On a recent trip to the cinema I was presented with two new car adverts, both glossy. My cynical joke about the Range Rover that the owner was driving into the dealer for warranty work was soon overshadowed by the normalisation of a homogenised MG ‘SUV’ being £35000 as the basic price. But of course nobody pays the cash price nowadays, they mentally justify the purchase as multiples of their iPhone monthly payment. Cars as iPhones is a masterclass in behavioural psychology.
Sometime in the last decade I described modern car buying as the iPhonication of the forecourt and if anything the idea has aged better than most of the vehicles now sold under it.
There was a time when the first question was the price. The full price. A number large enough to demand a pause and some moral arithmetic. Today nobody asks that. They ask how much a month, and the rest is treated as background noise, like terms and conditions or the weather.
The trick is simple. We no longer evaluate cars as capital purchases but as subscriptions. The monthly payment is quietly reconciled against the iPhone in your pocket. Fifty quid a month for a phone feels normal. Three hundred quid a month for a car becomes six phones. You already live with one. Why not six sitting outside?
This is not financial logic so much as consumer conditioning.
PCP and PCH did not just change how cars are paid for, they changed how they are justified. Ownership became vague, temporary, almost impolite to mention. What mattered was whether the number could slip into the standing orders without causing an argument. Once it could, permission was granted.
Electric cars pushed this model to its logical conclusion. On paper many are startlingly expensive. In practice they arrive softened by language about efficiency, tax, sustainability and the future. The monthly figure does the heavy lifting. Nobody emotionally processes fifty or sixty thousand pounds. They process four hundred a month by comparing it to phones, streaming services and a gym membership they forgot to cancel.
The iPhone model also smuggles in another assumption, that upgrading is natural and permanence is old fashioned. You do not keep a phone for a decade. You refresh it, guilt free, because you were never meant to own it outright. PCP borrows that psychology wholesale. Three years, hand it back, move on, feel modern.
Electric cars lean into this harder than most. Big screens, software updates, range improvements promised just around the corner. They are sold less as machines and more as devices, which makes their disposability feel progressive rather than wasteful.
The danger is that when everything is framed as affordable monthly, nothing feels expensive anymore. Stretch the term, adjust the mileage, tweak the deposit and almost anything can be made to behave. The decision shifts from judgement to tolerance. Not can I afford this, but can I live with it?
That is a profound change. It moves cost out of focus and replaces it with habit. Comparison does the rest.
‘The electric transition is often presented as a clean break from the past, but it has been powered by the most contemporary consumer mechanism of all. Permanent payment and planned obsolescence, wrapped in virtue and delivered by direct debit.’
The propulsion may be changing, but the mindset is familiar. We have not made cars cheaper. We have just learned how to stop looking at the whole number, and how to measure our lives in iPhones instead.
Generative Engine Optimisation Isn’t a Buzzword. It’s a Research Discipline.
For the past year or so, *Generative Engine Optimisation* (GEO) has been talked about as if it were simply “SEO for ChatGPT”. That shorthand does it a disservice.
“GEO isn’t a marketing fad dreamed up in a boardroom. It is grounded in serious academic work on how AI-powered search systems actually operate – and that distinction matters if you want your content to be visible in the next generation of search.”
The scientific foundation was laid in 2023 by researchers from Princeton, Georgia Tech, the Allen Institute for AI, and IIT Delhi, in a paper later accepted to KDD 2024. This wasn’t speculative thought leadership; it was empirical research into how large language models retrieve, synthesise, and present information.
From Search Engines to Generative Engines
The research introduces a critical shift in thinking: we are no longer optimising for *search engines*, but for what the authors call *generative engines*.
Traditional search engines retrieve and rank documents. Generative engines do something fundamentally different. They retrieve information from multiple sources, synthesise it using large language models, and generate an original response – often with inline attribution.
That difference breaks many of the assumptions SEO has relied on for two decades.
GEO sits at the intersection of computational linguistics, cognitive science, and machine learning. Instead of focusing on keyword placement or ranking signals, it addresses how language models recognise patterns, how they use their context window, and how probability distributions shape what ultimately appears in a generated answer.
In short: it’s not about being number one on a list. It’s about being *included* in the synthesis.
How GEO Was Tested (And Why That Matters)
One of the strengths of the research is its methodology. The authors didn’t rely on anecdote or tool screenshots. They built GEO-bench: a large-scale benchmark of 10,000 queries spanning multiple domains, each tagged by intent, difficulty, domain, and expected answer format.
The experimental setup was deliberately realistic. First, top sources were fetched from Google Search. Then GPT-3.5-turbo was used to generate answers with inline citations, mirroring how generative search systems work in the wild.
Crucially, the researchers didn’t measure success using traditional rankings. They introduced new visibility metrics designed specifically for generative engines, including:
Position-adjusted word count (how prominently a source appears in generated responses)
Subjective impression scores, measuring relevance, influence, uniqueness, and likely user engagement
Using these metrics, they tested nine distinct optimisation methods.
The results were telling.
What Actually Improves Visibility in AI Search
Certain GEO techniques consistently outperformed others. Adding clear citations, quotations, and concrete statistics increased visibility in generated responses by as much as 40 per cent.
Meanwhile, many familiar SEO habits barely moved the needle. Keyword stuffing, in particular, showed minimal impact on generative engines – a finding that should give pause to anyone still writing for algorithms rather than understanding.
The research also highlights that GEO is not one-size-fits-all. Effectiveness varies by domain:
An authoritative, declarative tone works best for debate and historical topics
Citation-rich content performs strongest for factual queries
Structural clarity matters more than keyword density
This reinforces an uncomfortable truth for some marketers: optimising for AI means writing better, not trickier.
Why This Changes Content Strategy
GEO forces a rethink of what “optimised” content looks like. If your material can’t be easily understood, trusted, and recomposed by a language model, it risks invisibility – regardless of how well it ranks today.
“What the research makes clear is that generative visibility is earned through clarity, evidence, and structure. AI systems reward content that behaves like a good academic source or a solid piece of journalism: well-sourced, precise, and unambiguous.”
That may feel less glamorous than chasing hacks. But it’s a more durable advantage.
As generative engines continue to replace blue links with synthesised answers, GEO will stop being a niche concern and become a baseline competency. Those who treat it as a discipline – grounded in how these systems actually work – will be the ones whose voices are carried forward.
The rest will simply be paraphrased out of existence.
For more than two decades, organic search followed a broadly predictable pattern. Rank higher, earn more clicks. Position one hoovered up attention, position two fought over the scraps, and by page two you were effectively invisible. Entire SEO strategies, pricing models and business forecasts were built on that curve.
