Most marketers say AI works. Few can prove it.
AI can make work faster while leaving teams unable to prove the value. The problem starts before launch, with weak baselines and success metrics.
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Marketing artificial intelligence (AI)
The latest AI-powered martech news and releases
The cautionary tale of when Salesforce "ingested" Slack.
Braze gives Salesforce more speed — and more overlap
Customers could gain tighter activation and AI connections while facing tougher choices about products, pricing, and long-term lock-in.
Personalization knows what customers want, not who they are
Useful offers are common. Meaningful recognition is not, and consumers are quick to walk when brands ask for too much without a clear reason.
ChatGPT has plenty of advertisers, but not much revenue
OpenAI has expanded access, lowered costs, and added targeting tools, but advertiser growth hasn’t yet translated into enough revenue.
Will Salesforce’s Braze deal bring clarity or chaos?
The $5.7 billion acquisition could tighten the link between data and activation — or leave marketers managing another overlapping layer.
Retail media budgets are growing. Advertisers’ patience isn’t.
Advertisers plan to spend more, but slow activation and weak measurement can still cost networks money.
Your AI visibility score may be hiding a problem
Brand mentions and source citations often tell very different stories. Marketers need to know which one is weak before choosing a fix.
Salesforce buys AI analytics startup Loops
Salesforce is buying Loops to help explain why business metrics change, pushing analytics closer to continuous AI-driven interpretation.
Google changed its content guidance. Don’t expect a reset.
The company wants more human review of AI content, but won't guarantee that following the rules will bring back lost search traffic.
AI budgets are growing faster than proof of ROI
Companies are spending heavily on AI, but most agent projects are still short of full scale and many marketing teams can’t show clear financial value.
OpenAI adds visuals to ChatGPT ads
OpenAI is expanding ChatGPT ads with visual formats and better measurement, but bots are already inflating click through numbers.
AI is making customers expect more and tolerate less
Faster service is part of AI’s promise. Customers aren't impressed when speed comes with unresolved problems and no easy way to reach a person.
Marketing on LinkedIn: What you need to know
Your guide to LinkedIn's tools, strategies and best practices. Updated with info on the new Creator Discovery feature.
Salesforce buys AI customer research startup Listen Labs
The AI research startup will bring customer interviews, analysis, and simulated customer behavior closer to Salesforce’s CRM and AI agents.
States are rewriting the rules of social media
Meta’s settlement, TikTok’s Alabama deal, and cases against YouTube show states building new rules for how platforms operate and sell advertising.
Shoppers will spend more and buy less this holiday season
Holiday sales could grow even as consumers trade down, stretch purchases across the season, and use discounts to stock up on essentials.
GTM teams are losing track of their AI agents
AI agents are spreading across the GTM stack, but many teams lack the visibility and ownership needed to keep track of what they do.
B2B brands turn to creator video to fight AI slop and aid AI search
Creator video gives B2B brands a way to stand out from AI-generated content and build credibility with buyers using AI to research products.
OpenAI testing third-party-style tracking in ChatGPT ads
A persistent identifier could improve ChatGPT ad measurement while creating new questions about consent and the personal data behind it.
IAB sets new standards for agentic buying and measurement
New frameworks aim to standardize how AI agents handle media proposals and how companies structure contracts for advertising measurement.
AI is telling consumers not to buy your product
Nearly 81% of consumers who use chatbots for online shopping have decided against a purchase based on AI guidance.
HubSpot rebuilds its platform around AI agents
A redesigned Breeze Assistant coordinates AI agents while a self-updating CRM supplies the business and customer context they need.
IAB Tech Lab proposes new rules for programmatic
The proposed practices aim to give buyers and sellers clearer rules for using existing standards and reducing friction in programmatic transactions.
Salesforce bets CRM experience can give its AI an edge
Koa puts decades of Salesforce’s CRM knowledge into a reasoning model built to handle the operational work behind customer interactions.
AI is changing media faster than marketers can measure it
IAB finds advertisers spending more and adapting to AI-driven discovery, but their ability to measure those new customer journeys is lagging.
The answer to your martech problem depends on the problem
Buying more, improving how teams use what they have, and cutting the stack can all work — but not for the same reasons.
Software buyers are moving faster than software sellers
AI is accelerating software decisions while quotes, approvals, and sales handoffs discourage buyers ready to spend.
Google loses the ad monopoly case, but keeps the monopoly
A federal judge found Google illegally monopolized key ad-tech markets, but rejected the remedy that could have fundamentally reshaped them.
OpenAI’s audacious ad revenue claim
OpenAI is making ChatGPT ads easier to buy. That's a long way from proving advertisers will spend the $100 billion it projects for 2030.
Your influencer marketing strategy is broken
Reach alone says little about a creator’s ability to drive sales, especially as algorithms put content in front of more non-followers.
Marketers know AI is using bad data to make decisions
Marketers are giving AI more authority even as bad CRM data undermines revenue measurement, reporting, and the decisions AI makes.
Customer relationship management (CRM)
Anthropic partnership makes Salesforce’s interface optional
Claudeforce puts Salesforce data and workflows inside Claude, pointing toward a future where AI becomes the interface to enterprise software.
B2B marketers don’t trust the data used to shape budgets
Marketing data influences budgets, but only 49% fully trust its accuracy and completeness. Disconnected reporting is behind the confidence gap.
Google gives political email a lane around spam filters
New program shows how Gmail is using sender verification and recipient feedback to decide who gets preferential inbox treatment.
Marketing artificial intelligence (AI)
IAB updates standard for disclosing AI in ads
IAB’s updated framework draws the AI disclosure line around what changes consumer perceptions of authenticity, identity, and what’s real.
Why LinkedIn doesn’t really care about AI slop
The problem is AI is perfect for producing the polished, predictable business speak the platform rewards.
Is your martech stack costing more time than it saves?
Disconnected systems create missed work and hours of admin. The real measure of martech productivity is how much work the stack eliminates.
When marketers should ignore the data
Not every change in a marketing metric deserves a response. Marketers need to separate temporary fluctuations from signals worth acting on.
IAB Tech Lab releases new privacy standards
Rules aim to keep up with evolving state laws and to make it easier to communicate consumer privacy choices.