As retailers prepare for next year, they acknowledge that convenience has evolved from a value proposition to a structural shift in how all of retail operates. We asked leaders across retail media, digital identity, payments, mobility, and connected commerce, and they agreed that convenience will continue to change throughout the next year as expectations shift and AI eliminates friction.
While commerce media networks expand, retailers can take advantage of the efficiencies and measurement capabilities that they can provide.Retail media networks alone are expected to claim one-fifth of US digital ad spending by 2029, according to EMARKETER’s September forecast.
Coursera’s $950 million all-stock acquisition of Udemy is a consolidation play rooted in survival, not expansion. The deal brings together two of the largest US-based online learning platforms as demand for online education cools amid cheaper AI-driven learning tools and employers pulling training in-house, per The Information. Online learning is becoming a gated, premium environment shaped by AI and consolidation. As Coursera and Udemy merge, brands should expect fewer sponsorship slots, tighter rules, and higher prices.
Amazon is in early talks to invest up to $10 billion in OpenAI, three sources told The Information. If finalized, the deal would value OpenAI at more than $500 billion and intensify Amazon’s competition with Microsoft in AI cloud services. The investment, which follows November’s $38 billion deal between the companies, would bring OpenAI deeper into Amazon’s ecosystem to use Amazon’s Trainium chips to develop future AI products. Consolidation means faster model updates, tighter cloud integrations, and more reliable access to genAI tools. Choosing the right AI tools and cloud providers now becomes a turnkey solution.
Marketers are entering 2026 with more money and less patience for waste. Sixty percent of US small businesses plan to raise marketing spend next year, per Clutch. Budgets are moving toward channels that produce quick returns and at lower cost as ROI expectations tighten—46% of marketers say more than half of their 2026 spend will go to digital. Marketers should treat 2026 as a year for discipline, not just expansion. Invest where attribution is strong, like paid search tied to conversion events, retail media with closed-loop sales data, and email with CRM programs.
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.
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.
Over half (52%) of senior data and technology executives worldwide use generative AI to boost internal productivity, according to a June survey from MIT Technology Review Insights.
The rise of AI browsers like OpenAI’s Atlas and Perplexity’s Comet is setting up a possible bifurcation of the web. These agent-driven browsers navigate pages, click through tasks, and fetch information on a user’s behalf while traditional browsers anchor the search-centric behaviors most people rely on. The divergence could result in further fragmentation where there are two versions of websites. Brands that structure their content for both—with product metadata, clear semantic HTML, and agent-ready pages focused on specs, summaries, and FAQs—will have a higher chance of visibility across browsers.
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.
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.
Microsoft is lowering its expectations for enterprise AI revenues as customer spending proves more cautious than anticipated. It reduced its sales quotas for AI software after many reps missed sales growth goals for the fiscal year that ended in June, per The Information. The problem could stem from clients’ challenges in measuring ROI from AI initiatives and determining savings from automating tasks. Competition to prove product value is intensifying, and Microsoft’s softening expectations for sales suggest that AI isn’t a guaranteed revenue engine. This lowered forecast marks both cautious customer spending and a shift toward value-driven AI adoption over experimentation.
Most age groups show negative sentiment as the dominant response to personalized ads, with negativity ranging from 36% to 58%, according to an August 2025 survey from Verve and Censuswide.
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.
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.
New Apple research points to the iPhone company pairing large language models (LLMs) with traditional sensors to build a more precise understanding of what a user is doing in real time. It’s likely to show up in sensor-enabled smartphones, computers, and smart home hubs hinged on ambient intelligence. Brands should explore how to design for moments, not messages. Build content and promotions that surface organically depending on a user’s activity, be it cooking, commuting, or exercising—so brands show up when it matters most.
A new study shows that while commerce media enthusiasm is high, actual readiness is far lower. Nearly half of respondents believe they are operationalized, yet only 13% qualify as advanced across leadership, technology, and measurement. Most fall into nascent or emerging categories, limited by siloed workflows, manual creative processes, and fragmented data systems that prevent closed-loop attribution. Advertisers seeking accountable, performance-driven programs may be surprised by how few networks can truly support scaled, automated operations. The findings highlight a widening gap between ambition and capability—and the need for unified data, automation, and clearer measurement.