Almost half (49%) of worldwide marketers use AI daily for image and video generation, according to January data from Canva and Morning Consult.
Tesla is officially in the restaurant business following the much-hyped opening of the Tesla Diner in Los Angeles. The futuristic concept could be the template for additional openings in the US as well as abroad, CEO Elon Musk said—helping the company boost brand awareness, engagement, and sales. The diner’s launch—and the accompanying wave of press and social media posts—could help reset consumers’ perceptions of the Tesla brand at a particularly tumultuous time for the company. But it could also, given the company’s increasingly polarized reputation, become a focal point for protests, which might deter would-be customers from stopping in.
The news: The Trump administration unveiled a sweeping AI action plan that trades oversight for acceleration—seeking to supercharge US dominance in artificial intelligence by dismantling regulatory guardrails, undercutting state authority, and fast-tracking infrastructure and development, per Wired. Our take: For marketers, this could mean an influx of new tools, looser content moderation, and shorter time to market for AI-driven campaigns. Marketers should audit their AI tools, implement AI best practices and safety training, and prepare for faster deployment cycles in a looser regulatory environment.
The news: A major security flaw in Microsoft SharePoint is actively being exploited by hackers around the world. The full impact is still unfolding, but 100 large companies, thousands of SMBs, and at least two US federal agencies have been breached, per The Washington Post. Our take: Microsoft’s restructuring toward AI and cloud has left cracks in its legacy infrastructure, now exploited at scale. For agencies and marketers, the risk is real: Compromised systems mean vulnerable campaigns and lost client IP, data, and brand reputation. For Microsoft, continued breaches could push customers to abandon SharePoint altogether.
40.6% of US adults have researched a product or company after encountering an ad for it in-store, according to March 2025 data from Placer.ai and EMARKETER.
The news: Perplexity is in talks with smartphone manufacturers to make its new Comet browser a default app on smartphones to drive adoption and user engagement, per Reuters. Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas said it aims to reach “tens to hundreds of millions” of users in 2026 after a desktop rollout to a “few hundred thousand” testers, a plan that could be aided by expanding Comet access on phones. Our take: While Comet itself is a browser, its integrations with Perplexity’s AI could streamline access to mobile AI search tools, changing mobile search behavior and forcing marketers to rethink traditional search marketing practices. Getting Comet onto phones could also supercharge Perplexity’s data on user behavior and boost its ability to improve its AI search tools.
Over half of worldwide consumers (51%) want AI to improve their experience by helping them find products faster, according to February data from Twilio.
AI is poised to transform everything in marketing from ad creation to targeting and even the future role of agencies in the advertising ecosystem.
In this podcast episode, we discuss the importance of physical touchpoints for brands and explore what attracts younger generations to in-store shopping experiences. We also examine the expectations consumers have for engaging in person experiences. Join our conversation with Senior Director of Podcasts and host, Marcus Johnson, Chief Client Strategy & Integration; President of Quad Agency Services, Tim Maleeny, and Vice President of Content, Suzy Davidkhanian. Listen everywhere you find podcasts and watch on YouTube and Spotify.
Privacy regulations are mounting. Signal loss is accelerating. Omnichannel advertising has become impossibly complex. These forces are driving marketers back to MMM for holistic, privacy-safe measurement.
On today's podcast episode, we discuss the state of some of our 2025 predictions, including GenAI’s influence on business growth, the influence of China’s e-commerce disruptors, the squeeze on retail media networks, and more. Then, we offer a few more slightly spicier predictions for the remainder of the year ahead. Listen to the conversation with our Senior Analyst Sara Lebow as she hosts Vice President Suzy Davidkhanian and Senior Analyst Carina Perkins.