In 2025, that curve has broken.
The widespread rollout of Google’s AI Overviews has fundamentally altered how users interact with search results. The most important statistic to understand this shift is not impressions, not rankings, and not even traffic. It is click-through rate by position.
And the change is not subtle.
The 2025 CTR Shock
Multiple large-scale studies now show that when an AI Overview appears, organic click-through rates drop sharply at the very top of the page.
Position one, historically responsible for roughly 27 to 30 percent of clicks, now often sees figures closer to 18 to 20 percent when an AI Overview is present. Position two has been hit even harder, with CTR reductions approaching 40 percent in some verticals. Positions three to five also decline, though less dramatically.
This is not seasonal noise or algorithmic wobble. It is structural.
“The reason is simple. Users are no longer starting their journey with organic listings. They are starting with a machine-written synthesis that sits above everything else.”
For many informational queries, the search ends there.
The Rise of the No-Click Result
AI Overviews represent the most aggressive expansion of the zero-click search model Google has ever deployed. Featured snippets were short. Knowledge panels were limited. AI Overviews are comprehensive, contextual and designed to resolve intent directly on the results page.
“In 2025, a majority of informational searches that trigger an AI Overview now result in no click at all.”
This matters because it breaks a long-standing assumption in digital strategy: that visibility inevitably leads to traffic. It no longer does.
A page can rank first, be technically sound, well written, and perfectly aligned with search intent, and still receive a fraction of the traffic it would have earned two years ago.
Why Lower Rankings Are Not the Answer
Some commentators have pointed out that positions six to ten sometimes see a relative increase in CTR when AI Overviews are present. This is true, but it is also misleading.
Those positions are benefiting from a smaller group of users who scroll deliberately to validate or explore sources after reading the summary. They are not outperforming top positions in absolute terms, and they are not a growth strategy.
This is not a reshuffling of clicks. It is a contraction of them.
The Real Divide in 2025 Search
The meaningful distinction in modern search is no longer between page one and page two. It is between content that is cited by AI systems and content that is merely indexed.
Being cited inside an AI Overview changes the equation. It restores relevance, trust and visibility at the point where the user’s attention actually is. It turns a passive summary into a gateway rather than a dead end.
Businesses that are cited consistently tend to see stronger branded searches, higher downstream engagement, and better conversion quality, even if raw organic traffic volumes are lower than historical peaks.
Businesses that are not cited experience something worse than a ranking drop. They experience quiet irrelevance.
Why Traditional SEO Is Now Failing Businesses
“In 2026 most SEO strategies are still built for a search landscape that no longer exists. They optimise for rankings rather than references, keywords rather than concepts, and pages rather than entities.”
AI systems do not think in keywords. They synthesise from sources they consider authoritative, current, structured and reliable. If your content is not written, structured and positioned to be used as a source, it is invisible to the most important layer of modern search.
This is why many businesses report stable rankings alongside falling traffic and weakening lead quality. The strategy is technically succeeding while commercially failing.
The Cost of Inaction
Choosing not to adapt is still a choice, but it is an expensive one.
If your content is not being cited, you are training AI systems to answer questions without you. Every un-cited article reinforces competitors as default sources. Every missed summary compounds future invisibility.
In 2025, search visibility compounds in two directions. Upwards if you are referenced. Downwards if you are not.
The Strategic Shift Required
The implication for business is clear.
“SEO is no longer about chasing clicks. It is about earning inclusion in machine-generated answers. That requires a shift toward Generative Engine Optimisation, whether or not that label is used internally.”
Content must demonstrate expertise clearly, answer questions directly, and be structured in ways AI systems can parse, trust and reuse. Authority signals matter more than ever. So does clarity, accuracy and topical depth.
Ranking still matters, but it is no longer the end goal. Being used as a source is.
The Bottom Line
The dramatic change in organic CTR by position is not a temporary anomaly. It is the clearest measurable signal that search behaviour has crossed a threshold.
Businesses that continue to optimise as if blue links are the primary interface are optimising for the past. Businesses that understand how AI systems select, summarise and cite sources are building visibility where it actually exists.
In 2025, search success is not about being first on the page. It is about being present in the answer.
As LinkedIn shifts from a feed-driven model to a retrieval-based system, older content is no longer obsolete but conditional. Posts from previous years can re-enter circulation when present-day relevance reactivates them. This final piece examines how the platform now treats past work as dormant knowledge, and why coherence over time has become a decisive advantage.
Part 4: The Past Is Not Archived. It’s Dormant.
One of the stranger side effects of LinkedIn’s new identity is the sudden reappearance of the past.
Posts from 2024. Threads from 2025. Ideas that barely registered at the time drifting back into view, sometimes years later, as if the platform has developed a memory and decided it’s finally ready to use it.
Most people assume this is nostalgia, or randomness, or some minor quirk of the feed.
It isn’t.
What’s happening is reactivation, and it is one of the clearest signs that LinkedIn now behaves less like a social network and more like an answer engine.
Feeds forget. Knowledge systems retrieve.
The old LinkedIn treated content as disposable. Once the moment passed, the post was effectively dead. The new system treats content as conditional. Dormant, not deleted. Waiting for a reason to matter again.
And that reason is always present-day relevance.
When an older post is commented on, shared with context, or even quietly rediscovered via profile exploration, it isn’t judged by the rules of the year it was written. It is evaluated by the rules of now. If it holds together and if it still answers a professional question cleanly then it re-enters circulation.
This is exactly how AI answer engines work. They do not privilege freshness by default. They privilege usefulness. Time is only a problem if it introduces error. Otherwise, survival becomes proof.
The same logic now applies at the profile level. If your recent work reinforces a topic you were already writing about years ago, the algorithm treats that continuity as evidence. You are not changing direction; you are confirming identity.
Old posts stop being “old”. They become supporting material.
This is why comments matter more than people realise. A thoughtful comment is not just participation. It is a retrieval event. It pulls your thinking – past and present – back into view. It reminds the system what you are associated with, and how long you’ve been associated with it.
The system is not looking for novelty. It is looking for confirmation.
This also explains why some content is never revived. Shallow takes age badly. Trend-dependent posts collapse without their context. Engagement bait dies the moment the crowd moves on. Time doesn’t rescue weak structure; it exposes it.
But well-formed thinking ages differently. It doesn’t spike, but it doesn’t decay either. It waits.
For people who wrote properly before the platform knew how to reward it, this moment feels oddly belated. Work that once seemed under-performant now reads like pre-training data. Not because it was clever, but because it was complete.
