More than half of companies participating in a recent survey said the applications they find the most essential apply intelligence, meaning that they have the ability to anticipate the outcome and take or suggest the next action. The intense focus on artificial intelligence at Advertising Week supports this point.

Fantasy sports fans may claim a touchdown at the news of a niche search engine that provides stats and analysis to make it easier for players to create winning starting teams. The data-geek founders call the search engine Spearch.

Marketers are willing to open their pockets and trust Google, Bing, and Yahoo to charge the appropriate cost per click while protecting their brand search term, but this year they will open their wallets just a bit wider for Facebook.

The U.S. presidential debates Monday night created the perfect second-screen scenario for fact-checking as Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton continually urged viewers to fact-check through phrases like "I hope the fact-checkers are turning up the volume and really working hard."

Optimization and personalization have never led the list of top priorities for advertisers, especially in North America -- until now. It's about their digital maturity. More than half of North American organizations that Adobe surveyed admit they are on the path to digital maturity, but it's clear this has become a slow road to tow.

Consumers tend to spend less on mobile devices than on desktop, which will lead to slower ecommerce growth this holiday season. On average, consumers spend roughly 22% less on mobile than on desktop, according to a recent report.

Google has begun to include general Web search results in its Accelerated Mobile Pages project to improve the mobile experience for Shopify merchants with plans in the next few weeks to roll it out to select merchants participating in the test pilot.

Programmatic is not the shiny object in every campaign strategy. Despite the hype surrounding programmatic, more than 50% of advertisers still do not include it in their media-buying strategy. Among the ones who do, about 30% found it was not an effective marketing channel for them, according to survey results scheduled for public release next week.

Ted Baker's espionage campaign using shoppable video ads launched earlier this month, making waves across the fashion world but little noise in advertising. It integrates all the bells and whistles, including Google voice and retail store window displays that send secret messages to the consumer's phone using location signals.

Wood from weathered barns, dilapidated hotels and fire-stricken buildings full of rich character provides an amazing way to restore history. In fact, uncovering that history of the reclaimed wood made into tables, chairs or other pieces of furniture makes the pieces that much more special. Without search engines the history would become incredibly difficult to uncover.