OpenAI’s GPT-5.2 is its answer to advancing models from Gemini and what the company calls its best model yet for professional use. The latest model improves spreadsheet creation, presentation building, code generation, understanding of images and long contexts, tool use, and handling of complex projects, per an OpenAI blog post. As brands expand past using AI for image generation and into higher-level tasks, experiment with GPT-5.2 by testing each mode to see which offers the most dependable outputs for analytics, planning, and creative development.
AI is permeating retail and playing a substantial role in the purchase journey for many holiday shoppers this year, though many didn’t notice its presence. More than three-quarters (78%) of US adults said AI touched their holiday shopping experiences—including via “delivery notifications, return systems, or virtual assistants”—per Liveops’ Holiday AI and Customer Service report. Gen Zers led the charge with 89% using AI in some way during holiday shopping. Gen Z’s comfort with automation makes them a great testing group for AI copilots, and retailers should experiment with genAI-driven personalization, on-site product suggestions, and conversational assistance.
Meta is shifting strategy from mining its online social networks to tapping more real-world conversations as original posts on Facebook and Instagram fade, per Social Media Today. Its acquisition of Limitless and partnership with ElevenLabs open up new data channels for its AI models. Meta’s alternative AI training sources could deepen personalization and predictive insights if these conversation flows feed next-gen recommendation engines. Advertisers might gain richer behavior signals and context that go beyond scroll patterns and likes.
AI chatbot use has crossed from novelty to habit for US teenagers. Nearly half (46%) of teens ages 13 to 17 use chatbots at least once a week, per Pew Research, including 16% who access AI several times a day or almost constantly. A new generation of AI-native users is emerging and could soon define which chatbots and AI services become the industry standard. Marketers should pressure-test AI integrations for age-appropriate use cases. As teen AI use grows, safety-first design can earn trust and long-term loyalty.
Marketing leaders are reallocating spending toward social, prioritizing user engagement, and reducing focus on traditional SEO tactics. The shift reflects marketers’ desire for speed, flexibility, and clear ROI signals. But it also shows the growing need to balance long-term brand building with short-term, engagement-driven wins. Brands should rebalance—not replace—channel mix by defining engagement benchmarks and KPIs that tie directly to brand lift, evaluating influencer impact beyond vanity metrics, and protecting core SEO efforts that support long-term discoverability.
Shopify has introduced 150 updates, headlined by two major tools aimed at expanding reach and boosting conversions: an “agentic storefront” that lets consumers buy products directly through AI platforms like ChatGPT and a new Shopify Product Network that helps merchants fill product gaps via cross-store recommendations. The agentic storefront should give merchants an early advantage in AI-powered commerce, while the Product Network should boost conversions, and create new revenue streams without adding inventory or operational burdens.
Podcast advertisers are relying on contextual targeting tactics but leaving demographic tactics—and reach improvements—off the table. Contextual targeting accounted for 95.5% of podcast ad campaigns with declared targeting parameters in Q2, per NumberEight’s Global Podcast Advertising Compass report. This imbalance suggests podcast ad buyers are prioritizing simplicity—at a cost. Marketers should focus on building campaigns with depth, not just category alignment, to increase incremental reach, reduce resource waste, and better match ads with listener intent.
Instagram is offering users increased control over the inputs that shape their Reels feed by adding algorithm control options. Reels users can see a summary of what content Instagram thinks they like and directly choose which topics they want to see more or less of. Brands should lean into Instagram’s growing focus on interest-signaling by aligning creative with the topics users care about most. Focus on making every ad placement fit within curated feed experiences to reduce ad clutter and boost relevance.
By the end of 2026, generative AI could rival paid ads as a source of website traffic. SensorTower predicts that more than half of top websites will get more traffic from genAI than from paid sources by the end of next year. As AI assistants increasingly answer queries with sourced links, marketers need to optimize for AI-driven discovery, not just search algorithms and paid media. Add FAQs, clean metadata on products, and concise explanations on sites that models can easily read and cite, and frequently update content to maximize the likelihood of surfacing in genAI results.
Use cases for Perplexity’s Comet AI browser and assistant mark how agentic AI’s influence is happening upstream, within cognitive tasks and away from the point of purchase. Personal use makes up about 55% of total agentic queries within Comet, followed by professional (30%) and educational (16%), per a deep dive on the browser from Harvard Research and Perplexity. The biggest entry for brands isn’t only being shoppable inside AI systems, but becoming embedded in users’ daily workflows. Brands that surface in productivity-driven queries could shape preferences and promote awareness before consumers enter a shopping mindset.
