Generative AI tools increasingly rely on community-driven platforms—Reddit, YouTube, Wikipedia, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and more—as primary sources that feed directly into consumer-facing answers. Because AI does not distinguish between search content, social chatter, reviews, creator posts, or earned media, brand visibility now depends on cross-team coordination rather than siloed optimization. Upstream conversations matter: if forums, reviews, or public commentary lack clarity or depth, AI responses will mirror those gaps. And because users often begin with general queries—not shopping-specific ones—early influence happens long before product discovery. To stay visible, brands must unify search, social, PR, and content workflows.
Brands are ramping up GEO efforts to ensure maximum visibility this holiday season. Tactics include flooding the internet with content; paying influencers to post on TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook; and building entire websites visible only to AI scrapers. If that fails, companies have more opportunities to pay for advertising within AI search results as Walmart, Amazon, and Google ramp up efforts to monetize their AI tools. GEO is a strategic imperative for brands looking to remain discoverable as more shopping research migrates to AI platforms. Given the opportunity, companies should also be experimenting with AI search ads to see how shoppers interact with the format and whether these promos drive purchases or reduce trust in AI recommendations.
Alphabet shares hit an all-time high last week—up about 70% this year and nearing a $4 trillion valuation—after investor enthusiasm surged around its new Gemini 3 model, per CNBC. Google’s parallel push on AI models and custom hardware may pay off faster than expected. Its scale and consumer reach give Google a rare advantage anchored on rapid deployment, lower inference costs, and a massive user base already positioned to adopt whatever Google ships next through services they use every day.
The fastest-growing B2B organizations share one defining trait—their marketing, sales, and customer success teams operate as one coordinated system, not three departments, per a new study from Trilliad. The payoff is hard to ignore. Companies with high coordination are twice as likely to anticipate revenue growth above 10%. Integrated teams outperform. Integrated tech multiplies team impact. Integrated data turns AI from a pilot project into a growth engine. The path forward is clear—connection is the strongest competitive advantage a B2B organization can build.
In a special Thanksgiving-themed episode of “Behind the Numbers,” we ranked the retail and brand initiatives we’re thankful for this season, from viral merchandise to purpose-driven campaigns. "We're looking at those strategies, launches, and collabs that we're genuinely grateful for, the moves that made us smile, surprised us, or gave us hope for where retail is headed," said our analyst Suzy Davidkhanian.
From Q1 to Q2 2025, search share of voice (SOV) declined steeply for some banking sites. For example, Wells Fargo fell from 3.83% to 1.21% and NerdWallet from 3.66% to 1.68%. At the same time, StudentAid.gov entered the top five and ConsumerFinance.gov entered the top 10. Since FIs can’t control events that drive people’s need for information, they should be prepared to offer education and advice tailored to their customers’ needs and anticipate other resources to which they should direct customers. If an FI is only a place to buy and administer financial products and services, it can’t be positioned as a trusted advisor.
In 2025, 82% of US consumers did not increase their emergency savings, including 33% whose emergency savings decreased and 18% who had none to begin with. Financial institutions (FIs) are in a strong position to help consumers save. When they do so successfully, they can enhance customer loyalty and help them stay on firmer financial ground, making them high-quality customers for non-depository banking products and services.
Green Dot’s fintech business and licensed bank are being separated and acquired—the former by a private equity firm and the latter by an $839 million commercial bank. The total value of the deal is estimated to be between $825 million and $1.1 billion. B2B services, including banking as a service, has been Green Dot’s growth engine. Carving off the noncore, lower-margin, declining part of the business will allow the company to focus on where it has the greatest growth opportunities. A bank can best leverage its expertise and infrastructure to operate the businesses that Green Dot has struggled with.
As commerce media buyers face more choices, Dollar General is pitching its large store footprint as an opportunity to reach shoppers in rural and underserved markets, particularly with its retail media offering, DG Media Network.
