Mastercard and Coinbase are reportedly in talks to acquire BVNK for approximately $2 billion, per an exclusive from Fortune Crypto. The scale of this deal underscores stablecoin’s acceptance into the mainstream of payments. Mastercard’s eagerness to seize BVNK’s capabilities suggests that traditional payment rails can no longer ignore stablecoins, and must integrate with the payment method to avoid being left behind.

Perplexity is taking a step back from its advertising initiatives amid struggles to monetize AI search. Marketers should pause planned investments in AI search until search ads are measurable and proven to be effective. AI adoption may be growing, but there remains no clear evidence that ad formats in AI search provide returns.

AppLovin’s launch of Axon marks its transformation from mobile gaming to full-scale AI ad platform — and one of ad tech’s boldest pivots yet. The new Axon Ads Manager promises real-time AI bidding, Shopify integrations, and transparent attribution as the company positions itself as a performance-driven alternative to Meta and Google. The rollout comes as the SEC investigates AppLovin’s data practices, spotlighting the tension between AI-powered innovation and compliance. Marketers see opportunity — regulators see risk.

Perplexity dropped the $200 monthly fee for its AI-native Comet browser, making it free worldwide but with rate limits. The change follows Google Chrome hitting a record 73.7% share of desktop browsing in September, per StatCounter. Comet can summarize webpages, pull key details, and wade through links on a user’s behalf. Chrome remains the must-buy channel, but ChatGPT’s mobile stickiness and Comet’s positioning prove that audiences may increasingly flow through alternative gateways. The brands that experiment early across these varied environments will be better prepared when consumer behavior tilts away from legacy browsers.

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

Meta is in discussions with Google to use Gemini as a benchmark for its own content understanding systems. The social media giant wants to test its systems against Gemini, not integrate the AI model, to help support its ad targeting and recommendation systems. Findings could show Gemini is stronger, or that Meta’s own systems already match or surpass it. Stronger content understanding could yield more nuanced insights and richer ad tooIs, enabling better campaign planning, targeting, and measurement. It highlights that AI in ads is less about flashy features and more about the invisible infrastructure that shapes outcomes.

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.

The news: Cloudflare is rolling out a new feature that gives content publishers greater control over how Google scrapes and presents their content and helps them keep content out of AI summaries without opting out of Google search results all together—a choice Google hasn’t allowed. For publishers, Cloudflare’s feature could provide further control over how content is indexed and brands are compensated. Experimenting with the tools will help companies understand how AI summaries are affecting their traffic and searchability.

The EU is investigating whether Apple, Google, and Microsoft are doing enough to curb online financial scams, per Ars Technica. The European Commission (EC) will send formal requests for information under the Digital Services Act (DSA), targeting fake apps, fraudulent search results, and scam accommodation listings on Booking.com. Ad campaigns appearing in search results, mobile apps, or Bing ads could face more scrutiny or be caught up in regulatory nets. Brands that lead with transparency and consumer protection will not only comply, but also gain an edge should platforms tighten controls.

Google’s ad tech remedies trial kicked off Monday as the search giant looks to prevent an ad tech breakup that would fundamentally alter the future of the open internet. If successful, the DOJ’s case against Google would reshape how open-web ads are bought and sold. Multi-billion dollar opportunities will open for competitors, potentially creating a more competitive—but less predictable—ad tech landscape for advertisers.

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.

Amazon sellers using sponsored product ads now have access to Amazon’s Marketing Cloud clean room. Amazon’s expanded access to its clean room solution will enable SMBs to measure and optimize campaigns with the same sophistication as enterprise advertisers while allowing the ad giant to accelerate its push against larger rivals.

Google and PayPal ink multiyear partnership for commerce solution with a focus on agentic AI, per a press release. Google and PayPal’s surprising partnership reflects the ongoing scramble to secure the best positioning in the Wild West of AI development. All players want to have an early mover advantage; that can incentivize unlikely partnerships to avoid falling behind rapidly evolving technology.

Meta is back in licensing talks with publishers like Axel Springer, Fox Corp., and News Corp., marking a reversal from its 2022 exit from news payments. The move comes as AI tools like Google’s AI Overviews cut publisher traffic, pushing outlets to secure compensation. Meanwhile, Reddit is pressing Google for richer terms, citing undervaluation of its human-authored content under existing $203 million contracts. For publishers, licensing deals provide revenue but risk cementing dependence on platforms that control discovery. For marketers, the shift highlights how AI-driven answers—rather than search results or feeds—are becoming the gateways to consumer attention and content discovery.

Amazon Ads has unveiled an agentic AI tool inside Creative Studio, designed to serve as a real-time creative partner for advertisers. Through a conversational interface, brands can brainstorm, storyboard, and generate professional-quality video and display ads in hours instead of weeks—at no extra cost. Powered by AWS models like Amazon Nova and Anthropic Claude, the system combines retail insights with automation to democratize high-quality ad creation once limited to big-budget brands. Early testers, including Nestlé Health Science, praised its ability to surface new insights and scale campaigns, underscoring how platforms like Amazon, Meta, and Google are redefining advertising.

Sell-side ad company Magnite announced a lawsuit against Google on Tuesday over alleged monopolistic and anticompetitive behavior in ad exchanges that hindered Magnite’s growth, following an April ruling that Google operates an illegal ad tech monopoly. The lawsuits against Google give advertisers a rare chance to strengthen their own position without overhauling their tech stack.