Shopping for fun was one of the top reasons consumers shopped Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days sale last month, cited by 30% of Prime Day shoppers, according to October data from CivicScience.

Search advertising is entering a new era where Amazon and other retail media players are reshaping how discovery and intent are monetized. Brands must revisit their “search mix.” Google may remain indispensable, but allocating more spend to retail media will future-proof campaigns against cookie loss and capitalize on where shopping intent now begins.

Walmart is now the first retailer to sell Abbott’s over-the-counter blood sugar monitor in stores. Its rollout of Abbott’s Lingo CGM brings real-time health tracking to mainstream retail, helping to make advanced health tech part of everyday life. For marketers, the rollout highlights a growing opportunity to reach proactive health seekers who want personalized insights about nutrition, exercise, and stress.

Twitch introduced livestream shopping ads powered by Amazon’s advertising platform. The ad launch reflects the burgeoning popularity of livestream commerce, which despite being slow to take off in the US is now gaining traction thanks to TikTok, a booming collectibles market, and the rise of “shoppertainment.” Amazon is betting that an easier path to purchase will encourage more viewers to pull the trigger on products they discover via livestreams. However, a successful live shopping strategy requires thinking about the channel less as an avenue for direct conversions and more as an opportunity to engage potential customers and build lasting relationships.

Walmart Inc. announced a partnership with OpenAI to enable Walmart and Sam’s Club customers to make purchases within ChatGPT using the latter’s Instant Commerce feature. Even if agentic commerce’s adoption is gradual, early movers like Walmart will have the outsize advantage. Being discoverable in channels where users conduct product and pricing research could help retailers reinforce their value proposition and stay top-of-mind with prospective customers as this commerce scales up.

Amazon will hire 250,000 workers this holiday season, the same number it brought on each of the past two years. The retailer could account for more than half of all seasonal hires in the last three months of the year, as other companies pare back hiring plans in the face of considerable uncertainty. Amazon’s consistent hiring plans illustrate its (relative) optimism heading into what could be a difficult season.

Amazon added JPMorgan Chase, Santander, and Wells Fargo as financing partners for used vehicles on Amazon Auto, per Automotive News. Those banks now offer auto loans through the platform, which lets buyers apply for auto loans via Amazon in cities where sellers list used vehicles. The latest Amazon Auto partnerships illustrate embedded finance’s ascendancy into the mainstream. Megabanks and large regional banks will continue to participate in dedicated embedded finance partnerships, particularly with partners that need scale—demonstrating the maturity of a business model that 10 years ago didn’t even have a name.

The Bank of North Dakota and Fiserv launch the “Roughrider Coin,” the first stablecoin from the state of North Dakota. While its individual use case may be limited, it opens the door for a stablecoin issued by Fiserv on behalf of a major retailer with significant use case for processing sales. A retailer like Starbucks would be a prime candidate—it’s already ingrained the habit of loading a wallet that can only be used at Starbucks in its most loyal customers. In that case, a limited network isn’t nearly as much of a liability—it’s the whole point.

Amazon Pharmacy will soon roll out kiosks at select One Medical locations in Los Angeles. One Medical patients will use the Amazon app to generate a QR code, which they scan at the kiosk to pick up and pay for prescriptions. The kiosk model highlights Amazon’s focus on accessibility, but it’s unlikely to shift the pharmacy market—at least for now. Still, brick-and-mortar pharmacies must recognize Amazon’s advantage: a customer-centric approach paired with online convenience.

Gen Zers are avid personal care and beauty shoppers, and their habits often diverge from those of older consumers. While they shop in-store as much as non-Gen Zers, they're more likely to turn to digital channels for research and purchases. This report contrasts Gen Z behaviors with those of non-Gen Z shoppers across the personal care and beauty landscape.

This year’s Amazon Big Deal Days sale is shaping up to be another success, according to multiple forecasts. Bain and Adobe both forecast healthy growth, while we expect Amazon's ecommerce sales to rise 8.8% YoY to $8.84 billion. A strong consumer appetite for October sales could bode well for the holiday season, although we—and most other forecasters—expect growth to slow as uncertainty weighs on spending.

AI shopping assistants are boosting discovery and personalization, but trust issues and fulfillment challenges could limit their impact on channel migration.

Amazon is expanding its Prime Video live sports push through major deals with the National Basketball Association (NBA). For advertisers, the betting landscape, combined with mounting options to advertise in live sports, offers opportunities to connect with highly engaged and passionate audiences as platforms expand.

B2B digital ad spending is rising as marketers lean into formats that build visibility and engagement. Video and display are growing faster than search, reshaping strategies to reach decision-makers.

Several channels and platforms saw viewing hikes in August, largely driven by live sports, per Nielsen’s August 2025 Media Distributor Index. The platforms that thrive in an increasingly fragmented media landscape will be those that go all-in on live sports and build a diversified portfolio combining tentpole events like the Super Bowl and emerging growth drivers like women’s sports.

This year, retail will underperform overall US ad spending growth for the first time since 2018 as advertisers cut budgets amid tariffs and economic uncertainty. But the outlook for 2026 is more optimistic.

Digital markets are being reshaped by genAI search and shifting platform and monetization dynamics. These 10 charts reveal the forces that will define 2025 and beyond.

OpenAI is preparing to turn ChatGPT into an advertising platform, posting a new role for an engineer to build systems for ad integration, campaign management, and attribution. The move could position ChatGPT as a new challenger to Google, Meta, and Amazon’s ad businesses. Already a major driver of referral traffic to retailers like Walmart, Etsy, and Target, ChatGPT has clear potential to evolve into a commerce and ad engine. But execution will be critical: Poorly integrated ads risk undermining user trust, even as AI-driven ad formats are projected to grow at triple-digit annual rates in the coming years.

Consumers are increasingly receptive toward digital ads and generative AI in marketing, per Kantar’s Media Reactions 2025 report. While consumers increasingly see digital ads as the norm, advertisers must work harder than ever to cut through the clutter and deliver relevant, memorable experiences that drive action.