Richard van der Blom — The state of LinkedIn in 2026 (based on data from 1.3 million posts)

**Richard van der Blom** (0:00)
I normally get around 20 to 30 comments in the first five minutes, and 80% of them are AI written, 80%. And obviously, a lot of time from the same people.

**Jay Clouse** (0:23)
Hello, my friend, welcome back to another episode of Creator Science. My guest today is Richard van der Blom. For years, Richard has published the most comprehensive annual research report on the LinkedIn algorithm that I have personally found. And this year, Richard and his team analyzed over 1.3 million posts from 50,000 creators to produce the 2026 LinkedIn algorithm insights report. And there have clearly been some big changes.
It reaches down 60% for active creators over the last two years. AI-generated comments are so prevalent that Richard says 80% of the comments he gets in the first 5 minutes of a post are written by AI.
Third-party analytics tools are getting shut down. Shield, which many relied on for years for their analytics, just went dark this past week. And LinkedIn has fundamentally shifted from a relationship graph to an interest-based graph, which changes almost everything about how the platform distributes your content.
As doomy and gloomy as that may sound, Richard isn't totally pessimistic about all of this. He's adapting, and he's got the data to know exactly how you can too, and that's what we dig into here today. In this episode, you will learn why LinkedIn reach is down 60% for active creators, and why Richard thinks that's actually part of the plan, what topic fingerprinting is, and how to use it to re-instruct the algorithm about who you are, how commenting now shapes your interest graph, not just your human visibility, the free bookmark search trick that Richard uses to build curated feeds of the creators he wants to engage with, why LinkedIn newsletters are outperforming standalone posts on reach, engagement and conversion, why the optimal posting frequency has dropped from 5-6 times per week to 2-4 times, and what formats to prioritize if you're being selective. There's a lot in this episode. This is Richard's second appearance on the show. Our first episode together remains a fan favorite, one of the most played in the catalog, so we were due for an update. If you want to read the full report for yourself, you'll find a link in the show notes to do just that. We'll get to the episode with Richard right after this.
This episode is brought to you by Circle, and if I'm being honest, much of the Creator Science business is brought to you by Circle. That's because Circle is the platform powering The Lab, our membership community for professional creators. The Lab is the beating heart of our business, which means Circle is absolutely essential. So many of you listening to the show are already inside The Lab and have experienced Circle firsthand. I was actually a beta user of Circle back in 2020, and obviously I'm still using it today. I can't imagine hosting The Lab anywhere else. And that's because it's truly a tool that continues to evolve and listen to its customers. Let me tell you why I love Circle. It's the most user friendly, admin friendly, and fully featured community tool on the market. That's my very strong, very honest opinion. Even if someone has never been in a Circle community before, they have no problem quickly learning how to use it. And that is one of the most important aspects of any community tool. And Circle grows with you. It's dead simple to get up and running, but it's so robust that as you need more and more control and specificity, Circle provides it. In particular, their built-in automations just keep getting better and better. Learn more and start your own free trial of Circle at Circle.so. That's Circle.so.

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**Jay Clouse** (4:06)
So at a high level, how would you just describe the state of LinkedIn as it is on 2026 and maybe as compared to 2025 or the recent past?

**Richard van der Blom** (4:18)
The first word that came to my mind was turbulent.

**Jay Clouse** (4:21)
OK, say more.

**Richard van der Blom** (4:23)
Actually, there was a lot of things going on at the moment. We've had this fundamental restructure of the algorithm at the end of last year, which caused a lot of creators to get very annoyed, frustrated with their reach and their engagement and their results. By now, we all know why and what has happened. But at the same time, we see a huge increase in AI-generated content, AI-generated outreach.