Perplexity

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.

Shopify checkout might be coming to ChatGPT; private equity builds a French ad tech stack; and how Meta turning off news in Canada is affecting news access ahead of this month’s election.

As most generative AI search engines focus on general adoption and subscription licenses, Perplexity AI is zagging toward advertising and commerce applications.

Oracle’s TikTok bid is a warmed-over Project Texas; Amazon’s ads biz has its sights set on Google; and gen AI search is a good traffic source for retailers, but bad for news pubs.

Rival browsers raise an objection to Google being forced to sell Chrome; ad agencies pivot to software and services; and people are turning to chatbots instead of search, with error-filled results.

Black Friday ecommerce continues to surge, mainly on mobile; social platforms pull optimization features for health and beauty brands; and Google’s antitrust lawyers subpoena info about rival AI search startups.

A creative director shares his favorite use cases for generative AI, his favorite AI tools (and the ones he won’t trust yet) and best practices for refining outputs.

Perplexity AI, the generative AI search engine trying to out-Google Google, began rolling out its ads products last week. Plus, An AI-powered shoppable ad platform is causing problems for readers of BuzzFeed Australia.

Threads will introduce ads to capitalize on users fleeing X; Perplexity tests ads and sponsored queries; and Amazon pulls the plug on Freevee.

With a landmark ruling potentially forcing Google to change its business practices, who is actually likely to steal some of its search market share? And what should marketers do about it?

Many brand operators feel like they need good general guidelines for attribution. Plus, what’s stepping retail media standardization?

In today’s newsletter: Google Performance Max enables third-party brand safety measurement for YouTube; gen AI firms roll out new data-scraping bots to replace those blocked by publishers; and RAG deals give publishers more leverage in licensing their content to gen AI.

Some brands are turning away from larger media agencies in favor of smaller, independently run shops. Plus, licensing sports content is Reddit’s next revenue diversification play.

In today’s newsletter: Yum Brands feasts on cross-brand customer data; YouTube’s focus has shifted away from services to software and APIs; and Walmart Connect announces updates to its DSP, including allowing conquesting in sponsored search listings.

In today’s newsletter: Performance Max has many imitators, but Google’s still ahead of the pack; France’s competition authority fines Google for using news content to train its Bard AI model without their knowledge of consent; and Apollo Global Management offers to acquire Paramount Global for $11 billion.