A group of Swedish publishers is suing Meta over scam ads on Facebook. The publishing group, Utgivarna, accused Meta of fraud, complicity in fraud, and preparation for fraud due to Facebook ads that impersonate Swedish journalists and media brands. In addition, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) are investigating Meta’s role in financial scams. We’re likely to see more lawsuits from other publishers who are seeking to protect their brand, name, and ability to earn trust from new consumers.
A leaked memo from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed his “code red” orders to staff to prioritize ChatGPT improvements in the face of mounting competition. OpenAI is fast-tracking GPT-5.1 upgrades at the cost of new initiatives, including an advertising platform, its AI wearable, and an AI shopping agent. Its rush to refocus on model quality could improve user interactions and boost engagement while building loyalty. Brands should follow developments from ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and others to track consumer preferences on AI use to optimize content for specific markets.
Two-thirds (65%) of marketing and advertising decision-makers worldwide worry about the suitability of their ad placements on social platforms, per DoubleVerify’s 2025 Global Insights report. Nearly half (46%) say their top challenge in social marketing is simply reaching target audiences. Brands should focus on specific consumer segments—such as hobby-based micro-communities or high-intent shoppers—and use AI to quickly adapt content for each group. To address brand safety, brands should use contextual targeting tools to place ads in suitable environments and track how changing algorithm controls on social media platforms affect visibility.
Consumers are turning toward social media and AI tools to guide their holiday shopping journeys, pulling influence away from traditional search and retail sites. Fifty-seven percent of US consumers plan to use social media for holiday shopping research and 39% plan to use AI for that task. Discovery is happening before consumers know what they want—inside social feeds and AI chats. To capture social shoppers, brands should diversify spend away from saturated platforms like Instagram and experiment with others, and invest in content partnerships that are visible in platform algorithms and increase user trust.
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.
AI is playing a notable role in holiday shopping this year as consumers express comfort with AI-supported gifting and receiving. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of US adults would consider using genAI for holiday shopping this year, up from 11% last year, per HUMAN Security’s SantaGPT report. With AI becoming a trusted partner for stressful gift-buying moments like the holidays, marketers have the opportunity to frame AI features—including smart gift finders or on-site AI-powered shopping guides—as stress-reducing tools to streamline the shopping journey.
The US public and AI experts have diverging perspectives on how AI will reshape the job market over the next 20 years. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of US adults expect fewer jobs, and just 5% forecast more jobs, per Pew Research. However, only 39% of AI experts predict fewer jobs, and 19% expect the number of jobs to grow. Despite those projections, jobs may not simply disappear. Instead, a new class of workers will emerge. As businesses across sectors accelerate enterprise AI adoption, the goal should be focused on streamlining workflows around collaboration.
On today’s podcast episode, we discuss the three big questions surrounding Amazon in Q3 and beyond: What Amazon's corporate layoffs tell us about how AI is actually affecting the broader job market. Is Amazon’s new “Help Me Decide” feature a significant stepping stone toward agentic AI? And could Amazon’s AI smart glasses for delivery workers be a Trojan horse for broader smart-glasses adoption? Join Senior Director of Podcasts and host Marcus Johnson, along with Analyst Rachel Wolff. Listen everywhere, and watch on YouTube and Spotify.
OpenAI is rolling out a group chat option for ChatGPT to all logged-in Free, Go, Plus, and Pro users globally. The company said in a blog post that the feature is intended to help users collaborate with one another in the same conversation—such as working with friends, family, or coworkers on plans, decisions, and brainstorming. To capitalize on this new engagement tool, marketing leaders should start experimenting with group-based AI workflows and prepare for new discovery channels.
Reddit and mobile apps were the fastest-growing US ad channels in Q3, showing their emerging importance to advertisers. Ad spend on Reddit increased 46% YoY, per Sensor Tower’s Q3 Digital Market Index report, and mobile app ad spend grew 42%. Reddit is becoming a high ROI opportunity for early movers. Its growth suggests that highly engaged micro-communities (subreddits) are offering more precise targeting and less competition. That makes Reddit a strong testing ground for community-based and brand awareness campaigns for consumers who are actively looking to discover new content and products.
