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, Salesforce launched Agentforce 360, ad tech’s biggest companies join forces for AdCP, and WPP and Google strike a landmark AI deal.
Top Stories of the Week
Salesforce Launches Agentforce 360 to Expand Enterprise AI Capabilities
Salesforce has unveiled Agentforce 360, introducing Agent Script for flexible prompting and Agentforce Builder, a centralised tool to build and deploy AI agents. The platform integrates Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google Gemini models. Salesforce also plans Gmail, Outlook, and Dropbox connectors in 2026. Early adopters include Lennar, Adecco, and Pearson.
Ad Tech Giants Launch Protocol to Standardise AI Agent Communication
A coalition including Yahoo, PubMatic, Scope3, and Optable has launched Ad Context Protocol (AdCP), an open standard built on Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol to enable AI media buying and selling agents to communicate seamlessly across platforms. The initiative aims to reduce complexity, boost transparency, and unlock new audience-based transaction models, marking a major step for “agentic advertising.
WPP & Google Strike Five-Year $400M AI Deal
WPP has signed a five-year, $400M partnership with Google to deploy Gemini, Veo, and other AI tools across its agencies. Led by new CEO Cindy Rose, the move aims to accelerate AI adoption at the holding company and give WPP early access to Google model updates – positioning the holding group at the forefront of AI-powered marketing.
Quote of the Week
Brands & Agencies
Consumer Appetite for AI-Generated Content Dwindles
Marketers are rapidly increasing spend on GenAI-powered creator content, despite consumer enthusiasm plunging from 60 percent in 2023 to just 26 percent today, according to Billion Dollar Boy research. While 79 percent of marketers boosted AI budgets and 77 percent plan further reallocations, consumers are rejecting low-effort “AI slop,” favouring quality, human–AI creative blends.
Cuban Turns AI Platform Sora Into Free Advertising Engine
Entrepreneur Mark Cuban, former owner of the National Basketball League’s Dallas Mavericks, has made headlines after encouraging users on OpenAI’s Sora to generate AI videos featuring him – each doubling as an ad for his pharmaceutical company, Cost Plus Drugs. The strategy has produced a flood of content amassing thousands of views, signalling a new era of AI-driven, user-generated marketing.
Kayak Adds ‘AI Mode’ To Website
Travel services site Kayak introduced a new feature that lets users ask questions and receive contextual results. ‘AI Mode’ offers the opportunity to compare prices for things like flights and hotels, as well as book travel through the AI chatbot on the website.
Havas Increases 2025 Outlook Amid AI Gains
Havas raised its full-year 2025 forecast following a strong third quarter, where its net revenue increased 3.8 percent to €656m (£571m). The agency attributes this growth to its converged AI strategy – including a commitment to invest €400m (£348m) in AI by 2027.
Publicis Ups Growth Expectations With AI and Ad Demand
Publicis Groupe raised its full-year guidance after organic revenue increased 5.7 percent year-over-year to €3.5bn (£3bn). Nearly 80 percent of the company’s media business is now powered by AI, according to CEO Arthur Sadoun.
Tesco Introduces AI Ad Creator
Tesco Media launched Tesco Media Creative Studio, a tool for brands to create ads using generative AI. The tool aims to speed up the retail ad creation process, enabling brands to test ads in various formats.
Walmart and OpenAI Join Forces for AI-Powered Shopping Experiences
Walmart partnered with OpenAI to enhance in-store and online shopping experiences through AI. The partnership will allow customers to make purchases directly through ChatGPT, using the chatbot’s ‘Instant Checkout’ feature.
Media
DirecTV to Turn Idle Screens Into AI Shopping Experiences
DirecTV is replacing static Google wallpapers with personalised AI-generated ads on its own Gemini devices starting next year. Partnering with Glance AI, the company will let users insert themselves into screensavers or short videos and shop featured products directly. The move reflects media’s push toward interactive, AI-driven commerce experiences.
RTL Deutschland Builds Infrastructure for Sidekicks
RTL Deutschland has developed a self-contained AI infrastructure to power its Sidekicks adtech platform, avoiding reliance on external cloud providers and ensuring compliance with EU data protection rules. The system provides the computational power and security needed to scale agentic AI, supporting RTL’s broader vision for future-proof, privacy-first advertising operations.
UK Ad Regulator Uses AI to Spot Alcohol Ad Rule Breakers in Major Trial
The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority has used its Active Ad Monitoring AI system to review nearly 6,000 alcohol ads, finding 96 percent in compliance with regulations. Just 1–3 percent breached rules – mostly on health claims and irresponsible drinking – while alcohol-free product ads showed a 48 percent breach rate due to unclear ABV labelling, marking a milestone in AI-assisted ad regulation.
Kevin Hart’s Production Company and Luma AI Launch Live AI Film Battle
Kevin Hart’s production company Hartbeat is teaming up with Luma AI for Prompt Side Story, a live AI film competition debuting at LA Tech Week. Five teams will use Luma’s Dream Machine and Ray3 tools to create short films in real time, with winners chosen by a judging panel. The shorts will premiere on Hartbeat’s LOL Network, to showcase how AI and human creativity can merge in rapid storytelling.