OpenAI, now 10 years old, is expected to accrue about $143 billion in negative cumulative free cash flow between 2024 and 2029 before it starts turning a profit, per Deutsche Bank. “No startup in history has operated with losses on anything approaching this scale. We are firmly in uncharted territory,” Deutsche Bank analysts wrote. This could foreshadow a correction in the AI sector if revenues keep lagging behind escalating spending. The next few years may reward those who find sustainable monetization models, not necessarily those who build the most powerful tools.
Uber is offering customer data to marketers to enhance ad targeting and placement capabilities. The data is available through Uber Intelligence, its new insights platform powered by LiveRamp. Advertisers can get information on how people “move, dine, travel, and order” to build a better understanding of customers’ behavior patterns, the company said in a blog post. Marketers should experiment with Uber Intelligence’s insights to create bespoke ad strategies that segment audiences, identify relevant customers, and personalize targeting.
Podcast TV attention metrics (AUs) held steady from Q3 2024 to Q3 2025 even as streaming audio AUs declined, per our industry KPI data provided by Adelaide. Podcasts held a 6 to 8 point advantage over streaming audio in every quarter, fluctuating slightly between 47.4 and 50.1 AUs. Streaming audio AUs dipped from 44.1 to 41.8, a 5.2% YoY decline. Podcasts offer a unique combination of engagement and competitive CPMs. Use the format to capitalize on high-attention placements, trust in ads and host recommendations, and mid-funnel potential.
Mobile advertising remains concentrated around a few dominant platforms, but challengers are gaining ground, per AppsFlyer’s Performance Index. Worldwide, Google Ads and Apple Ads remain No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, but AppLovin, Mintegral, Meta Ads, and TikTok for Business are climbing the rankings. As industries push further into mobile ads, competition is intensifying around creative efficiency, privacy-safe measurement, and cross-platform diversification. Marketers should prioritize mobile-first creative, test emerging networks early, and diversify across iOS and Android to hedge volatility.
Personalized AI is no longer a nice-to-have feature—it’s a driver of adoption that inspires trust in the efficacy of AI solutions. Nine in 10 Gen Z and millennial leaders would be more inclined to use AI at work if responses were personalized, per a survey from The Harris Poll commissioned by Google Workspace. CMOs should ensure AI tools on deck can learn style and brand voice and deliver outputs that are aligned with employees’ goals and tasks. Encourage employees to experiment with custom GPTs and Google Gems to develop role-specific tools that can follow workflows across the organization.
Meta acquired AI wearables startup Limitless as part of an effort to accelerate development of AI-enabled devices. Limitless’ main product is an AI-powered pendant that records, transcribes, and summarizes users’ conversations. Acquiring Limitless is likely less about the pendant itself and more about getting access to the startup’s technology. Meta could integrate Limitless’ Rewind software—which can compress over 10 GB of data into a 3 MB file, per 9to5Mac—into its glasses to maximize storage. The winners in the AI wearables category could be those that balance hardware innovation with the privacy challenges that come with always-on intelligence.
On today’s podcast episode, we discuss how AI has already changed search, whether Google is in a better or worse position today because of AI’s rapid rise, and how AI will transform search in the next 6–12 months. Join Senior Director of Podcasts and host Marcus Johnson, along with Principal Analyst Nate Elliot and Analyst Jacob Bourne. Listen everywhere, and watch on YouTube and Spotify.
TikTok is rolling out an optional “Nearby” feed that lets users share their locations and helps them find things like a new restaurant close to home or discover places to explore while on a trip, per TikTok. The feature is available now in the UK, France, Italy, and Germany for users 18 and older. The Nearby feed opens up opportunities for brands to attract new customers through social discovery, without relying solely on “For You” feeds or ad placements. Brands could see increased organic exposure—especially from users engaging with search-friendly content.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud partnered to create a multicloud networking service that lets enterprises spin up private, high-speed links between their platforms in minutes, not weeks, per Android Central. The service will make cross-cloud traffic less vulnerable to outages, which break attribution chains, stall ad delivery, disrupt retail checkouts, and skew measurement windows, affecting brand profits. As cloud giants reinforce the internet’s plumbing, brands should match that urgency by auditing single-cloud dependencies, stress-testing campaign flows, and building failover paths for commerce and attribution.
Medicare plans to pay health tech companies for wearables, apps, and telehealth technology that improves patient outcomes via a new pilot program aimed to begin in July 2026. The government’s willingness to pay for digital health solutions signals a meaningful shift toward making these tools part of standard clinical care. But health tech makers need to prove their tools improve patient outcomes to make it into the pilot program.