Google’s AI news pilot grows to 400 publications as CNN and the FT join
Google’s AI news pilot grows to 400 publications as CNN and the FT join

More than 400 publications worldwide now take part in Google’s News AI pilot, the company said on Thursday. The programme pays publishers to license content for experimental AI features in Google News. Its newest partners include Axios, CNN, the Financ…

ChatGPT leans on news sites more than any other AI platform, Semrush finds
ChatGPT leans on news sites more than any other AI platform, Semrush finds

ChatGPT leans on news sites more than any other major AI platform, in both the UK and the US, Semrush said on Tuesday. From January to July, news took a bigger share of ChatGPT’s cited sources every month. Gemini, Google’s AI Mode and AI Overviews all …

UiPath’s Michael Atalla on AI slop, junior jobs and a Shaolin monk’s advice
UiPath’s Michael Atalla on AI slop, junior jobs and a Shaolin monk’s advice

UiPath’s marketing team has stopped paying outside firms to pull together its advertising data. The head of its paid media team built an AI agent on UiPath’s own platform instead, chief marketing officer Michael Atalla told TNW. It collects the data, a…

TikTok adds an AI shopping assistant and one-click checkout to its app
TikTok adds an AI shopping assistant and one-click checkout to its app

TikTok is adding an AI shopping assistant and one-click checkout to its app. The two features let users buy directly from brands without leaving TikTok, the company said in an announcement at Advertising Week New York on Monday. Buy Direct is an in-app…

Discord opens its ad business to smaller brands, Ars Technica reports
Discord opens its ad business to smaller brands, Ars Technica reports

Discord is opening its advertising business to companies of any size, as Scharon Harding reported for Ars Technica. The chat app has launched Discord Ads Manager, a tool for planning, buying and tracking ad campaigns in one place, it said on Tuesday. S…

Google is paying 100 publishers for AI answers, The Information reports
Google is paying 100 publishers for AI answers, The Information reports

Google is paying about 100 digital publishers when their content feeds its AI answers. For several small and mid-sized sites in the pilot, the payments come to less than a tenth of 1% of their advertising revenue, The Information reported on Tuesday. A…

Carrier filtering is blocking legitimate SMS. The operators getting through are doing three things differently
Carrier filtering is blocking legitimate SMS. The operators getting through are doing three things differently

A business registers its number, writes a plain appointment reminder and sends it. The text never arrives. Nothing bounces back. Somewhere between the sender and the phone, a filter simply drops it. US carriers filter business text messaging for three …

ChatGPT now sends 95.1% of AI referral traffic to websites, BrightEdge says
ChatGPT now sends 95.1% of AI referral traffic to websites, BrightEdge says

ChatGPT sent 95.1% of the traffic that AI chatbots referred to websites in August, its highest share this year, according to new data from BrightEdge. The search marketing company said referral traffic from ChatGPT grew 101% between January and August….

AI shopping passes 50% of US consumers for the first time, NIQ says
AI shopping passes 50% of US consumers for the first time, NIQ says

Some 51% of US consumers used at least one AI tool to help them shop in the past month, according to new figures from NIQ. It is the first time the share has passed 50% in the market research firm’s Agentic Commerce Tracker. Use has grown steadily over…

California will fine creators $5,000 a post for hidden political ads
California will fine creators $5,000 a post for hidden political ads

“I was hearing from people in the campaign world that there’s this new strategy of paying political influencers to post content,” said Marc Berman, the California assemblyman. “Some were good about disclosure and others were a bit fast and loose.” His …