Analysts have begun lowering ecommerce and paid-media industry forecasts as tariff policies persist and consumer sentiment continues to fall. U.S. ecommerce growth for 2025 is now projected at 4.5%,
down from 7.5% -- and globally, excluding China, dropping to 6.5% from 9%.
Spending on Shopping campaigns rose 8% annually in the first quarter, a slight slowdown from 10% growth in the final quarter of 2024.
New research shows advanced AI models, including popular LLM agents, routinely lie in pursuit of their goals, raising new concerns about the reliability of their outputs.
Replacing Hsiao will be Josh Woodward, who leads Google Labs and oversaw the launch of NotebookLM, the company's tool that turns text into a podcast-like show.
Google has expanded access to its AI Mode search beyond Google One AI Premium U.S. subscribers. The lack of links to businesses will become a challenge for all when asking for detailed information.
The feature provided links to general information, but not when it came to specifics in my searches.
Of the top 50 AI startups, 14 were co-founded and led by former Google employees. These companies have collectively raised $14.7 billion, accounting for 28% of total funding for top AI startups, and
have a combined valuation of $71.6 billion.
Is Google a habit? Findings from a study suggest many users stick with Google simply because they never explore other options. When they do, some choose to stay with the competitor, like Microsoft's
Bing. DuckDuckGo and other privacy-based engines were not mentioned in the research.
Rewards went to 660 security researchers who reported security bugs in Google's products throughout the company from its Vulnerability Reward Program. Microsoft also expanded its program.
The online learning platform, which helps students understand homework, has filed a lawsuit against Google, alleging that use of AI-generated summaries in search engine results has "crushed" its
website traffic and revenue.
The AI-based browser will support the rise of agents for search. Agentic search is a type of AI system that can autonomously make decisions, take actions and adapt to changing situations with minimal
human intervention,
As AI becomes an integral part of the ad industry, quantum computing will become a necessary technology because of the speed and quantity of data collected, analyzed, processed and used. Microsoft
said it has combined science and art to solve previously unsolvable problems.
Perplexity became the latest AI company to release an in-depth research tool - following Google, which unveiled something similar for Gemini AI in December, and OpenAI early in February.
It characterized a first-half marketing mix modeling effort as a "major new initiative" exploring how such models are being transformed "in the age of AI and big data and the implications for TV,
video and premium content."
Largo.ai, an AI-driven analytics platform for the film, TV and ad industries, has secured $7.5 million in investment. Stallone is among the backers of the company, which just closed its Series A
financing round.
A recent study finds 55% of marketers are concerned about data privacy, while 55% say they need to understand how platforms work and 49% are worried about keeping up with the pace of innovation.
If Google adds filters to Gemini that allow users to control what they see in results, it could make it more difficult for advertisers, brands and publishers to reach target audiences through AI.
Greg Wayne, director of research at Google DeepMind, calls the technology "a parrot on your shoulder. "It can see what you're going and talk with you about it."
In a race to become the dominant player in AI, Google has released what it calls its most "capable" AI assistant as the technology becomes the answer to organizing the world's information to keep
users on its search engine and advertisers on its ad platforms.
The top 10,000 query terms drove 46% of all searches and 148 of those made up nearly 15% of total volume for queries with at least 100 searches during a 21-month period, according to findings released
this week.
The technology identifies whether content is correctly optimized to serve queries and recommendations related to the brand in GAI models such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Gemini and Meta's Llama.
Shailesh Prakash, vice president and general manager for Google News, has resigned. He is known to be important to the company's relationships with publishers.
An advanced version of Gemini AI will power Project Jarvis, built to perform tasks as an AI agent. Automation on traditional devices is just the beginning of an autonomous world.
Consumer attention is difficult to capture, but emotional storytelling - rather than rational approaches to advertising - can dramatically drive brand growth and success.
Apple Intelligence is not available to the public, but a new report claims some at the company believe its AI lags at least two years behind industry leaders. Internal studies at Apple show just how
much ground Apple Intelligence needs to make up to reach ChatGPT's level, according to Mark Gurman, Bloomberg columnist.
TikTok saw the strongest growth in ad spend, with about 27% vs. a year earlier.
Holiday shopping is projected to rise 7%, although 57% of respondents to a PwC survey describe their financial situation as strained.
Google on Thursday announced its rollout of AI-powered updates for search results and links, with AI Overviews ads on mobile in the U.S. and redesigned Shopping Ads to run with Google Lens visual
search results. Google says no action is required from advertisers for their ads to appear as AI Overview ads.. Amazon and Microsoft made similar announcements this week.
New Street Research found Google continues to lead in use for search but lags in AI use, and more males than females ask AI chatbots for help when trying to determine what to purchase.
TikTok has come for Google's ad business at its most vulnerable time by allowing advertisers to target its search results page - making keywords the "backbone" of the tool.
Many small businesses find they can gain traction by treating Reddit as a search engine, with one in four small business owners now using Reddit in their marketing strategy,