Edition #507
Even the AI innovators don’t see it slowing down, increased advertising investment & acquisitions.
I was at two Axios events this week, in DC & NY.
Axios + AI was in DC. Very where AI intersects with government focused. The Anthropic POV was quite profound, self described technology optimists who think it’s moving faster than anticipated.
Basically their view was kind of, hey we’re at the cutting edge, and we don’t see it slowing down anytime soon.
And they shared they had Claude helping improve itself, but not yet in an automated way. They’re doing manual cycles. But you can see that that will only get better and more streamlined with time.
A change they have seen is that their engineers have gone from individual contributors to more architects of change. In essence their leverage has grown a lot.
And then, that was paired with Media Trends Live today, their inaugural event. Which was good, very dense & fast paced interviews. But covered media rights, freedom of speech through to AI.
I have a few posts/thoughts lingering from both the events, which I’ll share in upcoming edits.
A thread from a few conversations, Digiday covered in their Q4 piece. Around how, brands are investing a bit more in advertising, as a response to tariffs. Which feels like a sea change, where most stories the past few years are about investing less.
Notable stories this week
- Still spending, still nervous: the paradox of Q4 advertising.
- Dentsu grows programmatic know-how with Index Exchange, Chalice AI.
- Best Buy Ads Dives Into Programmatic.
- TV Industry Bets AI Can Peel Ad Dollars Away From Big Techs.
- Amazon Expands Its Programmatic Integration With SiriusXM.
- Daily Mail announces evolution in native advertising innovation.
- How Wix Is Building AI-Native Marketing.
- Why story systems—not just big ideas—will define 2030 marketingWhy story systems—not just big ideas—will define 2030 marketing.
- Amazon Debuts AI Agent to Produce Ads for Its Own Platforms.
- How people are using OpenAI.
- Google is expanding Gemini in Chrome and letting it do stuff for you.
- AI bots appear to be replacing human traffic on publisher websites.
- Perplexity’s Commerce and Ads Experiments Are Stuck in Neutral.
- The Atlantic released a tool to see if your YouTube videos have been scraped for AI training.
- ech companies are stealing our books, music and films for AI. It’s brazen theft and must be stopped.
- Britannica & Merriam-Webster are suing Perplexity. Same with Penske.
- nfluencers getting too fancy with their fees.
- How people are using OpenAI.
- Condé Nast to launch new creator shopping platform Vette.
- Gemini just beat ChatGPT in trends.
- Leverage and lip service.
- How AI is reshaping media, with Google’s VP of marketing, Josh Spanier.
Deals/M&A
- Verve acquires Captify.
- Hearst is on track to acquire the Dallas Morning News.
- Veylon acquired BrandVerge. Congrats to Mollie & Lynn.
Smartest commentary
- “CEOs across the category made that clear in recent earnings updates. Ralph Lauren raised its marketing investment to 7.5% of sales in the last quarter, up from 6.7% a year earlier. Church & Dwight CEO Rick Dierker said cutting marketing spend is inconceivable – even if it means taking a short-term hit to profits. And Molson Coors CEO Gavin Hattersley echoed the same logic: keep investing now to be better positioned when the market turns, he said.“ –Digiday.
Datapoints of note
- Three-quarters of conversations focus on practical guidance, seeking information, and writing—with writing being the most common work task, while coding and self-expression remain niche activities.
Events
- AI Breakfast coming up. Ping me to join.
That’s it for this week.
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