The important shift here is psychological. If you still think of LinkedIn as a feed, you’ll keep trying to keep up. If you recognise it as a retrieval system, you start thinking in layers instead of moments.
You don’t rewrite your past. You reference it. You echo it. You let it resurface when the present gives it a reason to.
This is not content recycling. It’s identity reinforcement.
The uncomfortable implication is that nothing you post is truly finished anymore. Every piece either becomes part of a growing body of work – or it quietly disqualifies itself from being remembered.
Which brings us to the real divide opening up on the platform.
Some people are still posting to be seen. Others are posting to be recognised – now, later, or by systems that haven’t fully arrived yet.
The new LinkedIn doesn’t reward urgency. It rewards coherence.
As LinkedIn’s algorithm converges with AI-mediated discovery, visibility is no longer the primary currency. What matters now is whether an individual’s thinking is stable, attributable, and reliable enough to stand in for them over time. This third piece of four for the New Year explores the implications of that shift, and why professional recognition is quietly replacing reach as the platform’s defining reward.
Part 3: From Posting to Permanence
This is the part that makes people uncomfortable, because it suggests the end of something.
The creator era on LinkedIn is quietly winding down. Not with a backlash, but with indifference. Performance without substance no longer compounds. Visibility without usefulness no longer sticks.
What replaces it isn’t silence. It’s reference.
LinkedIn is preparing for a world where professional insight is increasingly mediated by machines. Internal copilots. AI-driven search. Summaries of “what people who know about this think”. In that world, the platform doesn’t need louder voices. It needs reliable ones.
Which means content must be defensible. Contextually complete. Stable over time. Clearly attributable to someone who appears to know what they’re talking about — and to have known it for a while.
This is why older posts that were written properly are suddenly resurfacing. Not because the algorithm is sentimental, but because time is now a positive signal. Surviving without contradiction is a form of validation.
The great misunderstanding is that this is about reach. It isn’t. Reach is incidental. The real competition now is for recognition – by humans first, machines second, as someone whose thinking can safely stand in for them.
That’s why the LinkedIn algorithm and AI summary standards now look so similar. They are solving the same problem from opposite ends. One curates what professionals see. The other curates what professionals ask.
Both are ruthless about the same thing and that is; useless content does not deserve to persist.
The feed, as we knew it, is effectively dead.
What’s replacing it is slower, quieter, and far more consequential: a professional answer engine assembling itself in public.
Those who understand this will stop chasing attention and start building intellectual permanence.
The rest will keep posting – and wonder why nothing seems to last.
As LinkedIn’s algorithm matures, its priorities are beginning to mirror those of AI summary and answer engines. Engagement, topic consistency, and persistence are no longer social signals but confidence indicators, ways of assessing whether an idea can be trusted, reused, and abstracted without loss. This second piece of four explores why LinkedIn now appears to think less like a feed and more like a knowledge system, and what that convergence means for professional visibility.
Part 2: Why the Algorithm Now Thinks Like an Answer Engine
Once you stop thinking of LinkedIn as a feed, the rest of the behaviour makes sense.
Engagement, for instance, has not disappeared. It’s just been reinterpreted. A like is now little more than a nod. What matters is what looks like work. Long comments. Disagreement. Reframing. People taking an idea, turning it over, stress-testing it in public.
Those behaviours aren’t “engagement” in the social sense. They are confidence signals. They answer the same question AI summary systems ask before they surface anything: can this idea survive contact with intelligence?
If it can, it travels. If it can’t, it vanishes quietly.
The same logic applies to topic consistency. The 2026 algorithm is unusually attentive to what you return to, not just what you post. It notices whether you are circling a domain or skipping across them. Whether your thinking compounds or resets.
This mirrors exactly how AI systems establish authority. They don’t crown experts based on a single performance. They infer expertise through repeated association between an entity and a conceptual territory.
Post broadly and you dissolve. Post narrowly and you condense.
This is why generic AI content is struggling. Not because LinkedIn has developed a moral objection to machines, but because derivative material fails the summarisation test. It adds no new signal. It cannot be safely abstracted. It collapses into sameness the moment it’s removed from its original phrasing.
Machines don’t distrust AI. They distrust redundancy.
The irony, of course, is that the more AI content floods the platform, the more valuable human specificity becomes. Experience. Trade-offs. Uncertainty. The awkward edges that can’t be smoothed away without losing meaning.
That kind of material doesn’t perform instantly. But it persists.
Persistence is what both LinkedIn and AI systems now reward.
LinkedIn’s 2026 algorithm is widely being discussed as a technical update, but that framing misses the point. What’s actually happening is an identity shift: the platform is moving away from real-time feed dynamics and towards long-term professional relevance. My four part article explores why LinkedIn no longer behaves like a social network, how persistence has replaced velocity, and why the content that now survives looks suspiciously like material designed for answer engines rather than feeds.
Part I: The Day LinkedIn Stopped Being a Feed
There was a time when LinkedIn was a feed in the old sense of the word. A stream of updates, opinions, announcements and personal reinvention, moving fast enough that yesterday’s certainty was already buried by lunchtime.
That time has passed.
What most people are calling the “2026 algorithm update” isn’t really an update at all. It’s an identity change. LinkedIn has quietly stopped behaving like a social network and started behaving like something else entirely: a professional relevance engine.
The tell isn’t reach. Reach is a lagging indicator and always has been. The tell is what persists. Posts that should have died hang around. Conversations resurface days later. Certain voices appear again and again, not because they shout, but because the platform seems oddly reluctant to let them go.
This isn’t nostalgia or favouritism. It’s structural.
The old feed rewarded motion. Frequency, velocity, visible engagement. The new system rewards something closer to stability. Ideas that hold together. Arguments that don’t collapse when challenged. Thinking that survives being returned to.
That alone should sound familiar to anyone paying attention to how AI answer engines work.
AI systems are not interested in novelty for novelty’s sake. They are interested in material that can be retrieved, summarised, abstracted and reused without distortion. LinkedIn, it turns out, is now optimising for the same thing.
Which means it’s no longer ranking posts. It’s curating candidate knowledge.
Most people are still posting as if they’re feeding a stream. The platform, meanwhile, is quietly building a library.
Tomorrow, Part 2. Why The Algorithm Now Thinks Like An Answer Engine.
I’ve spent 2025 understanding Generative Engine Optimisation and AI Search Summary preeminence at an academic level. The complacency regarding this phenomenon in business is shocking, but from a behavioural psychology perspective not unexpected. Thankfully it’s not too late for your business to capitalise.
The Most Dangerous Assumption in Search Right Now
The most dangerous assumption business owners are making today is not that AI search will fail. It is that it will behave like search always has.