TikTok and Instagram are shifting where marketers can reliably reach and influence their audiences, though YouTube and Facebook remain Americans’ most widely used social platforms. Usage of TikTok and Instagram continues to rise—37% of US adults say they have used TikTok as of this year, up from 21% in 2021, and 50% have used Instagram, up from 40% in the same time span, per Pew Research. Brands should rebalance media mix regularly to capitalize on platform maturity and develop platform-specific content, especially for short-form services such as TikTok and Instagram Reels and long-form friendly sites like YouTube.
The European Commission (EC) plans to propose scaled-back digital regulations to make it easier for companies to access users’ personal data and allow AI companies to legally use personal information for model training. The changes include simplifying cookie consent and letting users accept with a single click and save preferences centrally. Access to richer data sets could improve consumer segmentation, predictive modeling, and personalization offerings. Brands that clearly communicate how they use data, what protections exist, and the benefits of personalization will be more likely to maintain loyalty.
Speaking with EMARKETER at Web Summit, Vast chief astronaut and former NASA commander Drew Feustel described how the company’s Haven 1 station is designed to shift low Earth orbit from a research environment to a commercial manufacturing platform. Building on decades of ISS science, Vast aims to serve industries like biotech, pharmaceuticals, and advanced materials that benefit from microgravity’s unique conditions. With the space economy expected to reach $1.8 trillion by 2035, Feustel says the next leap is scaling production—from artificial retinas to specialty crystals—into repeatable, revenue-generating processes. For brands and investors, orbit is becoming a legitimate industrial supply chain.
Adobe is acquiring software platform Semrush for $1.9 billion. The deal, which is expected to close in the first half of next year, will help Adobe expand beyond creative tools into a full-service marketing and analytics suite that can compete with Google and Meta. Whether or not marketers use Adobe today, the deal presents an opportunity to check tech stacks and evaluate search, design, and analytics tools. The acquisition could also help marketers trim martech spending by streamlining the tools they need to create content and stay on top of brand visibility and performance.
TikTok is letting users control how much AI content appears in their feeds with a slider to dial genAI content up or down depending on preference. The feed-filtering option is only as good as TikTok’s ability to detect genAI content, so the platform is also testing invisible watermarking that adds labeling only TikTok can see. Marketers should monitor how users adjust their AI content preferences and tailor creative accordingly to prioritize transparency and authenticity where AI skepticism is high. Pressure-test TikTok media plans to ensure campaigns consistently appear alongside content that reinforces trust.
Consumers are increasingly turning to ChatGPT instead of Google for product discovery, shifting search from links to answers, and Peec AI is working to give marketers visibility into how their brands appear in AI-generated answers. It focuses on generative engine optimization (GEO) and search that is shaped by prompts, sentiment, and context instead of SEO-reliant keywords and links. Brands should treat AI chatbots with the same reverence as they do Google Search by identifying high-value prompts and analyzing the sources that inform AI. Improved GEO targeting gives brands better oversight over generative search discovery.
Engagement and reach are now top priorities for social marketers as brand awareness sinks to the bottom of the list. Last year, 76% of marketers named brand awareness their No. 1 priority; this year, that number plummeted to 22%, per PhotoShelter. The sharp pivot from brand-building to performance indicators suggests marketers are under growing pressure to prove ROI in fast-moving social environments, even at the expense of longer-term brand health. To balance reach and awareness, brands should build dual-track strategies, measure brand lift, and optimize for both attention and actions.
Meta added content theft protections to Facebook Reels, giving creators more control over their work. The offering is automatically available to qualifying creators in Facebook’s Content Monetization program. Users that enroll with the content protection program will get notifications when content that’s similar to or identical to theirs is posted on Facebook or Instagram. Brands should encourage partnering creators to enroll in the program to safeguard content. The offering could lower the risk of inadvertently using stolen content, making compliance easier and ensuring creators have full rights to the assets that brands invest in and amplify.
The internet went dark Tuesday for users across services like X, ChatGPT, Spotify, Uber, Shopify, DoorDash, Dropbox, and Canva—disabling social media, customer engagement, and creative production. Content delivery network (CDN) Cloudflare restored service after the hourslong global outage that began at 6:20am EST. Cloudflare attributed the outage to an internal error. Marketers should push for business continuity expansion plans. Redundant CDNs, multi-cloud strategies, and cross-cloud failovers protect them from being at the mercy of a single CDN provider. Building for resilience keeps customers confident during outages and keeps online sales moving.