Italian Publishers Call For Investigation Into AI Overviews
News publishers in Italy are seeking an investigation into Google’s AI Overviews feature, citing the tool as a threat to site traffic. Federazione Italiana Editori Giornali (FIEG), the Italian federation of newspaper publishers, filed a formal complaint to Agcom, the region’s communications authority.
OpenAI Severs Ties with Tech Council of Australia Over Copyright Rules
OpenAI shared its opposition of the Tech Council of Australia’s copyright restrictions. “We are going to be in Australia, one way or the other.” Chris Lehane, chief global affairs officer of OpenAI said in a statement.
Spotify To Collaborate With Publishers on AI Products
Spotify announced its partnership with music publishers Sony Music Group, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Merner, and Believe, to create industry-specific AI products. The AI products will aim to protect the rights of music artists, ensuring artists are properly compensated for their work and can preserve connections with fans.
Reddit Expands Language Offerings in AI-Powered Search
Reddit added five languages to its AI-powered search engine–French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. The search feature, which is powered by Google AI Mode, is now available to more countries, including Brazil, France, Mexico, and Italy.
Pinterest Lets Users Filter Out AI Slop
Pinterest upgraded its search filters, now allowing users to block AI-generated images from appearing. This adjustment comes as the platform faced criticism over the proliferation of AI-generated images on users’ feeds.
Japanese Government Warns Against Replicating Animated Content
The Japanese government made a formal request for OpenAI to prevent the recreation of content like manga and anime, ITmedia reported. As more users create uncanny content using OpenAI’s new Sora 2 video generation tool, Japan urges against the AI generation of copyrighted characters.
Gannet Media Outlets Partner with Perplexity
Gannet Media is partnering with Perplexity to integrate its AI technology into the sites of news publishers like the Detroit Free Press, as announced by Kristin Roberts, president of Gannet Media. This collaboration follows the release of Perplexity’s Comet Plus browser, which aims to give publishers proper compensation for digital content.
Tech
StackAdapt Launches AI-Powered Martech Suite
StackAdapt has officially launched its martech suite, bringing email marketing, first-party data activation, and programmatic advertising into one AI-powered platform. The release enables marketers to automate cross-channel campaigns, trigger real-time engagement, and optimise creative with dynamic orchestration flows – bridging the gap between ad tech and martech for more connected customer experiences.
Jasper Integrates with Salesforce to Supercharge AI-Powered Marketing
Jasper – an AI content automation platform that helps brands create, personalise, and scale content – has launched an integration with Salesforce Marketing Cloud. Available on AppExchange, the integration lets marketers generate and optimise on-brand content directly inside their workflows.
Adobe Unveils LLM Optimizer to Boost AI Search Visibility
Adobe has launched LLM Optimizer, a GEO-powered enterprise tool to help brands increase visibility across AI chat and search platforms. The rollout follows a 1,100 percent surge in AI-driven retail traffic. Adobe reports early gains including a 5x rise in Firefly citations and 41 percent more AI-driven traffic.
Google Upgrades Veo and Flow Film Tools
Google introduced Veo 3.1, an enhanced version of the company’s Veo 3 video generation tool, which includes improved audio and enhanced realism. Flow, Google’s filmmaking tool, has also been upgraded with more precise editing capabilities and advanced audio features.
Microsoft Unveils First AI-Powered Image Editing Software
Microsoft introduced MAI-Image-1, the tech company’s first image-generation AI model. The text-to-image model efficiently generates realistic images, with the ability to replicate intricate lighting details and landscapes, Microsoft said in the announcement.
Google Adds New AI Features to Search
Google introduced two new AI-powered features in Search and Discover. A new feature in Discover provides previews of content on trending topics. The ‘What’s new’ feature in Search will give users a list of trending articles and topics related to sports news.
Nvidia Leads Record Brand Ranking Shake-Up as AI Redefines Market Leaders
Interbrand’s 2025 global brand rankings reveal the largest year of brand value shifts since 2000, with Nvidia surging 116 percent year-over-year to $43.2bn – its biggest single-brand jump ever – driven by AI dominance. Digital-first players like Netflix (+42 percent), YouTube, Uber, and Instagram (+27 percent) also soared.
Start-Up of the Week
AI startup General Intuition has raised $134m in seed funding to train AI agents in spatial reasoning through video game footage. Spun out of Medal, it taps into a dataset of 2b+ videos annually from 10m users. The company aims to create smarter, adaptive game bots and real-world AI agents for drones and robotics. Backed by Khosla Ventures and General Catalyst, the platform uses player-generated “edge case” moments to teach AI to interpret and navigate new environments.
Number of the Week
That’s the percentage of marketers who now use AI tools daily in 2025, up from 37 percent in 2024. This nearly doubling in daily AI usage shows just how quickly AI has moved from experimental to essential in marketing workflows. This figure comes from Social Media Examiner’s 2025 AI Marketing Industry Report, which surveyed over 730 marketing professionals.
