Instagram is experimenting with its user interface in India, testing a feature where users open the app directly to a Reels feed instead of the traditional photo-first interface, the company confirmed. The brands that stay competitive in the crowded social media landscape will be those who take advantage of short-form’s potential and build ad strategies tailored to the format.

Apple is scrapping plans for a next-gen Vision Pro in favor of developing its own smart glasses to compete with Ray-Ban Meta and others. The glasses will “rely heavily” on voice interaction and AI, per Bloomberg—two areas where Apple has been slow to innovate. With Meta already pushing smart glasses, brands that delay adapting risk falling behind in this emerging medium. As input shifts from screen tapping or gestures to voice, marketers need to ensure their brands sound natural in conversational AI environments and that website data is optimized for voice SEO and consistent brand tone.

Meta will begin using conversations with its AI assistant to personalize ads and feeds across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp starting December 16. The change represents Meta’s most aggressive AI monetization effort to date, moving beyond likes and follows to conversational intent—a richer, real-time signal of consumer interest. Regulators are already raising alarms about surveillance and privacy. With 98% of Meta’s revenues tied to ads, even small gains could shift billions.

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.

Meta is planning on offering UK users paid, ad-free versions of Instagram and Facebook in the coming weeks. Privacy transforming into a priced option implies a growing consumer awareness of data use. Advertisers who make privacy a positive part of their brand messaging will better match emerging consumer mindsets.

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.

Global ad spending is now expected to rise 7.4% to reach $1.17 trillion in 2025, driven by social media and digital investments, per WARC’s updated forecast. Advertisers aren’t slashing budgets, but instead rethinking spending as economic uncertainty accelerates the shift to digital channels, performance campaigns, and newer formats like influencer marketing.

YouTube will allow creator accounts banned for election and COVID-19 misinformation to apply for reinstatement after mounting pressure for platforms to reverse Biden-era restrictions. YouTube’s policy shift signals a new norm in online content moderation where platform rules are more fluid and politically contested.

Social media is intertwined into Gen Zers’ day-to-day lives, used for everything from entertainment to messaging to searching. But they’re posting less than older generations and want to spend less time on it, though that’s easier said than done.

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.

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.

How can B2B buyers calibrate their ad spending and budget allocations against the market, and how can media companies and solution providers assess whether their ad revenues are in line with industry trends?

Amazon is developing two models of AR glasses to compete with Meta and Qualcomm in a bet that smart glasses could power the next wave of mainstream consumer devices. The company is planning a consumer version, internally named Jayhawk, and a model designed for delivery drivers, called Amelia, per The Information. The push in AR glasses reflects Amazon’s long-standing strategy of building hardware as a gateway to services and subscriptions. If successful, the device could lock consumers even more tightly into Amazon’s marketplace, collect constant user data for AI model and product improvement, and encourage daily engagement with Amazon platforms.

AI is rewriting the rules of digital media, advertising, and commerce at breakneck speed. Here’s what players in the digital realm can do to stay relevant.

The news: Facebook is promoting its Pokes feature in an effort to increase user engagement. Pokes—a mainstay feature of the early Facebook experience—are regaining popularity, prompting Facebook to make it a more central part of the user experience, per TechCrunch. Users can now track their “Pokes count” with friends, essentially a streak, on top of a dedicated Poke button added to Facebook profiles. Our take: Meta relies on Facebook for the lion’s share of its ad revenues. While Pokes may seem to be a low-stakes experiment, re-engaging younger users is a high-stakes battle, and even small features can tip the balance if they create sticky user habits.

Tariffs and inflation are reshaping retail, pushing shoppers toward value and convenience. Off-price chains gained ground, while housing-linked retailers sought new growth paths in a slowing market.

Despite brands increasing influencer marketing spending, creators are struggling to grow their content business and earn more from sponsorship deals, per Digiday. And while holiday season typically provides a boom, 70% of creators expect traditional sponsored posts to account for under a quarter of their holiday content as focus shifts to performance-driven efforts, according to Collective Voice. Influencer marketing continues its growth trajectory, and the future of the sector relies on how creators adapt to the rise of third-party inventory solutions that divert brand spend away from traditional sponsorships.