Google’s EAT 1.0 was the four signals the algorithm could measure: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness. The problem in 2026 is that AI passes the surface test. EAT 2.0 stacks the human layer the framework was never asked to measure. Empathy, Authenticity, Transparency. These three are what authority now compounds on, and they are the move AI cannot imitate.
Most people use ‘branding’ and ‘brandifying’ as if they were the same word. They are not. Branding decorates what already exists. Brandifying names the thing into existence first, so it can be owned. I have been doing the second one for 35 years without a word for it. Here is the line, the move, and why expert-led firms that want to claim a category have to learn to brandify rather than brand.
Most “revenue architecture” sold today is plumbing, such as pipeline mechanics, attribution, dashboards. But the real architecture is upstream, where positioning lives.
The playbooks that drove growth for the past decade have quietly stopped producing results. Here are the three I see failing most often and what’s replacing them.
When a strong offer underperforms, the culprit is usually the audience, not the price, message, or funnel. Effective targeting answers two distinct questions in order: Fit (who the buyer actually is) and Placement (where they can be reached). The Bullseye Method maps Placement as three concentric rings around the same ideal buyer. In 2026 the scarce resource is attention, not budget, and in enterprise the buyer often splits across three roles that sit in different rings. Get both reads right, in that order, and the downstream metrics fall into line.
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