AI discovery is rewriting the rules of B2B marketing—and most CMOs admit they’re not ready. Nearly two-thirds (62%) of B2B tech marketing leaders lack the skills, budget, or strategy to compete with AI-native firms, per a new report by 3Thinkrs. Brands that don’t adapt could disappear from view. CMOs need to focus on staying visible in AI-powered summaries and answers. That means publishing fresher content, showing up in trusted news sources, and telling a consistent story across every channel. It also means learning new metrics that track how often your brand is mentioned by AI, not just humans.
YouTube is experimenting with AI avatars based on a small group of popular creators via Google’s “Portraits” feature, which allows fans to have conversations with AI versions of real-life creators. Advertisers should approach AI creators with cautious interest, closely monitoring how the format evolves as an ad opportunity while balancing emerging AI capabilities with consumers’ sensitivity to authenticity.
Even as the majority of podcasters (71%) use video, per Sounds Profitable, video podcast ads are falling short of driving purchases compared with audio ads. YouTube’s video podcast ads are 18% to 25% less effective than audio downloads at driving users to purchase, according to an Oxford Road and Podscribe study. Video podcast consumption is growing, and YouTube remains the largest media platform globally, but advertisers looking to target podcast consumers specifically must make audio a core part of their campaign planning.
In today’s attention economy, many companies find their rebrands becoming the story—drowning out the products or services they’re meant to elevate. From HBO Max’s naming whiplash to Apple TV’s identity blur, the narrative often shifts from innovation to confusion. Marketers should treat rebrands as thoughtful acts of storytelling, not stunts. Build rollout campaigns that quickly return attention to your core experience. When rebranding becomes the headline, your product risks becoming the footnote.
On today’s EMARKETER Miniseries—AI-Driven Media Management—we explore how to break down the media manager role into workflows that can be automated or augmented by agentic AI, what agencies misunderstand about AI, and which agency tasks are ripest to hand off to AI right now. EMARKETER Senior Director of Content Jeremy Goldman speaks with Adam Epstein, co-founder and CEO of Gigi. Listen everywhere you find podcasts, and watch on YouTube and Spotify.
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.
Agencies are increasingly acting as commerce media guides, helping brands move past outdated structures, sort through measurement standards, and bring AI into their planning. While commerce media networks (CMNs) have expanded to capture more than just retail media dollars, the silos between brand, retail, and sales teams make integration a challenge.
"The retail media landscape is only becoming more crowded, but Target's guest insights are often cited as a key differentiator," said our analyst Sarah Marzano during EMARKETER's recent Commerce Media Summit.
2025 challenged many of retail’s long-held assumptions. What looked like familiar patterns often turned out to be something different entirely, and in the process, a few key trends were either missed or misread by brands trying to make sense of shifting shopper behavior. Here are three trends from 2025 that were either overlooked or misunderstood, and why they will matter in the year ahead.
Albertsons Media Collective has rolled out a new off-site feature that lets consumers add products, recipes, coupons, or offers directly to their Albertsons cart from media placements across the open web.
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.
US inflation eased more than expected in November, with headline CPI rising 2.7% and core inflation slowing to 2.6%, but many highly visible essentials—including electricity, insurance, beef, and coffee—continue to climb much faster than the overall index. These increases are weighing on sentiment as wage gains cool and more households struggle to cover rising costs, leading to softer financial confidence and growing paycheck-to-paycheck pressures. With forecasts pointing to weaker real spending and looming jumps in healthcare premiums, easing inflation does little to offset the reality that household budgets remain under significant strain.
Nearly half of US adults say TV and streaming drug commercials feel out of touch and downplay serious side effects.
56% of weekly podcast listeners say podcast hosts are the type of influencer that matters most to them, nearly triple the share who say the same about social media influencers, according to an October survey from Cumulus Media and Signal Hill Insights.
NBCUniversal (NBCU) debuted AI-powered ad features ahead of the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show in 2026, giving advertisers the opportunity to leverage AI for better results in live TV and video-on-demand properties. Campaigns running on NBCU properties now gain access to the massive benefits of utilizing AI for TV, CTV, and VOD advertising.
Omnichannel strategies are crucial to capture multigenerational shoppers in their product discovery and research journeys. Nearly three-quarters (73%) of US Gen Zers say social media is their main source for learning about new products, per Salsify, and about two-thirds (61%) of Gen Xers discover products while browsing in physical retail stores. To earn the attention and trust of multigenerational shoppers, build channel-specific messaging and invest in measurement tools that track cross-channel behavior to see how different audiences are finding, researching, and buying products across platforms.
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.
On today’s podcast episode, we discuss what Crayola is aiming to achieve with its “Campaign for Creativity,” how the brand guides children from digital creation to hands-on creative play, and what’s top of mind for the art supplies company as it heads into the holiday season. Listen to the discussion with Vice President of Content and host Suzy Davidkhanian, Principal Analyst Sky Canaves, and Crayola Chief Marketing Officer Victoria Lozano.