Drawing on an analysis of more than 564 million social media posts and thousands of search queries and AI prompts, the report explores what brands miss when signals tell different stories
CHICAGO, Nov. 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Cision, a global leader in consumer and media intelligence, today released The State of Search and Social 2027, a new report examining how connecting search, social, and AI insights can help brands better understand consumer interest, identify emerging business opportunities, and make more informed decisions about where to invest.
Drawing on more than 564 million social media posts and nearly 5,000 search queries and AI prompts, the report distinguishes passing attention from sustained interest and explores changing consumer perceptions. It also reveals gaps between what consumers discuss and how AI presents brands and topics.
For marketing and communications teams planning for 2027, the findings highlight why timing matters as much as understanding what is driving consumer attention. Recognizing a trend only after it peaks can mean arriving too late. Connecting signals while interest is building can help brands identify opportunities to act as well as understand when to move and when to change course.
"Some of the most useful consumer insights emerge when you look at the space between channels," said Amy Jones, Chief Marketing Officer at Cision. "Search can show where interest is changing. Social helps explain why. And AI answers reveal the narrative reaching consumers. Connecting those perspectives helps brands understand not just what's happening, but how to respond, and when to act."
Connected signals reveal what's really behind consumer attention
The report examines consumer trends across health and wellness, food and beverages, automotive, AI, and online culture. The findings challenge assumptions that can shape investment decisions, campaign strategy, and reputation management:
- Interest doesn't equal acceptance. Search volume for AI-related queries rose 2,400% over four years, while social conversation revealed concerns about the impact of data centers and pushback against AI slop. The takeaway: Brands need to understand what is driving curiosity and concern before deciding how to position AI.
- Trends can evolve rather than disappear. While initial searches around "maxxing" cooled, social conversations showed the trend taking new forms. Mentions of "whimsymaxxing" grew 917% year over year. The takeaway: Looking at search and social together helps brands understand whether attention is fading or shifting into something new.
- Timing matters as much as staying power. Dubai chocolate became a viral food trend in 2025, but its search spike faded as fast as it arrived. Matcha is the "always-on" food trend consumers keep coming back to. The takeaway: Connecting search and social helps assess both a trend's staying power and the window of opportunity to capitalize on it.
- AI visibility extends beyond your own website. In an analysis of AI responses to "best car"-related queries, Toyota led with a 13.8% share of brand mentions. Yet Toyota's own website accounted for only a fraction of the sources cited by large language models (LLMs), compared with more than 4,000 for YouTube. The takeaway: Understanding AI visibility requires understanding the third-party sources shaping recommendations.
- What consumers discuss can differ from what AI emphasizes. An analysis of magnesium glycinate found that stress relief dominated social discussions of its benefits, while AI responses emphasized bone support and cardiometabolic support. The takeaway: Brands need to understand not only what consumers discuss, but also how AI platforms frame a topic when answering questions about it.
What AI answers mean for brand visibility and consumer demand
Brands need to understand not only what audiences are saying and searching for, but what information they encounter in AI answers as well. In the automotive analysis, the most-cited sources were YouTube creators, editorial brands, and individual journalists, not the carmakers themselves. The coverage, reviews, and community conversation a brand earns are now the raw material for the answers its buyers receive. Connecting those perspectives helps teams identify unmet needs, understand potential barriers to purchase, and make better decisions about where to invest and how to communicate.
Move beyond tracking attention to understanding it
The report includes five questions to help teams connect what people search for, what they discuss on social, and how AI answers frame a topic. Teams that continue to measure these signals separately will increasingly misunderstand what consumers are asking, discussing, and being told. Connecting them helps identify gaps in understanding and make more informed campaign, investment, and communication decisions.
Download The State of Search and Social 2027 to read the full report and explore the findings.
Learn more about how Cision connects intelligence across media, social, search, and AI visibility.
About the research
The report draws on Brandwatch Consumer Research and Trajaan data covering 564.61 million social media posts and 4,678 search queries and AI prompts, with a primary research period of August 2025 to August 2026. Selected analyses use longer historical periods and examine AI-generated responses to provide additional context. Individual charts specify the relevant date ranges.
About Cision
Cision is the global leader in consumer and media intelligence, engagement, and communication solutions. We equip PR and corporate communications, marketing, and social media professionals with the tools they need to excel in today's data-driven world.
Our deep expertise, exclusive data partnerships, and award-winning products, including Trajaan, Brandwatch, CisionOne, and PR Newswire, bring together signals from search, social, and media so teams can better understand what's happening, shape the conversation, and amplify their impact.
Over 75,000 companies and organizations, including 84% of the Fortune 500, rely on Cision to make better decisions and achieve their goals.
