Perplexity

Big TV’s shift to programmatic brings in the performance brands; Meta rolls out premium subscriptions for Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp; and Yahoo enters the crowded AI search market.

AI is reshaping how we shop, but agents won’t take over our carts just yet. LiveRamp CEO Scott Howe explains why the change will be gradual – and how chatbot ads (not just on ChatGPT) will change the online shopping experience.

Think you know Snapchat’s audience? Think again, says Ajit Mohan, Snap’s chief business officer. Mohan gets real and busts myths, including the idea that Snap is just for kids and its youngest users aren’t big spenders.

Adobe acquires SEO tech business Semrush; brands want to know what AI search engines think of them; and the LGBTQ community is an under-targeted audience.

While Reddit had plenty to crow about on the advertising front, it was less sanguine about the rise of generative AI search, which CEO Steve Huffman said is “not a traffic driver today.”

Reddit sues four companies for scraping and selling (and buying) its data; Unity Software’s new zero-fee product is good news for mobile developers; and brands aren’t thrilled by TikTok shop’s latest updates.

American publishers are hamstrung by antitrust law; should marketers lean into ragebait?; and Pexplexity is hitting pause on its ads business.

The Viant-Tubi integration offers new data insights; advertisers can buy sponsored product ads on Gopuff, thanks to TTD; and publishers continue to face traffic woes.

OpenAI wants to be social media now; retail marketers need to appease the bots; and yes, even Peloton is pivoting to AI.

Private equity firm Novacap acquires IAS; many large online retailers are seeing an uptick in referral traffic from ChatGPT; and the IAB downgraded its US ad spend projection for the rest of the year.

The fundamental shift from traditional search to AI chatbots has major implications for the entire marketing organization, says Bluefish CEO Alex Sherman. If brands want control over how they appear in AI search results, they must think about the content they feed to large language models.

Trevor Carr, newly appointed Head of CSA, North America at Havas, discusses data and tech consulting and AI trends.

The FTC probes Google and Amazon over transparency in their search businesses; Walmart will only allow authorized sellers; and Perplexity’s ad business garners criticism.

Google’s search antitrust trial ends with a whimper; the pitfalls of agency-owned SSPs; Perplexity axes its ads business; and brands are still building big-ticket metaverse experiences.

Google’s SSP tries to cut out its DSP ahead of a possible ad tech breakup; Perplexity’s head of ads skips town; and Amazon’s search ad pause flooded the market with big spenders.

Publishers like News Corp are walking a fine line—suing AI companies for scraping their work while cutting multimillion‑dollar licensing deals with others.

Sillicon valley bigwigs are getting into SuperPACS; turns out, shaming AI companies sorta works; and UK publishers are going “consent or pay.”

IAB Tech Lab CEO Anthony Katsur didn’t mince his words when declaring unauthorized generative AI scraping of publisher content “theft, full stop.”

Perplexity didn’t just try to buy Chrome; product placement in TV and film is on the rise; and the FCC is on one again.

Data brokers de-index their opt-outs; Meta is still the go-to for influencer ads; and Perplexity offers to buy Chrome.

As the quality of answer engines improves, people will click through to publisher websites less often. The solution isn’t to wage war against AI. It’s time to build a sustainable future for all stakeholders.

Amazon locked in two more publishers for its AI shopping engine; AI companies are working on web browsers now; and platforms have a hard time telling AI from reality.

AI Overviews are even dinging Google Search ads’ traffic; WPP downgrades its earnings forecast; and Google’s AI competitors launch their own web browsers.

Instead of trying to reduce AI hallucinations, AI startup Springboards is leaning into them, intentionally generating inaccurate, absurd outputs to spark creativity.

Enjoy this weekly comic from AdExchanger.com that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem … 

Sports sponsorships can play well for small brands; Perplexity was first to AI search ads, but advertisers waited for Google; and GroupM officially rebrands to WPP Media.

Perplexity is thirsty for revenue streams; Marketecture’s media biz grows; and Duolingo goes dark on social after its AI pivot.

Marketing On Autopilot Companies that build AI-powered marketing software have been framing the technology as a friendly helper. Nothing to fear here, just an eager “copilot” ready to serve. The AI “copilot” that first comes to mind for most people is Microsoft’s generative AI chatbot of the same name. GitHub, meanwhile, which is owned by […]

Jerry Dischler leaves Google; a bunch of marketing execs join AI companies; agency holdcos don’t know which way is up.

LinkedIn launches a creator rev share program; AdSense comes to third-party AI chatbots; and the verdict in Apple v. Epic Games cracks down on Apple’s App Store fees.