This article was AI-generated as part of an experimental historical-content project. The date reflects the period being analyzed rather than the date the article was originally written.
Checklists on this site have usually been sorted by platform or by where an answer forms. This one is sorted by who has to do the work. Most of what changed since October sits between departments, and an item nobody owns tends not to get done.
Web and digital
The December core update finished on December 29. Google’s guidance is to wait at least a full week after completion and compare with a week before the rollout began. That window is open now. Compare the results that matter against your own log of December events, so that changes caused by news or edits are not blamed on Google.
Then look at how pages are read inside new interfaces. In ChatGPT Atlas, OpenAI’s browser, clicking a search result opens the page beside a ChatGPT panel by default, and summaries are one click away. And Gemini 3 in AI Mode can build its own layouts, tables and interactive tools for a query, such as a loan calculator. If your category involves numbers, check what figures those generated layouts use for you, and where they come from.
Communications
Since late October, Sora has offered character cameos: reusable characters made from pets, objects, illustrations or original personas, each with its own permissions. If your company has a mascot or a recognizable character, decide now what you will do when someone else turns it into one, and who will file the reports.
Corporate affairs and crisis
Nestlé’s infant formula recall, first announced in December, widened on January 5 to further BEBA and Alfamino batches, including some sold in Austria, according to Austria’s food agency. The lesson for any company in a regulated product category is to prepare the recall page before it is needed: dated updates, a visible change log, and the local brand names consumers search in each language.
On Wikipedia, the Foundation is planning a small hybrid search experiment that may let question-style searches land readers in specific sections. Read your article section by section and ask whether each part is accurate and understandable on its own. The 25th anniversary announcement also listed Microsoft, Mistral AI and Perplexity among new paying reusers of Wikipedia content, a reminder of how far each sentence now travels. The Foundation’s new chief executive, Bernadette Meehan, had a January 20 start date.
Legal and policy
The final judgment in the Google search case was entered on December 5 and takes effect 60 days after entry. Google filed its notice of appeal on January 16 and asked the court to pause the data-sharing and syndication remedies. For first impressions, the default-placement rules matter most: once the judgment is in effect, Google’s distribution deals must end within a year. Track which assistants and search engines win default slots on devices and browsers as those renegotiations happen.
Marketing
ChatGPT Go now costs $8 a month in the U.S. and is available worldwide, and OpenAI plans to test ads for some U.S. users on the free and Go tiers. Two checks follow. Run your important questions on the fast model those users get, not only on premium tools. And agree internally on how ads in assistants will be bought, without anyone assuming they change the answer.
One owner for the whole list
Each item is small. The risk is that each one sits with a different team and nobody sees them together. In 2023 I wrote that Google keeps punishing performance theater. The same applies here. A checklist only helps if someone is accountable for what changes because of it.