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, OpenAI rolls out a shopping research agent, Perplexity launches shopping feature in-platform, Getty’s CEO warns it could leave UK if regulators block its Shutterstock merger amid AI threats.
Top Stories of the Week
OpenAI Rolls Out Shopping Research Feature in Time for Black Friday
OpenAI rolled out a shopping-research mode in ChatGPT this week, guiding users through budget/style needs and producing personalised buying recommendations right before Black Friday weekend.
Why it matters: This is one of the first Black Fridays where artificial intelligence optimisation (AIO) is top-of-mind for brands. This feature from OpenAI serves as an early mainstream step toward LLM-mediated commerce discovery, where brands compete inside AI answers, not just in search engine results.
Perplexity Rolls Out Free AI Shopping With PayPal “Instant Buy”
Perplexity and PayPal released Instant Buy, a feature which allows users to purchase products directly from the Perplexity search engine. Recommendations appear as shoppable cards with specs and reviews, enabling direct purchases via PayPal-supported merchants. Perplexity says the assistant remembers preferences and improves future suggestions.
Why it matters: Perplexity is expanding its AI shopping ahead of the holiday season, launching a free US-only feature that lets users refine product searches conversationally and buy products in-platform. The feature integrates PayPal’s agentic commerce services, letting users browse online catalogs for brands like Abercrombie & Fitch, Ashley Furniture, and Fabletics.
Getty’s AI-Era Merger Faces UK Scrutiny as CEO Warns of Pullback
Getty Images CEO Craig Peters warned the company could significantly shrink or leave the UK if regulators block its planned Shutterstock merger. He told the Financial Times the CMA is overlooking how AI is rapidly reshaping image generation. A rejection, he said, would halt UK investment and reduce operations there.
Why it matters: Getty’s bid for Shutterstock comes as generative AI disrupts how marketers source visuals. Peters’ warning signals a clash between traditional licensing and AI-era competition. If blocked, Getty may retreat from the UK, potentially accelerating the shift toward AI-generated imagery and changing creative workflows.
Quote of the Week
Brands & Agencies
Walmart Tests Ads Inside its AI Shopping Agent “Sparky”
Walmart is trialing “Sponsored Prompts” within Sparky – ads embedded as suggested questions and shoppable AI responses. This is one of the clearest moves yet toward agentic commerce monetisation, showing how retail media networks might evolve when AI agents mediate discovery.
EU Approves Omnicom-IPG Acquisition
The European Commission gave unconditional antitrust clearance to Omnicom’s $13bn all-stock takeover of IPG. The merger is a response to platform giants’ AI-led ad advantages and sets off a fresh consolidation wave as agencies chase AI economics of scale.
Adobe Expands Partnership with Real Madrid
Adobe announced an expansion of their partnership with Spanish football club Real Madrid to increase viewer engagement through AI-powered content, tools, and insights. The upgraded deal will support more personalised fan experiences and new digital storytelling formats for Real Madrid’s audiences.
Gradial Partners with Stagwell to Accelerate “Agentic Marketing”
Agentic AI platform Gradial has partnered with marketing network Stagwell to speed enterprise marketing for brands. This partnership is another signal that major agency networks are formalising AI-agent platforms to automate execution (content, journeys, optimisation).
Santander Creates AI Ads to Warn of Scam Threat
Santander UK released AI-generated social media ads to demonstrate how easy it is to make lifelike, believable AI content. The company also shared research showing that Brits are increasingly concerned about their ability to identify AI content – with 74 percent being unable to identify an AI-generated ad.
ASOS Uses AI Stylist to Boost Sales
Fashion retailer ASOS is using AI to boost revenue after sales dropped 12 percent this year, the company shared. The brand is testing ‘Styled for You,’ a new AI-powered feature which delivers personalised clothing suggestions to online shoppers, The Guardian reported.
Media
Warner Music Group Signs Licensing Partnership with Suno
Warner Music Group announced a licensing partnership with Suno, a platform where users can generate realistic music using AI. The deal aims to protect artists’ rights and prevent copyright issues as more AI-generated music is created. It also settles Warner Music Group’s copyright lawsuit against the AI startup.
UK Music Warns AI Could Undermine Creators and the UK’s £8bn Music Economy
UK Music’s This Is Music report finds 66 percent of creators think AI threatens their careers, especially songwriters in media and production music. While producers use AI for tasks, creators want consent, payment, labeling and voice protection. With the music sector worth £8bn in 2024, unlicensed training and AI tracks risk royalties and jobs.
CBC Releases New AI Guidelines for the Newsroom
CBC News published updated AI usage standards, outlining where AI can be used in its newsroom and where human oversight is required. The guidelines emphasise transparency and clear restrictions on AI-generated content, to maintain audience trust.
BuzzFeed Asia Collaborates with DeeperDive
BuzzFeed Asia announced its digital platform will be integrated with DeeperDive, a publisher-geared AI answer engine from adtech company Taboola. DeeperDive provides contextual answers within articles, allowing users to dive deeper into trending topics. The tool also offers monetisation models for publishers and aims to boost engagement.
Reuters Survey Finds How UK Journalists Use AI
A Reuters Institute survey of 1,004 UK journalists (Aug–Nov 2024) shows over half of journalists in the UK using mostly third-party tools weekly. Main uses are transcription, translation and copy-editing; fewer use it for research, drafting or fact-checking. Yet 62 percent see AI as a major threat and 60 percent fear damage to public trust.
Tech
Microsoft Copilot Leaves WhatsApp
Copilot, Microsoft’s AI assistant, will no longer be accessible in WhatsApp beginning next month, Microsoft announced. The tech company shared that this is because WhatsApp changed its platform policies, which includes the removal of all large language model (LLM) chatbots from the platform. The decision signifies Meta’s attempts to prioritise its own AI technology on its platforms like WhatsApp.
UK Adults Demonstrate Trust in Agentic Commerce
Almost half (49 percent) of UK adults reported regularly using AI tools, with 22 percent planning to use the tech for holiday shopping this year, according to research from business and payment consulting company PSE Consulting. Of the surveyed adults who plan to use AI tools for shopping during the festive season, 85 percent said they are comfortable with the tech making decisions like ordering products and making payments on their behalf.
Storyblok and OtterlyAI Launch AI-Search Visibility Tooling for Brands
Software company Storyblok teamed up with AI-search monitor OtterlyAI to help brands track and boost visibility in generative answers from ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews/AI Mode, Gemini, Copilot and Perplexity. The integration will add competitive benchmarking, citation tracking, localisation checks and prompt discovery, supporting ‘Generative Engine Optimisation’ as AI search reshapes consumer journeys globally.
Adthena Spots First Ads in Google AI Overviews
Adthena says it has become the first platform to detect ads appearing inside Google’s AI Overview results. Monitoring 25,000 search engine results page (SERPs), it found only 13 ad instances, all on US desktop, styled like text ads with images under the AI summary. Adthena warns AI answers could cut paid-search CTRs 20–40 percent.
Start-Up of the Week
Indian-based Momentus Digital unveiled MoAI, an agentic AI marketing and advertising suite built to automate and improve digital ad workflows end-to-end. Momentus Digital is positioning it as a single AI layer that plugs into Google Ads, Meta, and other DSPs to automate campaign operations.
Number of the Week
That’s the percentage of UK journalists who use AI for work at least once a week, according to a new survey from Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. The report surveyed 1004 UK journalists from August to November 2024, finding the tasks where AI is most frequently used (49 percent of journalists) is transcription and captioning of audio and text – for interviews, for example.
