The state of the American advertiser
The state of the American advertiser

American advertisers are operating in a media environment with more channels, more data, and more technology than ever before. Yet for marketers, the central challenge is shifting. It is less about finding another place to advertise. It is more about u…

Pinterest launches Visual Search Ads at its advertiser summit
Pinterest launches Visual Search Ads at its advertiser summit

“Traditional search advertising has long relied on keywords, but in an AI-driven world, people are expressing themselves in much richer ways,” said Bill Ready, chief executive of Pinterest. The company announced Visual Search Ads on 17 September at Pin…

“A clearly labeled conversation”: OpenAI tests Sponsored Agents in ChatGPT
“A clearly labeled conversation”: OpenAI tests Sponsored Agents in ChatGPT

“Today, we’re introducing new AI-powered experiences to make ads more useful for people and advertising easier for businesses,” OpenAI said on 16 September. The biggest change is a test of Sponsored Agents. After clicking an ad in ChatGPT, a user can c…

Amazon lets its advertisers buy ads in ChatGPT in a pilot with OpenAI
Amazon lets its advertisers buy ads in ChatGPT in a pilot with OpenAI

Amazon will let advertisers buy ads in ChatGPT through its own advertising platform. Amazon Ads announced the partnership with OpenAI in a blog post on 10 September. Select US advertisers are already testing it in a pilot. Advertisers who plan and run …

Salesforce closes Fin and eyes $2bn Listen Labs, Business Insider reports
Salesforce closes Fin and eyes $2bn Listen Labs, Business Insider reports

Salesforce completed its acquisition of Fin on Thursday, bringing the customer service AI company formerly known as Intercom into its business. The same week, Business Insider’s Katie Roof and Ben Bergman reported that Salesforce has held talks to buy …

Clay raises $115m at a $7.1bn valuation, more than double its 2025 price
Clay raises $115m at a $7.1bn valuation, more than double its 2025 price

Clay has raised $115m in a Series D round that values the New York go-to-market software company at $7.1bn. Wellington Management led the round, the company said in its announcement on Wednesday. The New York Times broke the news, in a DealBook story b…

Instacart says AI-built carts beat its $115 average basket. Shipt shipped the same feature and called it relief from mental load.
Instacart says AI-built carts beat its $115 average basket. Shipt shipped the same feature and called it relief from mental load.

Shipt and Instacart both launched AI assistants that build a grocery cart from a prompt or a photo on 9 September. Instacart said orders placed through its assistant contain more items than a typical order and exceed its $115 average basket, while Ship…

Google made search worse in Europe, and said so out loud
Google made search worse in Europe, and said so out loud

Google changed how search works in Europe on Tuesday. Then it told everyone the new version is worse. Foo Yun Chee reported the rollout for Reuters, which had the story first. The company is complying with an order from the European Commission, and it …

Lenovo opens a phone line to Eva Longoria for entrepreneurs
Lenovo opens a phone line to Eva Longoria for entrepreneurs

Lenovo has given entrepreneurs a phone number to ring, and Eva Longoria is on the other end of it. The service is called Call Eva. It opened on Tuesday and works roughly the way a radio phone-in does. You call, you leave a voice note with a business qu…

Adobe just handed Photoshop to someone who has never run it
Adobe just handed Photoshop to someone who has never run it

Adobe named Anil Chakravarthy president and chief executive from 1 December, with Shantanu Narayen moving to executive chair. Chakravarthy came up through Digital Experience and worldwide field operations, arrived from enterprise data company Informati…