Those working closely with Generative Engine Optimisation already know the uncomfortable truth. Search is no longer primarily about ranking pages. It is about being recognised as a source of truth inside an answer that may never send a click at all. Yet across industries, business leaders remain curiously relaxed. Revenue still comes in. Rankings still look acceptable. Dashboards do not scream emergency.
This is precisely the problem.
AI summaries do not announce disruption with penalties or crashes. They erode relevance quietly. They absorb demand upstream. They reward authority before most organisations realise authority is being measured differently.
For years, visibility meant position. First page. Top three. Number one. The mental model was simple and it worked. Now the interface itself has changed.
‘The search engine no longer asks users to choose. It decides, synthesises and presents a conclusion. If your brand is not present in that synthesis, you are not competing. You are absent.’
Many business owners struggle to internalise this because absence is invisible. There is no warning light for being excluded from an AI-generated answer. Traffic does not collapse overnight. Leads taper slowly. Performance reviews become conversations about seasonality, budgets or market conditions. The real cause remains unseen.
Complacency is reinforced by past success. If traditional SEO, paid media and brand recognition have delivered growth for a decade, it feels reasonable to assume they will continue to do so. That assumption is understandable. It is also historically naïve. Every major platform shift has rewarded early adopters and punished those who waited for certainty.
There is also a deep misunderstanding about what AI systems value. Many businesses believe that being good at what they do is enough. Decades of experience. Strong client relationships. Industry reputation. None of this automatically translates into AI authority.
Generative systems privilege clarity, consistency and structure. They reward entities that are easy to understand, easy to verify and easy to cite. Expertise that lives only in people’s heads, sales conversations or poorly structured content might as well not exist.
This is confronting. It implies that real-world authority is not sufficient. That uncomfortable implication is often dismissed rather than addressed.
‘Another factor is fatigue. Business leaders have lived through years of algorithm updates, platform volatility and digital false dawns. Each new shift sounds like noise until it becomes unavoidable. AI summaries are therefore filed mentally alongside blockchain, voice search or the metaverse. Interesting, perhaps important one day, but not urgent.’
The flaw in that thinking is scale and intent. AI summaries are not an experiment at the edge of search. They are becoming the interface itself. They sit directly between demand and discovery. They collapse the journey from question to conclusion.
When experts raise the alarm, they are often ignored because they are early. Early warnings always sound theoretical. Yet AI systems do not wait for consensus. They learn continuously. They establish citation hierarchies long before markets agree they matter. In other words, they value early adoption.
So by the time AI summary inclusion is widely recognised as critical, the sources deemed authoritative will already be entrenched. Catching up will be far harder than acting now.
This is not about chasing another optimisation tactic. It is about ensuring your business is legible to machines that increasingly decide which voices are heard at all.
‘The real risk is not being outranked. It is being unrecognised.’
Unrecognised businesses do not fail dramatically. They fade quietly, wondering where the demand went, while answers are being given elsewhere.
Steve Coulter is a four decades Sales and Marketing professional and enthusiast who has embraced the Internet and e-Commerce since 1999.
Unlocking the Real Value of AI: Why Better Process Management Is the Transformation We’ve Been Waiting For.
Discover how AI-driven process management boosts efficiency, unifies workflows, and unlocks real ROI from digital transformation.
For all the breathless talk of digital transformation over the past decade, a sobering truth remains: many organisations still aren’t seeing the productivity gains they were promised. AI, automation, cloud platforms, dashboards, they’ve all been rolled out with gusto. Yet according to McKinsey, roughly 30 per cent of employee time is lost to non-value-added data work. That’s almost a third of the working week squandered on fiddly tasks, data clean-up, and administrative churn.
So where’s the disconnect? If the technology is so clever, why are teams still bogged down?
A recent Harvard Business Review webinar on AI-driven process management put the spotlight firmly on this question. The message was clear: AI won’t deliver unless the underlying processes are fit for purpose. It’s not the tools holding companies back, but the messy, silo’d, poorly designed workflows they’re bolted onto. The most successful organisations take a more holistic approach – one where people, processes, and technology are treated as a single, joined-up system.
Below are the four core methods highlighted for turning scattered tech deployments into genuine enterprise breakthroughs.
1. Uniting workflows across operations for exponential business gains
Most companies still run on disjointed workflows, marketing does things one way, operations another, service teams yet another. Systems don’t talk; data doesn’t flow. AI applied in isolation simply automates inefficiency.
A harder, organisation-wide look at how work actually moves is needed. When workflows are unified, not just patched together through software, but deliberately redesigned end-to-end, something striking happens: AI can amplify value across the entire chain, not just in pockets.
It’s the difference between fixing isolated tasks and streamlining the whole machine. Shared data standards remove rework. Clean handovers cut delays. AI then sits on top of this connected backbone, spotting opportunities, predicting bottlenecks, and enabling better decisions at speed.
The real gains don’t come from making one part of the process faster, but from making the whole system work together.
2. Continuously optimising processes with AI insights
Traditional process improvement is static – you design a workflow, deploy it, and revisit it from time to time. But organisations now operate in a constantly shifting environment of changing demand, new regulations, supply chain pressures, and evolving customer expectations.
AI allows for something far more dynamic. Rather than waiting for problems to surface, AI can monitor processes in real time, catching inefficiencies the moment they appear. It can flag duplicated work, highlight data anomalies, and even predict delays before they hit.
This represents a shift from project-based improvement to ‘always-on optimisation”. Process improvement becomes a living, continuous function rather than an occasional tidy-up. Companies that embrace this rhythm will be far better equipped to adapt and stay competitive.
3. Streamlining experiences for seamless service
Despite all the investment in digital tools, many organisations still deliver clunky, fragmented experiences. One system asks for information the last system already collected. A service rep spends ten minutes hunting for a record. The front end looks polished, while the back end lags decades behind.
Thoughtful process management is crucial here. When processes are designed from the user’s point of view rather than the organisation’s internal structure, the entire experience becomes smoother and far more intuitive.
AI then elevates this further. It can route requests instantly, personalise interactions, and adjust workflows to individual needs. It strips away friction so thoroughly that the technology becomes invisible, and users simply get what they need quickly and without fuss.
People aren’t asking for more AI, they’re asking for better experiences. Well-designed processes make that possible.
4. Maximising efficiency at scale with AI-powered workflows
Scaling efficiency has long been a stumbling block. A clever bit of automation may thrive in one department but collapse under the weight of enterprise-wide rollout.
