Welcome to Week In Review
From new tools transforming creative work, to campaigns reshaped by automation, we track the biggest shifts at the intersection of AI, media, and marketing. This week, Amazon opens its ad stack to AI agents, OpenAI ads will be for premium advertisers, and Anthropic says it won’t put ads in its AI chatbot Claude.
Top Stories of the Week
Amazon Opens Ad Stack to AI Agents
Amazon announced it will roll out Model Context Protocol (MCP), opening its ad infrastructure to AI agents. The MCP server will let advertisers connect AI agents to Amazon Ads software in minutes, as opposed to integrating individual, bespoke connections.
Why it matters: The move will enable ad tech partners to connect their AI agents to Amazon Ads in one connection rather than building custom connections for individual workflows. AI agents will be able to handle tasks like setting up campaigns and reports, changing budgets, and managing products.
OpenAI Signals ‘Premium’ Ads in ChatGPT
OpenAI has signalled its ads service, which will let advertisers place ads in ChatGPT’s conversational chatbot interface, will be a premium offering. Advertisers will be required to spend $200k up front.
Why it matters: OpenAI announced a beta trial of ads in ChatGPT last month, marking the first major LLM to say it would feature ads. Ads are set to appear for its free and ChatGPT Go subscribers. Some spectators have questioned whether the cost of advertising in the AI chatbot would equate to high conversion rates for brands, with the technology being in its nascent stages.
Anthropic Announces it Won’t Put Ads in Claude
Anthropic, the parent company of popular AI chatbot Claude, has announced it has no plans to put ads in its AI chatbot Claude. The company announced in a statement that putting ads in Claude would defeat what the chatbot is intended to be: “a genuinely helpful assistant for work and for deep thinking”.
Why it matters: Anthropic also released a series of commercials, to feature at this year’s Super Bowl, of various scenarios mocking the idea of ads in AI search tools – serving as a means of mocking competitor OpenAI’s plans to put ads in ChatGPT. Clearly, Anthropic sees not having ads as a meaningful competitive advantage.
Quote of the Week
Brands & Agencies
Levis Strauss Expands AI Operations
Levi Strauss is reshaping its business by discontinuing the Denizen brand and preparing to sell Dockers, as it leans further into a direct-to-consumer first strategy. The company is doubling down on its core Levi’s label and the fast-growing Beyond Yoga segment, while expanding the use of AI across operations and customer engagement.
Starbucks Bets on AI for In-Store Sales
Starbucks is rolling out AI and automation across U.S. stores as part of its “Back to Starbucks” turnaround, pairing new in-store technology with a simplified menu to reduce complexity for baristas and customers. Management says these changes are beginning to support comparable store sales, transaction growth and operational efficiency.
80% of UK Retailers Expect Commerce Growth Due to AI
New research from Metapack and Retail Economics shows retailers are ramping up AI investment to improve product discovery, delivery performance and customer loyalty, with 80 percent of UK retailers expecting online sales growth as AI becomes embedded across the end-to-end ecommerce journey. This is against the backdrop of consumers increasingly using AI tools for shopping tasks like research and product discovery.
AI Ads Perform as Human Ads, If They Don’t Look AI-Generated
A large-scale field study conducted with researchers from Columbia, Harvard, TU Munich and Carnegie Mellon analysed over 500 million impressions and found AI ads delivered comparable, and in some cases higher, click-through rates than human-created ads when tested within identical campaign conditions. AI-generated ads performed best when they did not “look like AI,” with creatives perceived as artificial underperforming regardless of whether they were made by humans or machines.
Media
AI Chatbots Sideline BBC Articles
AI chatbots used by millions for news are distorting the UK media landscape, with new research showing that major outlets like the BBC are being sidelined altogether. A study by the Institute for Public Policy Research found that ChatGPT and Google Gemini did not cite the BBC in any news-related responses, despite it being the UK’s most widely used news source.
NBCUniversal Tests AI Agents to Sell NFL Game Ads
NBCUniversal has successfully tested AI agents buying ad inventory against a live NFL playoff game, marking an early proof point for how agentic AI could modernise traditional TV ad sales, the company’s Chief Product Officer and EVP of Ad Products and Solutions Ryan McConville told Digiday. Working with RPA, Newton Research and FreeWheel, the test showed AI agents could accurately handle tasks like assessing inventory, pricing and forecasts, and package deals for buyer-side agents, without replacing human oversight.
LadBible Owner LBG Media Boosts Revenues as GenAI Investment Pays Off
LBG Media, the group behind LadBible, has reported solid sales growth and improved earnings after increasing its use of generative AI and maintaining strong engagement with younger audiences. The company described the past year as a “strong performance,” with executives pointing to a healthy demand pipeline and growing interest from major brands.
Google’s Project Genie Sparks Debate Over AI-Generated Games
Google has rolled out Project Genie to AI Ultra subscribers in the US, showcasing how GenAI can rapidly create playable game-like experiences. Early demos, including a viral “GTA 6 Greenland Edition” clip generated in minutes, have fuelled fears that AI could dramatically compress development timelines for certain types of interactive content.
Tech
Google Makes AI Search More Conversational
Google is pushing Search further toward a chat-based experience, rolling out follow-up questions inside AI Overviews. Users can now move seamlessly from an AI-generated summary into AI Mode, holding a multi-turn conversation that retains context and delivers more tailored answers, shifting Search away from links and toward continuous, assistant-like interactions.
Consumable Acquires Radio.com and Fireside to Build AI Streaming Platform
Radio.com and American businessman Mark Cuban–backed creator platform Fireside have been acquired by ad tech firm Consumable Inc., which plans to merge the assets into a new, AI-driven, creator-first streaming platform. The combined business will operate under the Radio.com name, with Fireside integrated to help creators deepen audience relationships, expand monetisation and build full-stack businesses across formats.
Gemini Becomes Central to Google’s Advertising Growth
Alphabet is accelerating investment in its Gemini AI platform to strengthen and future-proof Google’s advertising business as competition in the global AI race intensifies. Speaking on its Q4 FY25 earnings call, the company highlighted how Gemini is driving improvements in ad quality, targeting accuracy and AI-powered user experiences across Search, YouTube and ad-tech tools.
Pinterest Restructures Workforce to Accelerate AI Experimentation
Pinterest is cutting fewer than 15 percent of its global workforce as it reallocates resources toward artificial intelligence, signalling a shift from AI experimentation to execution across its core business. The restructuring, which could affect around 700 roles, is designed to prioritise AI-focused teams, products and go-to-market initiatives, alongside reductions in office space.
Meta Debuted Super Bowl Commercial for Oakley Meta AI Glasses
Meta and Oakley made a high-profile debut at Super Bowl LX with Athletic Intelligence Is Here, a Super Bowl commercial showcasing their new Oakley Meta Performance AI Glasses as cutting-edge wearable tech for athletes and creators.
Start-Up of the Week
After launching on the web, escape.ai – founded by John Gaeta, the Oscar-winning VFX veteran behind The Matrix – is now expanding to connected TVs through a distribution deal with Play.Works, bringing its catalogue of more than 1,000 short-form AI projects to platforms including Roku, Amazon Fire TV, LG and Samsung. The platform positions itself as a prestige destination for creator-led films and series built with AI, game engines and modern production tools.
Number of the Week
Anthropic’s new Claude Opus 4.6 model has a 1 million token context window, making it the company’s most powerful model yet. A 1 million context window means Claude can hold entire systems in working memory – including databases, multi-year strategy docs and large contracts. The update introduces “agent teams” in Claude Code, allowing multiple AI agents to work on different parts of a project simultaneously.
