AI in Marketing

How AI tools are reshaping campaign workflows, attribution, and agency operations. Analysis that goes beyond the hype.

OpenAI's $60 CPM Ads Manager Doesn't Need to Be Good Yet

OpenAI quietly launched a self-serve ads manager this week, and the product is, if I am being generous, rudimentary. The platform offers real-time performance monitoring, the ability to optimize against impressions or clicks, and weekly CSV reports sent by email. There is no real-time bidding, no granular audience targeting, and

Isometric illustration of ChatGPT routing user intent to app icons for DoorDash, Spotify, and Uber, with empty category slots in a directory grid

ChatGPT's App Directory Has No Ad Auction. The First Apps Become Defaults.

ChatGPT quietly became a different product over the last six months, and the shift barely made it into most marketing briefings. In September 2025, OpenAI launched Instant Checkout inside ChatGPT. The promise was simple. You could buy a scented candle from an Etsy seller without ever leaving the conversation. Stripe

Isometric illustration of a campaign brief transforming into a digital media plan with connected DSP channels and a stopwatch

Basis Compass Does in Five Minutes What Media Planners Bill Eight Hours For

The part of media buying that everyone assumed was safe from AI wasn't the bidding. Bidding has been automated for years. It wasn't the targeting, either. Lookalike audiences and algorithmic expansion already turned most manual audience selection into a polite suggestion the platform quietly overrides. The

Isometric illustration of a talk show studio being absorbed into a corporate AI building with streaming cameras and circuit board overlays

OpenAI Bought a Talk Show. The Ad Revenue They Are Killing Is the Part That Matters.

OpenAI acquired TBPN today. The Technology Business Programming Network is a daily three-hour live show hosted by founders John Coogan and Jordi Hays that has become one of the most influential media startups in Silicon Valley. It’s OpenAI’s first media acquisition, and most of the coverage is leading

Isometric illustration of AI and human hands holding ad mockups with a performance chart showing format-specific results

$92K in Ad Spend Says AI Creative Works. The Catch Is Where It Does Not.

Most of the AI creative debate sounds like two people arguing about whether a hammer or a screwdriver is "better." The answer obviously depends on whether you are looking at a nail or a screw. And yet the advertising industry keeps having this argument in the abstract, as

Isometric illustration of office workers being replaced by AI systems with contractor badges and reorganized org charts

AI Was the No. 1 Reason for U.S. Layoffs Last Month. The Actual Number Is Much Larger.

The Challenger, Gray & Christmas report dropped this week and the headline number is clean: 15,341 job cuts in March cited AI as the primary reason, making it the top driver of layoffs for the first time since the firm started tracking in 2023. That is 25% of all