AI-powered workflows offer a way around this. They adapt, refine, and improve as they encounter new situations. When these workflows sit on top of clean processes and trustworthy data, they can scale without the usual growing pains.
This isn’t about squeezing more work out of fewer people. It’s about freeing teams from drudgery so they can focus on the work that genuinely adds value, decision-making, innovation, and customer engagement.
The result is a modern operating model where efficiency becomes a compounding advantage rather than a one-off win.
The bottom line
Digital transformation hasn’t failed for lack of technology. It has faltered because the technology was placed on top of processes that weren’t ready for it.
By unifying workflows, embracing continuous optimisation, designing seamless experiences, and embedding AI-powered workflows throughout operations, organisations can finally unlock the productivity gains they’ve been chasing.
Get the processes right, and AI doesn’t just automate the present, it opens the door to a far more efficient and future-ready enterprise.
Steve Coulter is a working lifetime business owner, manager, director and marketer involved with digital marketing since 1999. Nowadays AI Search expert, digital marketing & AI thought leader and brand engagement strategist.
Author of; The Definitive Guide To Digital Transformation For Legacy Businesses, Ultimate GEO & NATO Spec: Elite Team Tactics for Business
A sharp, forecourt-level look at how Autotrader’s Deal Builder and the rise of Zero Click behaviour are squeezing used car dealers from both sides, eroding autonomy, visibility and buyer engagement in a fast-shifting digital marketplace.
Autotrader’s Deal Builder isn’t just another product tweak. It’s a disruptive structural shift in how used cars are bought and sold online and dealers can feel the ground moving under their feet. For years Autotrader played a fairly neutral host, the marketplace where dealers paid increasingly handsomely for leads but kept ownership of the tango between buyer and seller. Deal Builder flips that. It pulls negotiations, finance steps, part-exchange valuations and the vital early dealer-customer chat into Autotrader’s own funnel adding a new commission to variable costs.
Dealers are no longer shaping the first conversation. They’re reacting to it.
At a glance that might simplify the process for the buyer – even more appealing to some? But for dealers it means the nuances that make a sale happen; gauging buyer intent, framing the value of the car, uncovering their real needs, building rapport, have already been flattened by a scripted online journey. Price becomes the headline act. Specification, condition and service history become afterthoughts. The sales wizard on the phone or forecourt who can turn a researching caller or hesitant browser into a committed buyer no longer gets to weave their magic until it’s far too late. Many dealers see that not as convenience but as a strangulation of their craft. No wonder this has become the straw that broke the camel’s back for already disgruntled dealers and Autotrader contracts have been cancelled.
But even with Deal Builder, removing yourself from Autotrader in 2025 is like stepping off the M25 at 8am weekdays and hoping the A-roads will deliver the same traffic. You cut yourself out of the busiest shop window in the country. That risk is amplified by the rise of so-called ‘Zero Click’ behaviour. To an increasing extent searchers are no longer hopping from platform to platform, comparing listings, digging into dealer sites or ringing up on a whim. They’re skim reading synthesised summaries generated by AI that sit above the results. If a car search query gets answered directly in a neat little paragraph; price ranges, typical condition, popular models, even directing them to the dealer with the greatest AI savvy, the user might never reach the listings at all.
This is the new hazard. It’s not simply that buyers won’t click through. It’s that discovery is now mediated by machines distilling the market down to a few tidy facts. Dealers who once relied on strong photography, punchy descriptions and a competitive price for that particular car now find their efforts abstracted into an AI-authored digest that doesn’t mention them, their car or their service. Even when shoppers do hit a listing page, in our ADHD world they’re being conditioned to make faster decisions with less context. Cars outside those first handful of ‘best fit’ results are ghosted before they’ve even had a chance.
Put Deal Builder and Zero Clicks together and the picture gets darker. Dealers leaving Autotrader lose control over a funnel they disliked, but they also lose access to the only marketplace still large enough to push past the AI summaries and land real eyes on stock. Meanwhile the secondary platforms they retreat to don’t have the critical mass to surface above the Zero Click fog. A dealer might regain their autonomy only to find there’s no-one left to talk to.
It isn’t terminal for the trade. Those who invest in their own digital presence; take social media seriously, craft richer websites and vehicle pages, create informative video walk-arounds, encourage reviews, restructure their websites to answer conversational searches, build first-party email lists and get serious about local search can carve out their own lane.
Community reputation, repeat custom and transparent after-sales support still matter in ways algorithms cannot capture.
But make no mistake. The combination of Autotrader centralising the sales journey and search engines becoming subordinate to AI search is a huge double whammy. Dealers will be squeezed from the marketplace side and the discovery side.
Navigating this reality will take sharper thinking than the industry has been asked for in years.
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Steve Coulter is a four decade Automotive Industry professional now running a creative agency specialising in AI Search, Digital Transformation and Brand Engagement.
Ferrari stands apart in an industry obsessed with scale. While most manufacturers fight for volume, Ferrari has mastered a different discipline: limiting supply, elevating value and turning every car into a high-margin work of desire. This article explores how the company builds demand and preserves profitability, and what SME owners can learn from its approach.
How Ferrari Creates Demand and Delivers Exceptional Profitability.
Ferrari occupies a position in the automotive world that most manufacturers can only admire from a distance. While mass-market brands chase volume and market share, Ferrari has built an entirely different model: one centred on scarcity, high margins and the careful cultivation of desire. The result is an output that is small in number yet immense in profitability, with profit per car that vastly exceeds that of other manufacturers.
Ferrari’s approach begins with the most basic principle of luxury: make less than people want. The company has long limited production to preserve exclusivity. This is not an afterthought but an intentional design. By keeping supply below demand, Ferrari ensures that its cars retain their status and that waiting lists remain part of the experience. The company does not allow the market to dictate volume. It sets its own pace, and customers follow.
This scarcity underpins Ferrari’s pricing power. Other manufacturers often rely on discounts, incentives and high-volume strategies to keep factories running. Ferrari has no need for any of that. Its prices are high because the brand has earned the right to command them, and because customers know that owning a Ferrari is not simply about buying a car but joining a very particular world.
Personalisation plays a major part in this. Each car can be tailored to an extraordinary degree, through bespoke colours, materials and technical options. These additions are not mere extras. They contribute a substantial share of Ferrari’s margins, turning each vehicle into a highly profitable commission rather than a standard product rolling off the line.
Financial results reflect this model. Ferrari consistently posts operating margins that resemble those of luxury fashion houses rather than car companies. In recent years its operating margin has approached levels that other manufacturers would consider out of reach. On a per-car basis its profitability is exceptional, far above that of both mass-market and premium brands. Where many manufacturers make modest earnings on each unit and rely on scale to survive, Ferrari achieves remarkable profitability from a relatively small number of cars.
