The news: Messaging ads are gaining traction as a key opportunity to reach customers at critical moments after Meta debuted ads in WhatsApp. In an exclusive conversation with EMARKETER, Grant Parker, president of omnichannel ad platform Innnovid, offered his take on the future of the messaging medium. Our take: The path forward for messaging ads relies on how well the format integrates with the user experience rather than interrupting it—necessitating that advertisers invest in this opportunity while accounting for consumer attitudes.

The news: Shopify will not allow agents and other bots to purchase on users’ behalf without “final human review,” the company said in an update to the code used by merchants to operate their online storefronts. Our take: While AI agents aren’t yet reliable enough to be given free reign over purchase decisions, companies have to be prepared for a future where they soon will be.

While consumers are always looking for more efficient ways to shop and engage with brands, they aren't always ready to trade that efficiency for relinquished control. Marketers seeking to enhance engagement with AI have an evolving tightrope to walk.

Our take: OpenAI’s first-mover advantage is under threat from all sides—vertically from specialized AI agents, horizontally from rival chatbots, and internally from talent wars and Microsoft. The news: OpenAI’s ChatGPT has rapidly become a mainstream AI tool, with new data showing that 34% of US adults have now used it—almost double the 2023 figures, per Pew Research Center. For CMOs and CTOs, this means betting on ChatGPT’s current dominance while preparing for a fragmented future where no single platform reigns supreme. Finding the right AI solutions for specific use cases is a smarter play than betting the farm on an all-in-one solutions provider.

The news: Generative AI (genAI) agents aren’t above sabotage—and most would resort to blackmail or corporate espionage if threatened, per Anthropic’s Agent Misalignment research. When faced with replacement or misaligned goals, Anthropic’s Claude 4 Opus and Google’s Gemini 2.5 Flash responded with blackmail threats to those employees 96% of the time despite ethical restraints in their training. OpenAI’s GPT-4.1, Grok 3 Beta, and DeepSeek-R1 followed suit about 80% of the time. Our take: Anthropic’s research shows that safeguards can’t prevent agents from running off the rails, but continued monitoring will keep those instances to a minimum. Limit agent access to critical systems, review its output during customer contact, and implement failsafes in case deviant patterns emerge.

The insight: Amazon is trying to figure out how it can benefit from the AI agentic boom without giving shopping agents unfettered access to its site, according to a report by The Information. Our take: While agentic commerce is far from the norm for the time being, retailers need to be prepared. That’s especially true for companies with retail media businesses, given the potential for AI agents to upend their ability to monetize their sites.

The news: Walmart rolled out Sparky, its generative AI (genAI) assistant, to all Walmart app users this week—a preliminary step that puts it closer to achieving its agentic ambitions. Our take: By broadening Sparky’s capabilities, Walmart is trying to position itself not only as a shopping destination, but also as a place where consumers can go when they need everyday life advice or information—such as how to fix a leaky faucet or help with event planning. Whether the retailer succeeds will depend on how well Sparky works, and whether it can convince shoppers to overcome their current skepticism of AI tools.

GenAI search is gaining traction, but not all consumers are seeking out the conversational experiences that will eventually disrupt the search ad market.

Retailers and brands are racing to deploy AI across the shopping journey, but trust, quality, and execution will define who wins.

Agentic AI gains momentum: As Amazon, Walmart, eBay and others experiment with AI agents, retailers need to to figure out how to market to bots in addition to humans.

AI agents are revolutionizing marketing with autonomous capabilities that go far beyond traditional automation. Organizations are implementing AI agents to boost workflow efficiency and prepare for a consumer marketplace increasingly mediated by AI.

AI agents are here, but they’ve had little effect on the consumer journey so far. That should change by the end of 2028.

Agentic AI features turn the suite into a strategic platform for enterprises—automating content and campaign work once handled by human creatives.

This invite-only tool tackles full workflows autonomously—raising the bar for US rivals stuck on text responses.

It launches with 200+ partners, aiming to reshape enterprise workflows—but adoption hurdles like trust issues and integration complexity could slow its impact.

Google, OpenAI, and Opera are embedding AI agents into devices and browsers. These tools can browse, compare, and purchase products with minimal user input.

The tool delivers expert analysis with citations, but necessary human oversight and restricted availability could limit adoption.

Enterprises struggle to integrate AI agents with their existing tools and solutions, with 80% of IT leaders citing data integration as the key challenge.

Meta AI updates hint at future advertising: The company’s chatbot will store “memories” and pull from user data to personalize answers.

As genAI expands beyond chatbots, app categories like banking and messaging could see AI-driven disruption, reshaping mobile habits and spending trends