For media inquiries, please contact: Cision Public Relations at CisionPR@cision.com
** This press release is distributed by PR Newswire through automated distribution system, for which the client assumes full responsibility. **
Cision Report Reveals the Consumer Trends Hidden Between Search, Social, and AI
- AiR NOVA answers K-12 students' science questions using more than 100,000 articles written by DongA Science's own journalists, showing the source article behind each answer.
- Launching in January 2027 on web, iOS and Android in Korean, English, Vietnamese and Spanish.
AiR NOVA's Tutor answers a question about a newly named Korean dinosaur and shows the source article behind the answer. Background imagery is AI-generated.
SEOUL, South Korea, Nov. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- DongA Science, a South Korean science media company that has published science magazines since 1986, has built an AI tutor on its own journalism. AiR NOVA, which answers students' science questions from the company's archive and shows the source article behind each answer, has been named a CES Innovation Awards® 2027 Honoree in the EdTech category, the company announced today.
Brand video introducing AiR NOVA’s three AI functions for science inquiry: Tutor, Socrates and Coach. (Visuals and music are AI-generated.)
As news publishers around the world weigh how their reporting should be used by AI, DongA Science took a different route by turning its archive into an exclusive learning product. Rather than drawing on the open web, AiR NOVA sources its answers from more than 100,000 articles reported and verified by the company's science journalists over the past 40 years. This archive spans its magazine archive and daily science news, allowing students to verify where each answer originated. Furthermore, students using AiR NOVA in English, Vietnamese or Spanish receive answers in their selected language, alongside the translated source article from the Korean original.
To learn more about AiR NOVA's CES 2027 recognition and explore its AI-driven educational features, visit nova.dongascience.com/intro or watch the introductory video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=03EsRqmuASQ.
Three Ways to Keep Students Asking
AiR NOVA is designed for K-12 students and integrates three core AI functions into a single app:
- Tutor answers questions with verified sources. For instance, if a student asks, "Are new dinosaurs still being discovered?" Tutor explains at their grade level how the Doolysaurus was named in 2026 as Korea's third new dinosaur species, and then displays the reference article.
- Socrates is a patent-pending Socratic-dialogue mode that replies with guiding questions instead of direct answers, encouraging students to reason their way to an explanation in their own words. Students can also upload their inquiry reports, prompting Socrates to ask questions that walk them back through their conclusion process.
- Coach sustains the inquiry process beyond the initial answer. Students work through missions tied to specific articles, which involve predicting, asking questions, checking sources, explaining and reflecting.
In the Classroom
Teachers can utilize Coach to structure lessons around articles that match their curriculum, build worksheets and missions, and track each student's participation and results via comprehensive reports. This significantly reduces the time required to prepare inquiry-based lessons.
At launch, AiR NOVA's science and math content will align with South Korea's national curriculum, the U.S. Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM), Cambridge International and the International Baccalaureate (IB). AiR NOVA will be available in January 2027 on web, iOS and Android platforms, requiring no dedicated device. Pricing details will be announced at a later date.
Built on a Proven Service in South Korean Schools
AiR NOVA is the global edition of DongA Science AiR, the company's established AI science inquiry service in South Korea. The school edition, DongA Science AiR edu, is currently utilized by more than 20,000 students across 170 schools, who collectively complete an average of 5,000 inquiry activities per month. DongA Science developed AiR NOVA based on this extensive operational experience and direct feedback from educators, including practicing teachers collaborating through a classroom problem-solving project run by the Korea Education and Research Information Service (KERIS), a South Korean public agency.
The Korean service was honored with the Minister of Science and ICT Award at the 2024 Digital Service Frontier Awards, while its school edition received the Minister of Education Award at the 2026 K-EduTech Contest.
Showcasing at CES 2027
AiR NOVA will be featured in the Korea Pavilion at CES 2027, taking place Jan. 6-9, 2027, in Las Vegas. During the event, DongA Science plans to connect with global education institutions and edtech companies.
"This CES Innovation Awards honor reflects our long-standing effort to combine the science content we have built up over many years with AI technology to solve real problems in education," said Kyung-ae Jang, CEO of DongA Science. "We want students around the world to start from a small spark of curiosity and discover the joy of inquiry with AiR NOVA, and we want teachers to be able to design inquiry lessons without the extra burden."
The CES Innovation Awards program, produced by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), honors outstanding design and engineering in consumer technology products.
About DongA Science
DongA Science is a leading South Korean science media company that connects science journalism with AI technology to broaden how people learn. Starting with its flagship magazine, Science DongA, launched in 1986, it publishes science and math magazines for children and teens and, together with its daily science news, has built an archive of more than 100,000 science articles over 40 years. Content reported and verified by its science journalists is the foundation for building trustworthy AI education products. On that foundation, the company operates the AI science inquiry service DongA Science AiR in South Korea and will launch its global edition, AiR NOVA, in January 2027.
Website: www.dongascience.com/en
About AiR NOVA: nova.dongascience.com/intro
Video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=03EsRqmuASQ
CES® is a registered trademark of the Consumer Technology Association (CTA)®.