The strength of the brand is central to all of this. Ferrari has built a mythology over decades of racing heritage, iconic design and uncompromising performance. The emblem alone carries weight that few other marques can match. Customers are not simply purchasing horsepower or engineering. They are buying history, identity and the sense of belonging to a long-established tradition.
This strategy also brings resilience. Because the business is not dependent on huge volumes, it is less vulnerable to the fluctuations that affect the wider automotive market. The company generates strong cash flow, allowing it to invest steadily in new technologies while maintaining the exclusivity that supports its market position.
Ferrari’s success offers a clear lesson for other industries. Growth does not always require expansion in numbers. A tightly controlled supply, supported by a strong brand and meaningful personalisation, can create a more stable and profitable model than sheer scale. It is a reminder that in certain sectors, demand is not simply found. It can be cultivated through patience, discipline and a clear sense of identity.
The Lesson For Business… especially micro-business and SME is not to imitate Ferrari’s glamour but to embrace its discipline. Look closely at where your real value lies, raise the standard of what you offer and consider whether scarcity, specialisation or personalisation could work in your favour. You do not need thousands of customers. You need the right ones who recognise the worth of what you do. Now is the moment to review your positioning, refine your offer and build a business that commands respect rather than chases attention.
If you would like to explore how these principles can be applied to your own business, get in touch with me. I can help you refine your positioning, strengthen your value proposition and build a model that supports higher margins and stronger demand. Reach out and let us develop this further for your organisation.
Porsche, once the golden child of German engineering and luxury performance, has hit an unexpected crisis in 2025. After years of record profits and unmatched prestige, the carmaker has reported a devastating fall in earnings, with operating profit plunging by more than 99 percent. The decline raises urgent questions about Porsche’s electric strategy, global sales slump, and future in an increasingly uncertain automotive market.
There was a time when the air in Zuffenhausen smelled of success and the confidence of endless growth. Porsche was the brand that never stumbled, the company that made perfection seem routine. Yet this year the balance sheets told a very different story.
For the first time in living memory, Porsche has posted a loss. Not a minor dip or a brief misfire, but a full-blown financial skid. In the third quarter of 2025, the company recorded an operational loss of nearly one billion euros. Across the first nine months of the year, profits collapsed from around four billion to just forty million. The figures landed like a crash through the guardrail at La Source.
The roots of Porsche’s decline lie in its costly electric gamble. Determined to lead the luxury EV revolution, the company poured billions into its own battery programme and an ambitious range of electric cars. The goal was clear: by 2030, eighty percent of new Porsches would run silently rather than roar. The market, however, had other ideas.
Buyers loved the Taycan’s design and speed, but hesitated at the price and limited range. High costs and lukewarm demand forced Porsche to retreat. The battery division was scrapped, new electric SUVs cancelled, and the firm took a three billion euro write-down. The pivot back to hybrids and combustion engines restored a little sanity, but the damage was done. Investors saw indecision. Customers saw confusion.
External pressures made things worse. In America, new tariffs on European luxury cars have already cost Porsche hundreds of millions of euros. Prices have risen, and demand has fallen. Across the Pacific, China’s once-booming market for Western prestige cars has cooled sharply. Sales dropped by more than twenty-five percent as domestic electric brands took centre stage.
Europe offered no comfort either. Economic fatigue and tighter emissions laws have hit the high-end market. Even the 911, the timeless heartbeat of Porsche, faces an uncertain future in a world determined to phase out petrol. Volkswagen Group, Porsche’s parent company, has reported its own steep drop in profit, much of it linked to this turmoil in Zuffenhausen.
The response has been fast and severe. Around four thousand jobs have already gone, and restructuring costs have topped three billion euros. Meetings that once celebrated lap times now focus on cost savings. Michael Leiters, Porsche’s new chief executive and a former McLaren man, has inherited the unenviable task of restoring confidence while steering a bruised and bewildered company back to growth.
Behind the scenes, engineers are refocusing. Porsche will rely on its most loyal strengths: craftsmanship, performance, and the feel of quality that no algorithm can reproduce. Future cars will blend petrol and electric power rather than replace one with the other. The idea is to rebuild gradually, balancing innovation with identity.
For decades, Porsche was defined by certainty. Every car, from the 911 Turbo to the Macan, carried the same message of precision and purpose. But the modern world is no longer so simple. Customers expect luxury, performance and sustainability in a single package. Governments demand cleaner cars. Markets demand profit. Somewhere in that storm, Porsche lost its footing.
Yet history suggests the brand knows how to recover. In the early Eighties, Porsche faced a similar reckoning. Sales were weak, costs were high, and purists feared the end of the 911. The company survived by listening to its engineers rather than its accountants. It rediscovered its essence. That may be the lesson Zuffenhausen needs again today.
If Porsche can blend its heritage with a clearer, more measured path to electrification, it could regain its balance. The 911 remains a global icon, and the Taycan, for all its struggles, proved that electric Porsches can still thrill. What the brand needs now is consistency and patience. The next great Porsche story will not be written in spreadsheets but in steering feel, design integrity and engineering bravery.
For now, though, Porsche’s halo has dimmed. The numbers are harsh, the markets unforgiving, and the pressure immense. Yet if any marque can turn a loss into a lesson, it is the one that made imperfection an art form.
What Porsche Could Do Next?
– Refocus the product line: Build hybrids and performance models that maintain the emotional core of the brand while easing customers toward electric power.
– Control production costs: Simplify supply chains, delay unnecessary launches, and invest only in platforms that deliver profit and flexibility.
– Strengthen brand storytelling: Reignite the emotional link between car and driver through heritage design cues and motorsport engagement.
– Win back key markets: Adjust pricing and marketing strategies in the United States and China to match shifting buyer sentiment.
– Prepare for the long term: Develop a steady, sustainable EV roadmap that doesn’t gamble the company’s identity on unproven demand.
If Porsche manages to balance its heart with its head, it will emerge stronger. The figures may be grim today, but the brand’s legacy of resilience remains intact. The brand is used to the smell of victory.
Small Business Coaching That Helps You Sell Better and Manage Smarter
Running a small business today is harder than ever. You’re doing the work, finding the customers, managing the staff, and trying to keep on top of marketing. It’s a lot. Most business owners never get proper guidance on how to grow without working themselves into the ground.
That’s where I can help.
I’m a small business coach specialising in sales, marketing, and management for local businesses. I work with owners who want to sharpen their strategy, strengthen their brand, and run their business with more confidence. My focus is on real results, not buzzwords or expensive consultancy.
