7/11 I suspected AI might be driving these odd patterns, so I ran a micro test. Phrase “organic abercrombie socks” had 0 search history as it’s a made-up product category. After a handful of ChatGPT prompts, it showed up in Trends within 24h. Trends docs say Google filters out its own AI searches, but make no mention of external AIs like ChatGPT. The socks test suggests AI traffic leaks through.