Shoppers spent over $75 million on live shopping platform Whatnot during Black Friday, the company told EMARKETER. That’s three times last year’s total, underscoring the medium’s swift ascendance and pointing to rising consumer comfort with the format. Livestream commerce’s ability to blur the lines between shopping and entertainment is helping to drive adoption across generations. We expect US livestream ecommerce sales to rise by nearly 50% this year to $14.64 billion, while the number of buyers will jump by 21.5%. Platforms, retailers, and brands that lean into the entertainment and educational aspects of live shopping will be best equipped to capture—and keep—shoppers’ attention.
Reports of Gen Z’s sluggish holiday spending may be exaggerated. Brands like Edikted, Kendra Scott, and Bath & Body Works—favorites of the cohort—saw heavier foot traffic during Black Friday, per Bloomberg. The cohort will account for a greater share of Cyber Five spending this year—18%—while all other generations will see their share decline, per Deloitte. With the pressures on Gen Z spending set to persist beyond the holiday season, brands and retailers will have to work hard to make their case to the increasingly cash-strapped cohort.
Omnicom officially owns IPG after completing its long-discussed acquisition last week—and the new company is already implementing a massive wave of changes. Advertisers should prepare for an agency landscape where AI-driven capabilities become the norm and where consolidated services become a competitive differentiator.
An OpenAI leak indicates that ads are coming to ChatGPT in the near future, according to computer engineer Tibor Blaho. Advertisers should anticipate a future where ads become a core part of the ChatGPT experience and act quickly to test and learn before competitors, but should remain agile in their strategies and remain informed about developments in consumer behavior.
A worsening macro environment is pushing major retailers and restaurants to close locations as rising costs and shifting consumer habits erode profitability, prompting cuts from Yankee Candle, Carter’s, American Signature, and Wendy’s. Industry data shows elevated vacancy rates and slower net absorption ahead, though new construction remains limited, helping support occupancy. While bankruptcy-driven closures have recently eased, the sector still faces meaningful pressure. Even so, we expect physical retail sales to grow 2.8% next year, offering a stabilizing force that should help sustain space demand despite continued consolidation.
Buy now, pay later (BNPL) volume hit new highs over the first half of the holiday season, including $747.5 million in online spending on Black Friday alone, an 8.9% YoY increase. Klarna reported Black Friday sales boosted its November volume 45% YoY, and PayPal said pre-Black Friday sales promotions lifted its BNPL volume by 23% YoY. The growth of BNPL volume signals alternate credit’s rising place in US consumer spending. The trend reflects both consumers’ financial strain and their continued willingness to spend, even if it means restructuring how they pay.
US startups are rapidly adopting Chinese open-weight AI models to cut costs, ship features faster, and keep data on-device—putting pressure on closed, pay-per-user systems from OpenAI and Google, per NBC News. Free, customizable models lower the barrier for early-stage builders, letting brands and teams experiment with AI tools at a fraction of traditional subscription costs. The next wave of AI-development will come from teams mixing closed systems with fast, inexpensive open models—many of them from China. This hybrid approach lets marketers test ideas quickly, tailor models to their data, and drive down cost per interaction.
Accenture announced it will roll out ChatGPT Enterprise to tens of thousands of employees for internal workflows and client-facing products, per Reuters. The move follows Deloitte adopting a similar expansion—deploying Anthropic’s Claude to more than 470,000 employees across 150 countries. With big consultancies adopting the same AI agent playbook, the risk of AI-driven sameness grows. Companies seeking stricter compliance and tighter risk management might benefit from Accenture’s and Deloitte’s agentic offerings, even as a starting point toward longer-term, more independent agentic adoption.
Households with GLP-1 users could account for 35% of food and beverage sales by 2030, up from 23% today, per Circana. Rising GLP-1 usage is reshaping grocery spending, with profound implications for foodmakers and grocers. As GLP-1s grow more accessible—thanks to microdosing, efforts to make the drugs more affordable, and the pending release of a weight-loss pill—their impact will be more deeply felt beyond food to sectors including apparel, wellness, beauty, and restaurants.
Eli Lilly is dropping the price of its weight loss drug Zepbound for cash-pay customers, following rival Novo Nordisk’s price cut less than two weeks ago. Lilly and Novo’s newly lowered D2C prices will help some cash-pay consumers, but the affordability gap is a major barrier to broader adoption.