AI can produce ad creative at scale, but it struggles to deliver the originality brands need to stand out. Marketers need to draw a sharper line between the work AI should handle and where human creativity matters most.

AI is reshaping how consumers in Europe discover, compare, and choose products, creating new opportunities and challenges for retailers and brands.

Google expands its health data ecosystem with Flo, Function integrations. Actionable and reliable health guidance will be key to retaining users in a crowded market.

Smart glasses are drawing big bets from certain social platforms, but privacy concerns and limited consumer demand threaten wider adoption. For marketers, the near-term opportunity lies in adapting existing strategies rather than chasing new ad formats.

Google tests pharma ads in AI Mode and Overviews, bringing drugmakers closer to consumers' treatment decisions while testing AI search’s readiness for regulated advertising.

AI is cutting into publisher referral traffic even as publisher content fuels AI answers. Publishers are fighting back with crawler controls and new licensing models, forcing a choice between restricting access and monetizing it.

AI adoption is broadening as familiar tools bring new users into the market. Search is becoming a hybrid of AI and traditional behavior, while cheaper subscriptions boost paid adoption but put pressure on revenues per subscriber.

In August 2026, we analyzed 6,560 ChatGPT recommendations across 28 B2B agency and marketing technology categories to compile the AI Visibility Index.

In Q3 2026, we analyzed 4,010 ChatGPT recommendations across 13 tech hardware and device categories to compile the AI Visibility Index.

AI recommendations for tech hardware and devices are becoming more selective, with fewer brands and sources breaking through. Our Q3 2026 index tracks visibility in 13 categories across the industry.

AI is compressing the path from discovery to conversion, with consumers arriving at brands later and further along in their decisions. That shift is raising a new question for marketers: What should the brand experience look like when the website is no longer the center of the journey?

Commerce media’s inherited advantage is reaching its limits. The next phase depends on earning consumer attention and advertiser demand, even as conversational commerce reshapes the high-intent ad model that fueled its rise.

Advertisers can compare YouTube Shorts and open-web performance to cut waste and better allocate budgets.

The World Cup and presidential elections have lifted ad spending growth across all major media in 2026, but digital’s momentum will extend beyond the event-driven boost.

In August 2026, we analyzed 4,480 ChatGPT responses across 16 B2B software and platform categories to compile the AI Visibility Index.

A marketing mix model (MMM) is only useful if marketers can trust its findings and put them to work. AI is making MMM faster and easier to use, while real-world experiments and third-party validation help keep the results grounded.

AI is raising the stakes for marketing data quality and connectivity and changing how it’s being used. Here’s how first-party data, outcome-based measurement, interoperability, and AI are reshaping marketing decisions.

Consumers are making AI part of their health decisions, from researching symptoms to filling gaps in care. As AI moves from answers to action, healthcare brands face a new challenge: being visible and cited while earning consumer trust.

A ski trip planning session turned into a case study in how fast AI-driven discovery has taken hold, our chief content officer Vladimir Hanzlik told the audience at EMARKETER’s Future of Digital summit. Sitting around the table with friends and family, phones out on Gemini, his group booked resorts, hotels, and ski schools in a matter of hours. "What really struck me is that if you didn't turn up in those LLM recommendations, if you didn't show up in Claude or Gemini, there'll be literally zero chance that we will pick you," Hanzlik said, opening a conversation with VML's chief discoverability officer Heather Physioc on whether brands understand just how close that future already is.

AI is rewriting the shopping journey, and marketers have to follow it. That means watching how brands show up in large language models (LLMs), and how they engage customers arriving through AI-driven searches. This is the “intelligence revolution.” “The intelligence age is gaining steam,” said Stephanie Paterik, vice president of insights at EMARKETER, in her keynote presentation at this week's Future of Digital Summit. “One billion weekly ChatGPT users worldwide is a number that OpenAI hit just this month. Sixty-nine percent of CEOs around the world tell us that AI is changing their business, not just how they send an email or craft, you know, a report, but how they are fundamentally operating.”