Practical Coaching for Real-World Businesses
I’ve spent over nearly four decades in management, sales, and marketing. Now I use that experience to help small business owners build stronger, more profitable operations. My approach is simple, straightforward, and designed around your goals.
Here’s what I offer:
1. Sales and Marketing Coaching
We review how your business attracts and keeps customers. That means improving your visibility on Google, refining your message, and making sure your promotions actually bring in leads.
I help you:
Create a clear, local marketing plan
Improve how you handle enquiries and follow-ups
Build stronger customer relationships
Turn happy customers into repeat business and referrals
Everything we do is practical and measurable. You’ll know exactly what to do next and why it works.
2. Business Management and Systems
Good marketing means little if the business behind it is struggling or disorganised. I’ll help you to introduce order into your day-to-day operations. Together we’ll simplify your process, admin, pricing, and time management, and make sure the business runs smoothly.
You’ll learn simple systems that save time and reduce stress. Most clients find they gain hours back each week once their processes are in place – or they know where to look when something appears from the left-field.
Who I Work With
I coach SME that is Small & Medium Enterprises, Owner Operator and Micro-Businesses across trades, retail, and services. That includes:
Builders, decorators, and local trades – who typically have little or no dedicated marketing
Shops, cafés, and independent retailers
Family-run firms ready to modernise or who wish to protect against disruptors
Freelancers and sole traders who want to grow
My clients are skilled at what they do but need structure, clarity, and direction. They want a business that works for them, not one that runs them ragged.
Flexible, Affordable Coaching Options
I understand that budgets are tight in 2025. I’m a business enthusiast first and a coach second, so my rates are fair and flexible. You’ll always know what you’re paying for and what to expect in return.
You can start small or go deeper depending on what you need:
Business Health Check – A two-hour session to spot quick wins and fix problem areas.
Six-Week Growth Programme – Focused coaching on marketing, sales, and management.
Monthly Mentorship – Ongoing support and accountability to keep progress steady.
Or you tell me – and we will create and affordable programme together.
All sessions are one-to-one, either in person (preferable) or online via WhatsApp or MS Teams.
Why My Coaching Works
Because it’s based on experience, not theory. I’ve managed teams, grown sales, and dealt with the same day-to-day challenges that most small business owners face. I don’t offer generic advice. Every session is tailored to your business and your goals.
Clients tell me the biggest benefit isn’t just growth — it’s clarity. They leave sessions knowing what to do, in what order, and how to track results.
Get Started
If your business could use a fresh look and a clear plan, let’s talk. Whether you need help finding customers, improving sales, or streamlining how you work, I’ll help you move forward with confidence.
Analysis of recent luxury car logo redesigns reveals contrasting approaches: Bentley’s thoughtful evolution of its Winged B emblem maintains heritage whilst embracing modernity, while Jaguar’s radical rebrand abandons iconic visual cues in favour of a complete reset. I examine why respectful modernisation trumps revolutionary change in automotive branding.
For car design geeks and brand enthusiasts there’s a certain thrill when a legendary carmaker unveils a new logo. It’s a statement of intent, a signal that the brand is moving forward, but also a test of how well it can balance progress with heritage. Recent months have given us a masterclass in how to get it right (Bentley) and how to get it… well, not so right (Jaguar).
Bentley: An Evolution, Not Revolution
Bentley’s new ‘Winged B’ emblem is a study in respectful modernisation. For only the fifth time in more than a century, the Crewe-based marque has refreshed its badge, making it sharper, more dramatic, and inspired by the angular wings of a Peregrine Falcon. Gone are the lower feathers, replaced by a cleaner silhouette and a central ‘B’ jewel that wouldn’t look out of place on a luxury watch. Yet, crucially, the badge is still unmistakably Bentley: the wings, the oval, the ‘B’ all present and correct, just reimagined for a new era.
This is the art of brand evolution. Bentley’s designers have managed to make the logo feel fresh and progressive without losing the emotional resonance that comes from over a century of motoring history. The new emblem is versatile enough for digital and physical use, but it’s still rooted in the DNA that made Bentley a byword for British luxury.
Jaguar: A Leap Too Far?
Jaguar, on the other hand, has taken a very different route. In a bold bid to reposition itself as a high-end electric luxury brand, it has dropped the iconic ‘growler’ face from its grilles and introduced a new suite of logos: a stylised, angular ‘leaper’, a circular monogram, and a modernist typeface mixing upper and lowercase letters. The new look is crisp and contemporary, but it’s also a radical departure from the brand’s visual legacy.
This rebrand is all about a reset – Jaguar wants to shed its past and create a new identity for a new era. But in doing so, it’s lost much of what made the marque instantly recognisable. The leaping cat and the ‘growler’ weren’t just logos; they were symbols of British motoring pride, aspiration, and a certain feline elegance. The new branding, while technically accomplished, has left many loyalists cold and confused.
The Perils of Ditching Heritage
Bentley’s approach shows the power of evolution over revolution. By retaining core visual cues and subtly modernising them, the brand keeps its history alive while signalling progress. Jaguar, by contrast, has opted for a clean break, a move that may appeal to some, but risks alienating those who loved what the brand stood for.
There’s a lesson here for any established marque: logos are more than just graphics. They’re emotional touchstones, repositories of memory and meaning. Change them too much, and you risk severing the connection with your most passionate supporters.
As the car industry races towards an electric future, expect more badges to be flattened, simplified, and digitised. See also Renault in recent months. But if Bentley’s new wings are anything to go by, the best brands will find a way to fly forward without forgetting where they came from. Jaguar, for now, might be left chasing its own tail.
There was once a time when a supermini was a matter of necessity, not indulgence. The 1970s gave us the first Renault 5 a pert little pâtisserie of pressed steel and whimsy in vivid colours, every bit as much at home dodging gendarmes in a subtitled film fantasy as it was rusting gracefully on the fringes of Calais. Fiat, of course, had its own proletarian darling, the original 500, its rear-engined, frugally upholstered buzzbox or colloquially in the Coulter household ‘fart box’ – but nonetheless a model long synonymous with post-war Italian redemption.
Fast forward five decades and we arrive at a curious juncture. Both marques, veterans of automotive egalitarianism, have chosen to reinstate their icons as electric cars (EV) the Fiat 500e appearing first, in 2021, to much fanfare and fawning from urbanites and influencers flown out to test it and now, Renault’s thoroughly modern reinterpretation of the 5 arrives, seemingly sculpted from the same nostalgia-drenched clay. But only one has truly understood the brief.
