LinkedIn released a report on the trends shaping small businesses in 2026, proving that technology, trust, and relationship building will be the pillars of success for small businesses in the years ahead. Despite the unique roadblocks small businesses face amid current macroeconomic conditions, success is possible for those who stay on top of emerging technologies, invest in their digital presence, and build professional relationships.
AI isn’t replacing search—it’s moving earlier in the journey. OpenAI data shows only about 2% of ChatGPT prompts mention purchasable items, yet product suggestions appear in nearly one-third of prompts unrelated to shopping. For health and productivity queries, those rates jump above 40%. Meanwhile, AI minutes have quadrupled year over year while Google search usage remains slightly up, meaning AI is adding a new discovery layer, not cannibalizing intent-based search. For marketers, this creates a new upstream battleground where LLMs shape category awareness before comparison shopping begins. Brands must map the non-shopping conversations where their products naturally surface.
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.
After Netflix announced its plans to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) Friday, advertisers were left questioning the future of streaming advertising across two of the industry’s strongest ad-supported platforms. Even amid uncertainty on the deal’s future, the current strategy for advertisers is to prepare for a consolidated streaming market where a select few players command audience attention.
The New York Times filed a lawsuit against AI startup Perplexity on Friday, adding to the more than 40 current court cases between AI companies and copyright holders. Lawsuits like The Times’ underscore how AI is impacting the overall health and future of the digital advertising ecosystem—requiring advertisers to rethink traditional strategies.
A growing number of high-end and mass-market brands are thriving even as they reduce promotions to protect margins and strengthen brand equity. Victoria’s Secret delivered its strongest sales growth in four years through more targeted discounting, while On Holding and Ralph Lauren posted standout revenue and EPS gains by preserving premium pricing and elevating brand perception. The trend extends beyond retail: although Cava recently cut its sales outlook, it is still avoiding discounts to protect a value proposition rooted in quality and experience. Together, these strategies reflect a shift away from competing primarily on price.
31% of US SMB marketers and business owners use AI-driven design or layout recommendations to optimize landing pages, according to a June 2025 survey from Ascend2 and Unbounce.
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.
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.
Amazon remains in negotiations to extend its USPS partnership but is reassessing its delivery strategy after learning the Postal Service may hold a reverse auction that would require major shippers to bid for facility access. The unexpected shift injects uncertainty into Amazon’s network at a time when it is rapidly expanding Amazon Logistics and investing heavily in rural delivery. Because Amazon accounts for a sizable share of USPS revenue, a split would significantly strain the agency and could accelerate Amazon’s rise as a competing carrier, reshaping how retailers meet growing consumer expectations for fast, reliable delivery.
Marketers are feeling less optimistic about business conditions for 2026 than they were a year ago, per a new WARC report. 54% of marketers believe that conditions will improve next year, down from 65% who felt this way about 2025. WARC’s forecast indicates that economic instability will continue causing marketers to adopt more conservative budgeting strategies and sharpen their focus on measurable, performance-driven advertising.
Meta is making a strategic pivot. In a move that indicates a new era of fiscal discipline, the company plans deep cuts to its metaverse unit following a costly, multiyear investment, per Bloomberg. Meta is also bolstering its creative leadership by hiring Apple’s former head of UI design, Alan Dye, to lead a new creative studio merging design, fashion, and technology. Shifting from moonshots to market-ready polish opens the door to better-designed surfaces, more reliable performance, and ad products that feel more premium, integrated, and worth testing early.
LG Ad Solutions and Taboola are attacking connected TV (CTV) advertising’s biggest pain point: proving what premium TV exposure actually does. Their new Performance Enhancer tool connects LG’s audience data with Taboola’s Realize performance engine and open-web inventory, giving advertisers a single, global view of ROI from first impression to conversion, per Yahoo. Advertisers should pilot unified CTV-to-digital measurement now to boost ad inventory opportunities. Use automatic content recognition (ACR) segments to retarget high-intent viewers, and push partners for cross-channel reconciliation, tying ad spend to outcomes—not impressions.
WPP, once the top advertising group globally, will be retired from the FTSE 100 after almost 30 years as its market value has fallen dramatically in recent years. Removal from the FTSE 100 and a plummeting market value indicates that WPP’s struggles are deep-rooted and unlikely to vanish in the near future. For advertisers, the current imperative is to rethink partnerships, explore alternatives, and increase diligence.
Google is leaning hard into hyper-personalization as its key advantage in AI, and its secret weapon is decades of user data across Gmail, Maps, Photos, Chrome, YouTube, and Nest, per TechCrunch. Google Search vice president Robby Stein says advice-seeking queries are rising, and subjective questions benefit most from AI that “knows you.” Discovery is shifting from keyword inputs to content-rich multimodal signals, and brands can anticipate this by treating Gemini as one channel in a broader mix.
Agencies tell Digiday that The Trade Desk (TTD) is softening its long-held stance on pricing, opening the door to fee negotiations as Amazon DSP gains traction with lower costs and competitive performance. Advertisers should revisit programmatic fee structures, elevate competitive benchmarking in annual planning, and negotiate for joint business plans that tie costs to incremental spend or measurable outcomes.
Despite recent rumors and leaks, ChatGPT doesn’t run any ads today, not even for free users—but a viral Peloton “recommendation” sparked confusion and backlash while offering a possible preview of how OpenAI could eventually weave advertising into ChatGPT. The incident coincided with reports that OpenAI has been testing ad placements in its Android beta. The recent leaks, rumors, and glitches give advertisers—and competitors—insights on how ads are likely to appear in ChatGPT’s interface and competing AI chatbots. Understanding the context of AI chats and finding non-intrusive placements could require an entirely different toolset than existing ad models.
Podcast advertisers are shifting toward brand awareness campaigns, which grew from 52% to 56% of total US podcast ad spending between Q3 2024 and Q3 2025, according to a November 2025 report from Magellan AI. Meanwhile, direct response campaigns dropped 4 percentage points to 41%.
NBC News is introducing an ad-free, subscription-based streaming platform that consolidates its full lineup of content, spanning linear broadcasts, podcasts, live channels from NBC-owned stations, and original exclusive reports, into a single application, per Variety. Multiple platforms appeal to user preferences but cause more difficulties for advertisers who are struggling with an increasingly fragmented TV ecosystem.
Svedka is planning an AI-forward ad for the 2026 Super Bowl as brands continue to test consumers’ appetite for AI-powered ad experiences. The alcohol company will use AI to portray its previously retired “Fembot” robot mascot, which the brand dropped 12 years ago, per The Wall Street Journal. Svedka’s and Coca-Cola’s AI-powered campaigns mark how quickly major brands are moving into AI despite mixed reactions to earlier tests. A Super Bowl ad is a high-stakes, high-cost, and high-scrutiny moment, and using AI in that space suggests brands believe consumer sentiment is turning in their favor.