AiR NOVA's Tutor answers a question about a newly named Korean dinosaur and shows the source article behind the answer. Background imagery is AI-generated.
SEOUL, South Korea, Nov. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- DongA Science, a South Korean science media company that has published science magazines since 1986, has built an AI tutor on its own journalism. AiR NOVA, which answers students' science questions from the company's archive and shows the source article behind each answer, has been named a CES Innovation Awards® 2027 Honoree in the EdTech category, the company announced today.
Brand video introducing AiR NOVA’s three AI functions for science inquiry: Tutor, Socrates and Coach. (Visuals and music are AI-generated.)
As news publishers around the world weigh how their reporting should be used by AI, DongA Science took a different route by turning its archive into an exclusive learning product. Rather than drawing on the open web, AiR NOVA sources its answers from more than 100,000 articles reported and verified by the company's science journalists over the past 40 years. This archive spans its magazine archive and daily science news, allowing students to verify where each answer originated. Furthermore, students using AiR NOVA in English, Vietnamese or Spanish receive answers in their selected language, alongside the translated source article from the Korean original.
To learn more about AiR NOVA's CES 2027 recognition and explore its AI-driven educational features, visit nova.dongascience.com/intro or watch the introductory video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=03EsRqmuASQ.
Three Ways to Keep Students Asking
AiR NOVA is designed for K-12 students and integrates three core AI functions into a single app:
- Tutor answers questions with verified sources. For instance, if a student asks, "Are new dinosaurs still being discovered?" Tutor explains at their grade level how the Doolysaurus was named in 2026 as Korea's third new dinosaur species, and then displays the reference article.
- Socrates is a patent-pending Socratic-dialogue mode that replies with guiding questions instead of direct answers, encouraging students to reason their way to an explanation in their own words. Students can also upload their inquiry reports, prompting Socrates to ask questions that walk them back through their conclusion process.
- Coach sustains the inquiry process beyond the initial answer. Students work through missions tied to specific articles, which involve predicting, asking questions, checking sources, explaining and reflecting.
In the Classroom
Teachers can utilize Coach to structure lessons around articles that match their curriculum, build worksheets and missions, and track each student's participation and results via comprehensive reports. This significantly reduces the time required to prepare inquiry-based lessons.
At launch, AiR NOVA's science and math content will align with South Korea's national curriculum, the U.S. Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM), Cambridge International and the International Baccalaureate (IB). AiR NOVA will be available in January 2027 on web, iOS and Android platforms, requiring no dedicated device. Pricing details will be announced at a later date.
Built on a Proven Service in South Korean Schools
AiR NOVA is the global edition of DongA Science AiR, the company's established AI science inquiry service in South Korea. The school edition, DongA Science AiR edu, is currently utilized by more than 20,000 students across 170 schools, who collectively complete an average of 5,000 inquiry activities per month. DongA Science developed AiR NOVA based on this extensive operational experience and direct feedback from educators, including practicing teachers collaborating through a classroom problem-solving project run by the Korea Education and Research Information Service (KERIS), a South Korean public agency.
The Korean service was honored with the Minister of Science and ICT Award at the 2024 Digital Service Frontier Awards, while its school edition received the Minister of Education Award at the 2026 K-EduTech Contest.
Showcasing at CES 2027
AiR NOVA will be featured in the Korea Pavilion at CES 2027, taking place Jan. 6-9, 2027, in Las Vegas. During the event, DongA Science plans to connect with global education institutions and edtech companies.
"This CES Innovation Awards honor reflects our long-standing effort to combine the science content we have built up over many years with AI technology to solve real problems in education," said Kyung-ae Jang, CEO of DongA Science. "We want students around the world to start from a small spark of curiosity and discover the joy of inquiry with AiR NOVA, and we want teachers to be able to design inquiry lessons without the extra burden."
The CES Innovation Awards program, produced by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), honors outstanding design and engineering in consumer technology products.
About DongA Science
DongA Science is a leading South Korean science media company that connects science journalism with AI technology to broaden how people learn. Starting with its flagship magazine, Science DongA, launched in 1986, it publishes science and math magazines for children and teens and, together with its daily science news, has built an archive of more than 100,000 science articles over 40 years. Content reported and verified by its science journalists is the foundation for building trustworthy AI education products. On that foundation, the company operates the AI science inquiry service DongA Science AiR in South Korea and will launch its global edition, AiR NOVA, in January 2027.
Website: www.dongascience.com/en
About AiR NOVA: nova.dongascience.com/intro
Video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=03EsRqmuASQ
CES® is a registered trademark of the Consumer Technology Association (CTA)®.
** This press release is distributed by PR Newswire through automated distribution system, for which the client assumes full responsibility. **
DongA Science turns 40 years of science journalism into AI tutor AiR NOVA, a CES 2027 honoree
