Edition #526
Why you should check out Joes book, Meta acquires the social network for AI agents, new ad formats & more.
I was lucky enough to get an early preview of Joe Lazers book, on why storytelling is the super skill in the age of AI. And it’s kind of the book I wanted for this moment.
Rewind 18 months and Joe and I were talking about Ai and its impact on creativity, and I said, what if you did a book on the timeless principles, that remain true and consistent and even enhanced by AI. Which is what he did!
Congrats to him on the launch, do check it out. He also has a special deal on his Substack to get a signed copy.
He owes me a signed copy, I can probably get him to give me another, if you’d like it, how about this, the first reader to email me (who has had at least three newsletter opens in the past month) gets it.
On the topic of AI, Meta acquired Moltbook, the social network for AI agents (!). Funny/interesting.
Meta shared
“The Moltbook team joining MSL opens up new ways for AI agents to work for people and businesses. Their approach to connecting agents through an always-on directory is a novel step in a rapidly developing space, and we look forward to working together to bring innovative, secure agentic experiences to everyone.”
I would bucket this in Meta figuring out how they might fit in an agent-first internet. Which is how we should all think about it.
In other stories, X Articles are growing rapidly, they’re previewing new ad formats and Apples TikTok efforts are drawing attention for the MacBook Neos, catching those in the links below.
Notable stories this week
- Fandoms, not randoms.
- Advertising Doesn’t Have a Targeting Problem. It Has a Translation Problem.
- How ChatGPT ads are becoming more accessible to brands after Criteo deal.
- Implementing WebMCP: letting AI agents interact with my website.
- The Boring Infrastructure That Could Make Agentic AI Happen For Ad Tech
- Gen Z may be over TikTok, report finds.
- Nexxen and Adform expand availability of exclusive ACR data.
- Netflix ‘open’ to brand content as quota heat rises in Australia.
- Cool or cringe? Apple’s unhinged TikTok videos are dividing fans.
- Apple is now advertising on Discord.
- YouTube expands deepfake detection tool to politicians and journalists.
- Amazon wins court order blocking Perplexity’s AI shopping bots.
- Who’s a better write: AI or Humans.
- Meta hikes ad prices in 6 countries.
- How Time turned events into its biggest revenue driver.
- Tequity partners with Spartans to roll out Originals portfolio for branded content.
- Facebook expands affiliate program to include brand links.
- Time and Target in ‘first of its kind’ partnership.
- Yahoo debuts personalized AI homepage MyScout.
- X Loophole: Why Google Ads may still appear there.
- Inside Life360’s plan to build an ad platform on top of Nativo.
- How programmatic – and AI – took over the 2026 Winter Olympics.
- RevContent and Mula announce strategic partnership to launch agentic content monetization OS.
- What 23 tests reveal about Google AI Max performance.
- Introducing the Substack Recording Studio.
- X is testing a new ad format that connects posts with products.
- Traffic to top tech publications has plummeted since 2024, new analysis shows.
- The Trade Desk says it’s testing AI campaign creation with Claude.
- AI surfacing is messy: Data shows publisher visibility and traffic often misalign.
- Horizon Media cuts 50 roles in AI-focused agency realignment.
- OpenAI is building the ad tech stack it’s currently borrowing.
Deals/M&A
- Meta has bought Moltbook the AI agent ‘social network’.
- AI-Driven Software Startup Mega Raises $11.5 Million In Funding To Help SMBs Drive Sales.
Campaign of the week
Smartest commentary
- “WebMCP introduces a different model: sites can explicitly expose capabilities designed for AI agents….Instead of parsing HTML, the agent calls a well-defined capability. This avoids brittle scraping logic and gives site owners control over what capabilities are exposed.” –Richard Macmanus.
Datapoints of note
- Brands set to cut open web display spend 30% in response to AI search.
- ChatGPT retains roughly twice as many users as Gemini – as measured by their DAU/MAU ratios.
- Time is on track to generate 50% of its revenue from events alone.
- Articles on X have grown 18x in the last 3 months.
Events
- Next breakfast is coming up, let me know if you’d like to join.
That’s it for this week.
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