Let’s examine why, first of all heritage vs homage. Fiat’s 500e is undeniably adorable. Styled with exquisite reverence to Dante Giacosa’s original shape, it trades mightily on its cuteness and perceived Italian flair. But beneath the surface, the car is more pastiche than progression. It is a fashion statement, not a philosophical one.
Yet perhaps this misses the point entirely. Fiat’s approach wasn’t born from ignorance of mass-market electrification, but from a calculated decision to position the 500e as a premium lifestyle product. In urban environments where the 500e primarily operates, its design excellence becomes a genuine strength. The car’s visual impact is undeniable, its ability to turn heads and spark conversations in city centres is precisely what many buyers actually want. When parking space is at a premium and daily commutes rarely exceed 30 miles, the 500e’s boutique-like character transforms from apparent weakness into selling point.
The interior, whilst admittedly compact, demonstrates genuine attention to detail and material quality that feels authentically Italian. The premium feel isn’t accidental, it’s strategic. Fiat understood that electrification offered an opportunity to move upmarket, to transform the 500 from economy car to desirable urban accessory. In Chelsea or Notting Hill, this strategy makes perfect sense.
Renault, by contrast, has dug deeper. The new 5 EV does not merely mimic its predecessor, it reinterprets it. The original 5 was a clever, modular platform that underpinned everything from the humdrum TL to the tempestuous Turbo. It was pragmatic yet cheeky. The new car carries this spirit not in shape alone (though that face is exquisitely reimagined), but in function: it is a clever, resolutely French attempt at democratic electrification, not just a rolling Instagram post.
Secondly, beneath the skin let’s compare engineering. Fiat’s 500e is built upon a bespoke EV platform, dubbed “Mini BEV.” It offers a 42kWh battery, up to 199 miles of range (WLTP), realistically 148 (I owned one for two years) and a single front-mounted motor delivering 117bhp. It is whisper-quiet, beautifully finished especially as my car in top ‘La Prima’ trim, and drives with a certain Mediterranean élan but when the government subsidy dried out became expensive for what it is.
Renault’s 5 EV rides atop the all-new CMF-B EV platform, shared with the forthcoming Nissan Micra EV. It too features a 52kWh battery option (with a 40kWh entry-level variant with range almost mid to top 500e level), promising a range up to 250 miles. Even adjusting for ‘real world’ alone marks a step beyond Fiat’s offering. Moreover, the Renault tips the scales at just 1,450kg some 100kg less than the 500e, due to clever packaging and a refusal to bloat the body with frivolous weight. A gold star from this Chapman ‘add lightness’ acolyte who really struggles with EVs on the scales.
Renault have also opted for a synchronous motor with a wound rotor technically more complex but free of rare earth magnets, which makes it both greener and a subtle exercise in Gallic engineering pride.
Thirdly let’s look at matters inside. The Fiat’s cabin is charming in the same way a Dolcé & Gabbana kitchen appliance is charming. But it is tight, rear accommodation is lacking, and the boot is more gesture than utility. Materials, though pleasant to the touch, drift into lifestyle accessory territory. The 500e is less a car, more a boutique on wheels but in fairness at launch in top trim one of the closest models to evoke the spirit of (ironically) Renault’s Monaco-Baccara-Initiale car as fashion brand ideal.
The Renault 5, however, feels engineered with a more adult sense of purpose. Its cabin is roomier, more rational, yet still playfully detailed. The pixel-matrix dashboard graphics and central avatar (dubbed “Reno”, a digital Gallic shrug in anthropomorphic form) are delightfully French in their eccentricity, but not at the expense of ergonomics or comfort. Predisposed with Google Maps, Google Assistant and Google Play it’s a great leap forward in convenience and easily recognisable tech. The car’s multimedia system ‘openR link’ provides a seamless and customizable interface for all Google connected services
On to dynamics and driving. Neither car is built for Nürburgring glory, but here again Renault shows more depth. The 5 EV’s steering is light but precise, its ride supple yet controlled. It feels composed at speed in a way the 500e doesn’t quite manage. Fiat’s car, while sprightly in a scurry, lacks the damping sophistication to settle itself on rougher A and B-roads. Ride is killed by the semi-run flat seventeens with stiffer low profile sidewalls beloved of designers wanting to make a statement in a new car showroom.
That said, the 500e’s urban capability shouldn’t be underestimated. Its compact dimensions and tight turning circle make it genuinely excellent for navigating congested city streets. The instant torque delivery, whilst less sophisticated than Renault’s implementation, provides perfectly adequate performance for town work. In London traffic, the 500e’s party trick of near-silent operation combined with its striking appearance creates a surprisingly satisfying driving experience.
Renault, by contrast, understands that electric torque delivered abruptly must be tamed, not merely unleashed.
And let us not forget regenerative braking. The 5 EV offers multiple levels, with a true one-pedal drive mode, while the 500e’s regen is more brutal and unsophisticated. For the discerning driver, that matters not merely for efficiency, but for fluidity and passenger comfort.
Fiat’s 500e was, at launch, widely praised. It won a slew of accolades from EV magazines to Marie Claire and a nod in the World Urban Car of the Year awards. It is undeniably chic and competent, particularly in cities. It also played a short burst of very European classical music after the day’s first fifty metres
But Renault’s new 5 has already garnered a 2025 Car Of The Year, the Design Award at the 2024 Geneva Motor Show, and is being positioned not just as a halo car, but the spearhead of Renault’s mass-market EV strategy. Where Fiat’s car is a boutique item, Renault’s is an attempt at mobility for the many, a return to form reminiscent of the R5’s original purpose.
And, most crucially, Renault has priced the 5 EV more aggressively, £22995 for the Evolution base model, with Techno top trims just beneath the £30000 mark. Fiat’s 500e, particularly in its lauded La Prima trim, can stretch well past that. In an era where electric adoption is still handbraked by cost (and potential eye-watering depreciation), this is no small distinction.
In summary, the Fiat 500e is a fine car, as mentioned I ran one for a couple of years and really enjoyed the performance and features of what was my first foray into EV ownership. Its design excellence remains genuinely impressive, and for urban dwellers seeking a premium electric experience, it delivers precisely what was promised. But unfortunately it is not the future – it is an echo.
Renault’s new 5 EV, by contrast, is a forward-thinking machine draped in historical allusion. It is clever, dynamic, well-priced, well equipped and fundamentally imbued with the same spirit that made the original such a quietly revolutionary car.
Fiat built a retro trinket. Renault has built a car and in the process, they’ve done something far more valuable than resurrect an icon, they’ve reminded us that, done properly, the humble hatchback still matters.
