A lot happens in a week, so every Friday we're going to analyze all the new data and provide you with some of the key takeaways. Welcome to the Friday 5. This week, Temu and Shein get a scare, consumers use buy now, pay later (BNPL) apps to discover new products, and Super Bowl viewers don’t really care about ads for AI products or services.

Key stat: 66% of US adults are unaware of, haven’t used, or aren’t interested in augmented reality (AR) shopping apps as of January 2024, according to a January 2025 EMARKETER and CivicScience study.

On today’s podcast episode, we discuss how much is too much when it comes to AI-generated ads, the relationship between how much people notice ads versus how intrusive they find them, and the main reason consumers say they feel “ignored” by marketers. Tune in to the conversation with Director of Podcasts and host Marcus Johnson, Director of Reports Editing Rahul Chadha, and Senior Analyst Evelyn Mitchell-Wolff. Listen everywhere and watch on YouTube and Spotify.

Oregon bill seeks to ban AI nurses: If passed, the bill could provide a framework for other states as they work to regulate the use of AI in healthcare settings.

61.3% of US consumers think media publications should always disclose when content is created by AI, according to a May 2024 EMARKETER survey.

60% of US B2B marketers plan to boost spending on AI tools and on social media advertising in 2025, per November 2024 data from Madison Logic and The Harris Poll.

A lot happens in a week, so every Friday we're going to analyze all the new data and provide you with some of the key takeaways. Welcome to the Friday 5.

Voluntary buyouts in its Platforms and Devices unit suggest a pivot toward AI and cloud as its hardware struggles in a saturated market with slowing upgrade cycles.

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

As marketing becomes more directly tied to revenue goals, the ability to measure and report on its impact has declined. Some of that can be attributed to signal loss as the industry moves away from third-party tracking to more privacy-safe identifiers. Today’s audiences are also spread across multiple channels and devices. This makes it harder to track the customer journey and attribute results to specific marketing efforts.

A scrappy Chinese startup disrupts the AI hierarchy with a lean, open-source model, challenging Big Tech’s costly infrastructure and rewriting the rules of AI competition.

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

Retail media networks (RMNs) are expanding beyond retailers' websites and apps, pushing into connected TV (CTV) and in-store displays. As the industry matures, experts predict 2025 will be marked by significant growth in these off-site channels, with new technologies and partnerships reshaping how brands reach consumers throughout their shopping journey.

The AI agent interacts with the internet like a human and could replace personal assistants—but its data storage and cost implications loom large.

Traditional prompt-driven AI is giving way to agentic AI, which consists of autonomous agents capable of independently performing tasks, making real-time decisions, and learning from experience. Though it’s still in its early phases, agentic AI enables marketers to enhance operational efficiency, personalize customer interactions, and drive innovation.

OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank’s mega-investment in US data centers could fuel AI’s growth. However, soaring energy and water demands may slow the pace.

While Google faces mounting pressure from Bing’s ChatGPT integration and other generative AI (genAI) search platforms, degradation of its own search results, including those shown in its AI Overviews, could be exacerbating migration away from Google.

MFA sites still plague open web exchanges: AI allows bad actors to rapidly produce fraudulent websites and use bots to drum up fake pageviews, muddying the ad ecosystem.

OpenAI and Axios partner up: The AI firm will fund four local newsrooms in exchange for access to the publisher’s material.

Marketers are under pressure to deliver seamless customer experiences across fragmented channels while addressing data deprecation and personalization demands. Strategies like mobile-first approaches and AI-driven personalization are opening new opportunities.