One of my favorite parts of BrightonSEO was seeing how the European search crowd thinks about AI search. Some of it surprised me. (The rest of what I heard is in my BrightonSEO 2026 takeaways.)

There’s way more AEO talent in Europe than I realized

There are a lot more AEO and SEO folks in Europe than you’d realize being in America. And they’re really talented and scrappy.

They wait for changes to show up

A lot of AI search stuff rolls out in the US first. I was surprised how many EU agency folks aren’t really tracking those early US rollouts. They kind of just wait for it to happen there.

I don’t know if that’s good or bad. Would you change your strategy when it’s working, just because you know something’s going to change soon? My guess is probably not.

Only about 1 in 5 hands went up for ChatGPT ads

During my session I asked the audience how many were using ChatGPT ads. I’d say maybe a fifth of the room raised their hands. In the US I’d guess it’d be closer to half. Not scientific, but I thought that was fascinating.

Regulation is top of mind, constantly

I lost count of how many conversations turned to GDPR and local rules. Different jurisdictions, different regulations, different requirements that need to be followed. It’s a much bigger part of the day-to-day than it is for most US teams.

Who works with whom is cultural

That feeds right into who companies want to partner with. A lot of countries want to work with companies from their own country, because they know those companies are already solving for the local compliance issues. Germany wants to work with German companies. France wants to work with French companies.

The Nordics and the Netherlands were different. Folks from Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands seemed perfectly happy working with companies outside their country, US companies included. Culturally, they’re just more open to it. A French company might be a little more reserved.

If you’re a US agency or software company looking at Europe, that’s a pretty useful signal for where to start. AI search isn’t one global market, and assuming what works here will translate over there is a good way to get surprised. Even here in the US, local context matters a lot, which is why we build strategies around specific markets like Fayetteville and Bentonville.

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More from BrightonSEO 2026: all my takeaways · the attribution problem · the junior AEO gap