Our analysts (or “bakers”) compete in a Great British Bake Off–style episode, discussing why Google may overtake OpenAI in 2026 and how the AI boom could get a reality check this year. Join Senior Director of Podcasts and host Marcus Johnson, along with Principal Analyst Nate Elliot and Analyst Jacob Bourne. Listen everywhere, and watch on YouTube and Spotify.

On today’s EMARKETER Miniseries—AI-Driven Media Management—we explore how to break down the media manager role into workflows that can be automated or augmented by agentic AI, what agencies misunderstand about AI, and which agency tasks are ripest to hand off to AI right now. EMARKETER Senior Director of Content Jeremy Goldman speaks with Adam Epstein, co-founder and CEO of Gigi. Listen everywhere you find podcasts, and watch on YouTube and Spotify.

Consumers are integrating AI into everyday health searches as tools grow more conversational, even though output reliability remains uneven. The balance of speed, accuracy, and trust will shape how people use AI for information and care.

As shoppers flock to LLM-powered searches to learn more about products and set shopping budgets, Salesforce data reveals new opportunities for brands looking to have a firm hold on their customers' journeys.

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.

The news: Cohere launched Command A Reasoning, its first enterprise-tuned large language model (LLM). Designed for secure environments, the model handles agentic customer service, research, and automation tasks at scale. Its big-business focus is rooted in its ability to integrate with existing tools, support for on-premises deployment, and strict data controls. Our take: Enterprise AI is shifting from optional to operational. Vendors that deliver reliability, guardrails, and measurable value—like Command A Reasoning and Agentforce—will win long-term adoption over general-purpose models built for show, not scale.

The news: OpenAI is preparing to launch GPT-5, a model that will combine traditional GPT capabilities with o3-series reasoning—marking a major leap in performance and model simplification. Our take: GPT-5 could streamline content creation, search, and CX workflows, leading to renewed industry adoption and customization. Enterprise customers should test GPT-5’s API early. Align adoption with marketing workflows and consider consolidating tools into a single platform to reduce costs. Early movers will shape the future of customer engagement.

GenAI search is gaining traction, but not all consumers are seeking out the conversational experiences that will eventually disrupt the search ad market.

Retailers and brands are racing to deploy AI across the shopping journey, but trust, quality, and execution will define who wins.

As genAI tools grow more complex, error rates climb—raising red flags for marketers who now face mounting risks from inaccurate, overconfident outputs.

AI agents are here, but they’ve had little effect on the consumer journey so far. That should change by the end of 2028.

As AI agents become more sophisticated and digital twins evolve, marketers have even more to gain from the emerging technology.

GenAI is taking the search market by storm, but market dynamics will stay largely the same this year.

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.

Organizations will prioritize governance in 2025 as they ramp up genAI investments in pursuit of business transformation.

AI’s role in Spotify Wrapped is slightly subdued: The platform’s yearly marketing event included AI, but stopped short of prominently featuring it.

Generative AI gives payment providers unprecedented tools to create a more personalized purchase journey for consumers, but some use cases are easier to implement than others.

OpenAI has released o1-preview, its first AI model with reasoning abilities, giving marketers a glimpse of what the next evolution of AI tools could offer.

GenAI search could have a transformative impact on the shopping journey. To satisfy customers and stay competitive, retailers should focus on two essential innovations.

GenAI is potentially a game changer for personalization in retail. This report takes a closer look at some of the key use cases.