Fintechs, big tech, and payment players are using genAI to redefine finance. To compete, banks must pair strategic genAI investment with hyper-personalization and human support to earn customer trust and loyalty.

Video is now core to B2B marketing. This report shows how trust-building through creators, as well as increased AI use, are supporting video’s rise—and how to link performance to pipeline despite rising costs and resource gaps.

Citi mandated AI prompt training for most of its employees, per the American Banker. Citi’s head of technology noted that so far this year, Citi employees have input more than 6.5 million prompts and reduced time spent on some tasks by orders of magnitude. Fourteen percent of financial services companies worldwide have already benefited from their investments in generative AI, per Broadridge, and another 54% expect payback in no more than 1-2 years. The banking industry’s pivot over the past three years from fear of the unknown to seeking benefits will pay dividends in the long run.

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.

Anthropic’s Claude AI is taking on competitors in a multimillion dollar ad campaign. The “Keep Thinking” campaign positions Claude as “the AI for problem solvers” and marks Anthropic’s first foray into brand marketing. The campaign is a necessary start to help Claude gain market share and boost its comparatively small user base, but it’s only the first step in a long journey ahead for Anthropic.

Google introduced new features for Demand Gen campaigns and said it will publish monthly, newsletter-style updates to keep marketers on track with the latest Demand Gen updates. Google is moving to chip away at advertisers’ black-box concerns by adding more visibility, measurement, and testing options into Demand Gen, signaling its push toward greater transparency and control for campaign performance.

YouTube wants to be the home for both product discovery and ecommerce as it rolls out new shopping features across long-form videos and Shorts, per The Verge. Incoming additions include dynamic brand segments for swapping out sponsors, AI tagging of eligible products, and brand links in Shorts. YouTube is announcing new features—like shoppable masthead ads and text-to-video tools—at a breakneck pace, looking to capitalize on its growth across platforms. Brands should partner with both top creators and smaller influencers to boost discovery and purchases.

Despite the rise of artificial intelligence in advertising, marketers worldwide still overwhelmingly rely on user-generated content (UGC) for engaging audiences, per a new study from PhotoShelter. Authenticity is the clear differentiator that makes ads connect with audiences, necessitating continued reliance on UGC.

Meta announced new ad options at its Brand Building Summit, focused on Reels and innovative ad formats for Threads, per a blog post. While Meta’s new ad offerings promise more sophisticated placements, they can’t fully offset uncertainty. Marketers could face a scenario where the platform they’re relying on today could operate under massively different constraints tomorrow.

Junior ad jobs are gradually disappearing as the industry faces upheaval. While overall ad jobs ticked up slightly earlier this year, employment is still trending downward—and younger workers are taking the brunt. Without a pipeline of entry-level talent, agencies risk eroding their long-term relevance.

Brands are testing the waters with AI-generated influencers as AI becomes a staple of advertising and everyday life. Telecommunications brand Vodafone is the latest to jump on the trend. Despite consumer hesitancy, AI is increasingly shaping the ad ecosystem, necessitating that advertisers take a balanced approach to leverage AI for its creative and operational potential without alienating consumers.

Ad tech company PubMatic filed a lawsuit Monday against Google for alleged anticompetitive and monopolistic actions in the digital advertising ecosystem. The lawsuit claimed Google took illegal actions that impacted PubMatic and harmed its ability to grow revenues. PubMatic’s lawsuit underscores that structural shifts in ad tech could eventually reshape how advertisers access and value Google’s search inventory and digital ad offerings.

The trend: Healthcare executives expect AI adoption to be the leading trend in the next two years and have high expectations for improvements in patient care, per a new survey from Sage Growth Partners. Sage surveyed 101 healthcare system and hospital C-suite executives during the second quarter about AI opportunities and investment plans. AI can help healthcare shift from reactive to proactive care by transforming the vast amount of data from health sensors into actionable insights. However, the key is to integrate this AI as a tool to support, not replace, a provider's judgment. AI predictive assessments and analytics add valuable information, but providers’ experience, critical thinking, and empathy are necessary not only for balanced diagnoses but also to maintain patients’ trust. A recent study in JAMA found that patients think physicians who use AI are less trustworthy, less competent, and less empathetic than those who didn’t. For now at least, AI use in healthcare is a significant perception hurdle requiring transparent disclosure and careful oversight.

Meta will allow advertisers to exclude specific words or phrases from AI-generated ad copy to protect and align with brand image as it accelerates its AI advertising push. While barriers to adoption remain, Meta’s continued push toward AI ad automation signals where the future of advertising is heading: One where AI will increasingly balance scale with control to give marketers confidence in experimenting with automated campaigns.

Consumers are apprehensive about AI's overall impact on society, and are especially pessimistic about its effect on media. But increasing familiarity with the technology is also breeding trust.

AI search engine Perplexity is facing potential ad business struggles with the departure of its head of advertising Taz Patel. The departure comes as Perplexity eyes new avenues for growth and is faced with legal pressures, per Adweek. Patel’s departure signals a deeper issue with AI search ad monetization, reflecting advertiser hesitation to spend without proven formats, measurement, and ROI, even as AI adoption grows.

Snap debuted a new ad suite for marketers and developers, offering an “App Power Pack” that includes new bid strategies, ad formats, optimization strategies, and targeting capabilities to boost ROI, per MediaPost. Snap’s ad suite is an important step in the company’s efforts to cement its strength in advertising and curb slowing growth. We forecast the platform’s ad revenues will continue falling in the low single digits through 2027. But with competitors already offering similar products, Snapchat needs to go a step further to stand out.

Japan-based agency holding company Dentsu is considering selling its international business, ending its goal to compete against rivals Publicis and WPP. Selling its international business could allow Dentsu to reposition itself as a specialized player in its core market rather than stretching itself thin internationally where it can’t match competitors. The change could make the company more sustainable in the long run, but even if it focuses solely on Japan, rapid adoption of emerging technologies in the ad sector will still necessitate innovation.

On today’s podcast episode, we discuss what AI Overviews are doing to search behavior, some potential new business models for the internet, and how much “AI slop” might encourage folks to decrease their time on the web. Join Senior Director of Podcasts and host, Marcus Johnson, Analyst, Grace Harmon, and the CEO and Founder of CMO Huddles, and host of the Renegade Marketers Unite podcast, Drew Neisser. Listen everywhere and watch on YouTube and Spotify.

TikTok is laying off hundreds of UK staff as it shifts moderation to AI, with more than 85% of takedowns now automated. The cuts, part of a global restructuring, come as the UK’s Online Safety Act pressures platforms to strengthen oversight. Industry peers are also pivoting—Meta and X have scaled back fact-checking while Reddit, Pinterest, and Snapchat adopt varying models of control. Yet user sentiment runs counter: Most want more human oversight, not less, with strong demand for fact-checkers, privacy, and quality control. The divergence raises brand-safety questions as advertisers weigh cost efficiencies against consumer trust.