The news: The vast majority of referral traffic from AI sources comes from desktop users while mobile traffic lingers in single-digit percentages. 94% of ChatGPT referral traffic is from desktop users, per BrightEdge’s The Open Frontier of Mobile AI Search report. Google Gemini’s traffic is 94% desktop versus 5% mobile, while Perplexity’s is 96% desktop and just 3% mobile. Our take: As search engines increasingly reduce organic visibility and prioritize zero-click searches, brands and publishers need to develop unique content strategies for different devices. Providing a mix of long-form, in-depth posts for desktop users along with snappy headlines and skimmable content for those on mobile could help achieve the best of both worlds
The news: The window to monitor AI’s reasoning in chatbots and agents is quickly closing, according to 40 researchers from Google DeepMind, Anthropic, OpenAI, Meta, and more. In a rare show of unity, the researchers stated that chatbots and agents are shifting from human-readable chain-of-thought reasoning to opaque, non-verbal methods, per VentureBeat. Our take: The collective call for transparency and standards marks an inflection point. Without urgent action, AI systems may soon outpace our ability to audit them—leaving marketers, creators, and regulators flying blind. Unseen logic means unchecked bias that could result in reputational damage.
The news: Google is experimenting with AI summaries in Discover—the news feed within its iOS and Android search apps—adding yet another threat to referral traffic for web publishers. Instead of displaying a headline and link to a news story, Discover shows an AI summary with an icon featuring the logo of any cited source. Our take: If users increasingly rely on AI summaries—and if Discover becomes a zero-click search hub—publishers risk further declines in web traffic, imperiling not just ad revenues but the viability of good journalism.
While a plurality of consumers in the western hemisphere start their product searches on search engines, social media platforms are significant search launching pads for consumers in Argentina (17.8%), Brazil (16.8%), and Mexico (18.0%), according to November 2024 data from ESW and EMARKETER.
On today’s podcast episode, we discuss the weight-loss drugs revolution: how they work, their efficacy, how they became so popular, and how they’re reshaping multiple industries. Join Senior Director of Podcasts and host Marcus Johnson and Senior Analysts Rajiv Leventhal and Beth Snyder Bulik. Listen everywhere and watch on YouTube and Spotify.
The news: xAI, Elon Musk’s AI company, issued a public apology after Grok posted extremist, antisemitic, and politically incendiary content. The chatbot described itself as “MechaHitler” and repeated far-right rhetoric—shortly after Musk pushed to make the chatbot “less politically correct.” Our take: Despite Grok’s competitive performance, its volatility may keep it off the table for marketers running AI pilot programs—like NinjaPromo, which is piloting AI tools that combine its proprietary models with external LLMs for predictive analytics, generative content, and programmatic ads aimed at boosting ROI and automating workflows. Before trusting any platform, CMOs must ensure their tool’s transparency and determine how each model reasons—and what values or biases are embedded.
Measuring creator performance is the top barrier to influencer marketing success (32%) for brand marketers worldwide, per an August 2024 CreatorIQ report.
The news: Samsung leaned heavily on AI functionality at its Unpacked event Wednesday with the Galaxy S25 series, Z Fold 7 and Z Flip 7 smartphones and Galaxy Watch 8, all featuring enhanced AI capabilities as a core value proposition, per Android Central. Samsung highlighted proprietary Galaxy AI for tasks like on-device photo and video editing, but the bigger news was Samsung’s adoption of Google Gemini across its ecosystem. Our take: For advertisers, the shift toward screen-aware, voice-activated experiences requires them to rethink how brands and campaigns align in an AI-first mobile world. Reframing brand experiences around mobile, voice, and contextual AI features opens opportunities for user engagement.
The news: Jasper’s suite of AI-powered marketing agents are purpose-built to automate core marketing functions. These agents, which start at $49 per user per month, work inside Jasper Canvas, a new intelligent workspace designed to streamline planning, collaboration, content creation, and execution. Our take: Marketers must assess their current pain points. If content quality is inconsistent, execution is slow, or tools don’t talk to each other, an agentic platform like Jasper could drive sharper outcomes. As with most new tools, running pilot programs and benchmarks for speed and brand consistency against your current stack will help determine value and ROI.