As marketers navigate complex legal, ethical, and operational minefields around user privacy concerns, consent and preference management platforms (CPMPs) can streamline processes and build customer trust. In a conversation with EMARKETER, Donna Dror, CEO of consent management platform Usercentrics, highlighted the importance of privacy-led marketing to obtain higher-quality data, stay compliant, and protect brand image. To make privacy a priority, not an afterthought, brands should integrate consent tools into marketing workflows, audit data sources regularly, and communicate clearly how user data is being accessed and used.
Worldwide Gen Z interns at Goldman Sachs favor no AI over AI-only assistance across most categories, with 54% rejecting AI altogether in creative work, according to an August Goldman Sachs survey.
Pinterest reported Q3 2025 revenue of $1.1 billion, up 17% YoY and slightly ahead of forecasts, as global user growth and AI-driven ad features continue to lift engagement. Monthly active users climbed 12% to 600 million, with international markets up 16% and driving most of the gains. Yet softer Q4 guidance spooked investors, sending shares down 20%. CFO Julia Donnelly cited “moderating ad spend” among US retailers facing tariff pressures. Globally, Pinterest’s AI tools—visual search, generative creative, and shoppable feeds—are strengthening its position as the web’s most frictionless bridge between inspiration and purchase. Consistency remains Pinterest’s quiet advantage.
Amazon is suing Perplexity, seeking to stop its Comet agentic AI browser from shopping on users’ behalf. Amazon alleges that Comet violates its terms of service and degrades the Amazon shopping experience. Perplexity called Amazon's actions a "bully tactic" and argued the company should appreciate agentic AI’s ability to make shopping easier. Amazon’s suit against Perplexity could become an important test case that helps define the limits for agentic AI and the actions retailers can take to protect themselves—at least temporarily—from the intrusion of AI agents. However, it will not stop AI agents from gaining traction in ecommerce.
Sony AI released the Fair Human-Centric Image Benchmark (FHIBE), a freely available image data set to test AI fairness using images from 2,000 volunteers across 80 countries—all consent-based and removable on request, per Engadget. Independent data sets like FHIBE give marketers, platforms, and regulators a common reference point for evaluating AI performance. That helps brands prove compliance, reduce reputational risk, and speed up adoption of trustworthy automation. Tools like FHIBE could excise bias and rebuild trust in how AI sees—and represents—people in marketing and advertising processes.
Artificial intelligence now shapes how insights are gathered and applied. Over the past year, nearly all US market researchers (98%) have used generative AI, and 72% use it at least once a day, per a new Harris Poll–QuestDIY survey. AI’s speed and scale have replaced early skepticism, even as trust continues to lag behind. Brands adopting AI should build oversight and human judgment into their marketing pipelines to guarantee that every automated insight passes the test of accuracy, transparency, and brand integrity.
Google added integrations to Gemini that pull information and insights from Gmail, Google Chat conversations, and Google Drive files. It can also connect with PDFs, Docs, Slides, and Sheets. For enterprise users, this means faster and more context-rich insights—especially for tasks like internal research, competitive benchmarking, or campaign planning, where information is often scattered across different tools and channels. Marketers should begin with targeted use cases like analyzing brand sentiment from team discussions or summarizing performance reports.
"[The oldest members of Gen Alpha are] turning 16 next year, so we are on the eve of them becoming pretty powerful consumers," said Dani Mariano, CEO at Razorfish. "[GWI found that] 30% of 12- to 15-year-olds said that they had used AI in the last seven days. I think it could be even higher."
Coca-Cola is putting out another AI-generated holiday advertisement, its second after an AI ad campaign last year that drew mixed reactions from audiences. While attitudes toward AI in ads are mixed, smaller brands are at a higher risk of receiving negative impacts from creating ads entirely using AI.
Instacart has launched a new suite of AI-powered tools aimed at helping grocers deliver more personalized and efficient shopping experiences both in-store and online. The rollout includes features like Cart Assistant for customized recommendations, Store View for real-time shelf monitoring, and Agentic Analytics for data-driven insights. Instacart’s bet is that the more it can use emerging technologies to simplify life for both grocery shoppers and retailers, the stickier its platform will become.
66% of US banking executives say their leadership team or board has discussed allocating budget or resources to AI, more than triple the share for any other emerging tech, according to July data from Bank Director and Jack Henry & Associates.
Consumers (68%) and senior marketers (75%) expressed an increasingly positive outlook on the possibilities of generative AI this year, according to a September report from Kantar.
ChatGPT now handles more than 2 billion queries daily from 190 million users, per MarTech. The chatbot has transcended novelty and become a decision-stage search companion. Nearly 80% of US ChatGPT users treat it like a search engine, per a new Adobe survey. Influence now hinges on how brands appear within genAI—not just in Google Search results or on social media. This adds another layer of complexity for brand managers while unlocking opportunities for real-time content optimization and risk monitoring.
Reddit COO Jen Wong told EMARKETER that the platform has evolved from explaining itself to advertisers to proving it can deliver results. “We’ve shown Reddit can drive real business outcomes,” she said, noting that nine of fifteen verticals grew ad spend by at least 50% YoY. Wong emphasized discovery as Reddit’s next frontier—especially in underexposed sectors like parenting and sports—and said product improvements will make communities easier to find. With ad revenues projected to climb 46.6% in two years, Reddit’s opportunity is one of scale and visibility, driven by authenticity and high-intent engagement.
From Ulta Beauty’s new marketplace to Gap’s creator platform, here’s what the eight most interesting retailers from October have been up to, as ranked on our “Behind the Numbers” podcast.
Tomorrow’s grocery shoppers will expect AI tools that anticipate their needs, faster checkouts, and consistent pricing across channels. In this new era, convenience and technology will shape behavior, but value and trust will remain the deciding factors.
OpenAI signed a seven-year, $38 billion cloud compute deal with Amazon Web Services (AWS), its first partnership with the cloud market leader. The development effectively ended the startup’s exclusive reliance on Microsoft, its primary backer, per CNBC. OpenAI will use existing AWS data centers, and Amazon will build dedicated infrastructure for OpenAI as part of the ChatGPT maker’s expansion. While hyperscalers like AWS, Microsoft, and Google race to secure workloads, costs for training and inference are expected to decline. For brands, this means reduced outage risks and increased options for deploying AI-driven creative, analytics, and automation systems at scale.
AI is reshaping the future of work at agencies, from reducing junior roles to cutting down on hiring altogether. Nearly all (91%) of US senior agency leaders expect AI to reduce agency headcounts, per Sunup’s AI’s Effect on the Marketing Industry report. Over half (57%) of agencies have slowed or paused entry-level hiring. To maintain value in the AI era, agencies should protect and cultivate talent pipelines and use AI to deepen offerings like audience insights and personalized campaign plans, which automation alone can’t replicate.
When it comes to AI investment, Google CEO Sundar Pichai's mantra that the risk is underspending, not overspending, seems to be holding true at Meta. It forecast roughly $600 billion on AI-related capital expenditure over the next three years, but investors are questioning whether that philosophy has limits. Meta’s heavy focus on AI could aid its ad offerings, especially personalization options and its AI-powered ad suite. At the same time, overspending could lead to uneven focus that leaves other ventures—including its cash-burning Reality Labs and plateauing interest in Facebook—vulnerable.