OpenAI seeks real consumer intent, and a potential Pinterest acquisition would give OpenAI first-party shopping signals and native ad infrastructure to rival Google and Meta.
US holiday shopping remained strong, Fiserv pursued agentic commerce, and Zoomex launched a crypto-backed credit card.
Annual fee revenues tripled as affluent users flock to luxury rewards, reversing a decade-long trend—and fintechs seek to pick up consumers issuers left behind.
Starbucks is sponsoring the second season of Amazon Prime’s reality competition “Beast Games: Strong vs. Smart” to try to reignite brand buzz.
Visa and Mastercard reached a new settlement with merchants to lower fees in the US this November—another attempt to end a roughly 20-year fight in the courts, per SEC filings. The modest interchange reductions and new ability to steer customers away from higher-fee cards offer meaningful cost relief for small and midsize retailers that consumers may be more willing to support by using another card. However, those concessions are unlikely to move the needle for large national chains. They don’t materially change their economics, nor do they address the fundamental issue that networks and issuers still hold most of the pricing power.
2025 was a big year for cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency payment users grew 24.8%, to 4.9 million US adults, per our forecast. Between institutional buy-in and unprecedented support at the highest levels of the US government, the crypto market hit record highs—before plummeting in the final months of the year. Crypto gained mainstream momentum, but its volatility hasn’t changed. For banks and crypto infrastructures, this unpredictability kneecaps efforts to integrate crypto as an accepted currency at the point-of-sale.
In 2026, commerce will thread itself even more tightly into the platforms consumers already use, whether they're watching TV, scrolling TikTok, or browsing a retailer’s site. Streamers will hunt for new revenues beyond subscriptions and ads, fashion shoppers will polarize toward luxury or low-cost, and TikTok Shop will transition from experiment to expectation. Meanwhile, creators will embed more directly into retail environments as brands seek safer, more strategic partnerships.
Next year will bring shifts that redefine how networks operate, how brands show up, and how performance is measured. Here are three predictions for commerce media in 2026.
28% of retail commerce media decision-makers in North America and Europe say they review and approve creatives manually but lack automation or dynamic capabilities, according to November 2025 data from Koddi and Forrester Consulting.
Saks Global's high-risk bet on Neiman Marcus has backfired, saddling it with considerable debt, limiting its ability to compete and sending it spiraling toward bankruptcy.
News about delayed tariffs, activist pressure on retailers, and a failed JC Penney deal closed out 2025.
Half of US adults say AI videos will push them away—raising risks for brands appearing near low-quality content.
Chase launched an exclusive travel series, Sapphire Reserve Trips, eligible for Sapphire Reserve cardholders, per a press release. Cardholders will receive 8X points for any Chase Travel booking and can maximize points with Points Boosts, which gives members another 2X points at hotels and flights booked with select airlines through Chase Travel. Chase’s promotions of experiential, exclusive, and personalized rewards is critical to capture more wealthy millennials and Gen Zers into their ecosystem. To avoid disappointment from cardholders, issuers should cap enrollment for trips to prevent overcrowding found at premium airport lounges and preserve a private experience for a select group of cardholders.
Inflation, layoffs, and uncertain tariffs may dampen demand even as AI raises hope for new sales channels.
We review the biggest credit card movements of the year including the Capital One Discover merger, Sapphire Reserve and Platinum card refreshes, and tightening underwriting standards that are squeezing out middle and lower class families from credit lines.
Chase’s anticipated travel and dining trends focus on experiential and novel landscapes and experiences, and continues a push for luxury in dining.
Marketers across categories are calling for simpler, more intuitive advertising systems after years of growing fragmentation and technical overload. In interviews with EMARKETER, leaders from Criteo, LiveRamp, Reddit, Vistar Media, StackAdapt, and DoorDash all described a shift toward platforms that reduce effort, unify workflows, and provide clearer decision making. Buyers want fewer interfaces, standardized KPIs, easier activation, and more transparent insight into where ads run. The message is consistent: performance pressure amplifies the value of operational clarity. As the industry moves into 2026, platforms that eliminate friction—rather than add features—will gain share, while marketers who choose simplicity will gain speed and efficiency.
BNPL is cementing itself as a go-to tool for shoppers looking to stretch their dollars.
Banks have several options to mitigate their risk.
It may be a new year, but we’re still catching up on what happened during the last week of 2025. Here’s everything you may have missed.