Ring In The New Year
The “everything is an ad network” trend will live forever.
There are always new advertising canvases and data sources to be plumbed.
For instance, consumer wearables are primed to go off in 2026, Bloomberg reports, especially accessories and rings. That said, smart watches remain the top wearables choice by far, according to Bloomberg (163.5 million smart watches shipped in 2025, to 4.3 million smart rings). Smart glasses have taken a shine lately, too, largely thanks to Meta’s Ray-Ban shades.
Still, rings are best poised for growth, some believe. And their data collection potential is intimate, to say the least. There are high-end versions with delicate health-tracking features and sub-$100 options that don’t come with those bells and whistles, but have a built-in mic for taking prompts and sending reminders.
OpenAI’s mysterious hardware product, ambitiously set for a 2026 release, will be built around enhanced audio capabilities, The Information reports.
Google acquired Fitbit ages ago, and has long since slurped that health-tracking and fitness data into the core Google identity graph. So it’s hardly a ludicrous idea, even if companies like Oura, the leading smart ring maker, don’t get directly into ad serving themselves.
Reddit Regales Performance-Hungry Marketers
At CES, the acronym du jour is AI.
On Monday, Reddit debuted an AI-powered media-buying tool to woo performance marketers by promising them simpler setups and better results without the opaqueness plaguing other AI-based advertising workflows, Adweek reports.
The buy-side offering, called (you guessed it) Max Campaign, launches as Reddit attracts more brands looking to bring AI features to their products. When it comes to performance ad dollars, Reddit is small potatoes compared to Google and Meta, but its core differentiator is the trove of consumer behavior and preference data originating from its hub of user-generated conversations.
Paired with a growing and highly engaged user base, Reddit is also trying to sell advertisers on a level of transparency and control that’s harder to find within other AI-powered buying engines (cough, Performance Max). Reddit’s Max Campaign allows advertisers to view asset-level reporting, track which communities or personas responded to an ad and specify audience targets or brand-safety exclusions.
Early tests resulted in a 17% lower average cost per acquisition compared to “business as usual” campaigns, according to Reddit. Max Campaign will be available to all advertisers later this year, as the demand for AI-infused products shows no signs of slowing down.
Chatbot Overload
Also at CES on Monday, Amazon unveiled AI chat-inspired features for Alexa.
The expansion, which includes a new Alexa.com domain and a redesigned Alexa+ mobile app with a prominent chatbot-style interface, makes Alexa+ a rival of Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT in the AI search race.
To differentiate Alexa+, Amazon is positioning it as a way to help families meet household needs. With Prime subscriptions and smart devices in hundreds of millions of homes worldwide, for example, Alexa+ customers can more easily add to their Amazon Fresh carts, update their family calendars or find Prime Video movie recommendations.
Customers are shifting more of their AI usage to Alexa+ as it becomes easier for users to combine voice commands with typical AI chatbot functions across smart devices like Amazon’s Echo, the company says, making Alexa+ a natural choice as the hub for a chatbot experience.
But more accessible chatbot functions alone aren’t enough to compete with the big kahunas, TechCrunch reports. While Amazon needs to win market share from its adversaries, competing with Google is an especially tall order given its dominance in online search and its productivity suite.
But Wait! There’s More
AI is gutting the open web and rewriting the privacy and security playbook. [AdMonsters]
WPP launches AI Agent Hub to bring advanced agentic marketing to clients. [Campaign]
Unusual, a startup that aims to change the way AI models talk about brands, raises $3.6 million. [Silicon Angle]
OpenAI is reportedly considering acquiring Pinterest. [The Information]
Wegmans stores in NYC have begun collecting and storing shoppers’ biometric data – but the company claims it’s for security reasons, not marketing. [Gothamist]
After MTV decided to shut down a few of its music-only TV channels in the UK, social media ran with the false story that the network was shutting down entirely. [Variety]
You’re Hired!
Dani Cushion, former CMO of Innovid, joins Teads as CMO. [release]
AI intelligence platform Affle appoints Sameer Sondhi as CEO, North America, and chief strategic investments officer. [release]
