We're Going to Say.
- NIVA Attendees: Your Post-Conference Punch List
Guides | Downloadable resources
Checklists and frameworks to work through with your team, at your own pace.
