🌈 The More You Know✨

Meta Might Finally Have Something To Show For All That AI Spending. 👀 💰 TOP STORY • Meta’s Muse Just Passed ChatGPT To Become The #1 Free App In Apple’s App Store After years of massive AI investment, Meta finally has a breakout consumer product, and investors are loving the early results. Muse could also change how consumers research and shop, with Meta sitting right in the middle… 🤖 NEW PRODUCTS & SERVICES • Anthropic’s Opus 5.5 Does More For 40% Less Near top-tier performance, faster responses, better writing, and higher Claude usage limits. • OpenAI’s New GPT-6 Models Cut Prices In Half GPT-6 Sol and Luna arrive with lower developer costs, fewer factual errors, and another reason to rethink which model handles which job. + 4 More… ——— 🏕️ USE CASE OF THE WEEK • Coleman Turns A Fake AI Ad Into A 105% Sales Jump A fake AI-generated Coleman lazy river went viral. Instead of simply correcting it, Coleman turned the attention into 150M impressions and a 105% YoY jump in direct-to-consumer sales. See how they did it, plus how to build a response plan for the next time fake content about your brand takes off. ——— 📰 OTHER NOTABLE HEADLINES • ChatGPT’s Grip On AI Chatbots Is Loosening Its share of AI prompts fell from 70% to 50% in the first half of 2026, while Gemini and Claude gained ground. • OpenAI Is Recruiting An Influencer Army Sponsored ChatGPT posts on Instagram more than doubled from June to August as OpenAI looks beyond tech creators to make ChatGPT cool. + 5 More… Get the full AI Edge here: uof.digital/newsletters/ai-e…

🧪 Fake Incrementality Tests Are Getting Real Paul Boruta joins Shiv & Myles on the AI Edge Podcast. He’s the Founder & CEO of Slingwave and has spent two decades in advertising and measurement, including time at Overture and Yahoo and building a startup acquired by ZEFR. They get into: 🤝 Why Amazon’s ChatGPT deal matters more than another DSP partnership, and why OpenAI may need it more than Amazon does 📊 Why Paul changed his mind about using synthetic data for incrementality testing in just 18 months 🔁 Why AI analysis without validation or a closed loop can be worse than no analysis at all And lots more... Full Episode Here: 📺 YouTube: piped.video/PNSNg6lVlhw 🍎 Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas… 🌐 Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/0YJ…

🔓 Publishers May Finally be Getting Unstuck From Google TOP STORY: Google’s ad tech antitrust punishment is finally public. No breakup, but the remedies could make it much easier for publishers to move away from GAM. Rival ad servers get equal access to AdX bids, publishers get more bid transparency, and Google Ads can no longer bid directly into GAM. ——— OTHER HEADLINES 💰 Taboola buys Dianomi for up to $36.1M, giving it a shortcut into high-value finance audiences. 📍 Infillion acquires Foursquare, adding location data to a growing ad tech portfolio that already includes Catalina and MediaMath. 🔒 Amazon blocks Meta’s Muse from shopping on its site as the fight over who controls agentic commerce heats up. And lots more… Get the full U of Digital Newsletter here: uof.digital/newsletters/

🤖 Bring Your Own Agent Marco Matos joins Shiv on the AI Edge Podcast to explain why brands may eventually want their own agents buying media instead of using the agent a platform gives them. His version of the future is your agent talking directly to theirs through MCP, with the brand setting the parameters. Full AI Edge Episode Here 📺 YouTube: piped.video/MmdLIdRtnqo 🍎 Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas… 🌐 Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/1GR…

🧨We’re kicking off a packed fall for U of Digital tomorrow! 🤖 Sept. 22: Our flagship AI Accelerator sponsored by T-Mobile’s Blis begins with live AI training for advertising & marketing professionals. Register: lnkd.in/g6iCnhRm 📍 Sept. 23: Join us in Washington, DC at ANA AI & Technology for Marketers to learn how marketers are putting AI to work right now. Register: lnkd.in/gh5fvVwz Then we’re hitting Advertising Week in NYC, ANA Masters of Marketing in Orlando, BRXND NYC, and more through November. Check out our full events lineup below and join us!👇

🚨THE AI ACCELERATOR STARTS TOMORROW! Learn by doing with hands-on exercises, real-world scenarios, and practical applications built for marketing & advertising pros. 💡 Use code EarlyBirdsLearnAI for 20% off. 👉 Last chance to grab your seat: lnkd.in/g6iCnhRm Big thanks to Blis for sponsoring this cohort!

What’s in a name? Ask Marc Benioff. Salesforce unveiled Koa, AIforce, Claudeforce, Slackforce, and more at Dreamforce, all part of a bigger push to bring Salesforce data directly into tools like Claude and Slack. ——— 💰 TOP STORY: Big Tech keeps getting more of your ad budget AI automated campaigns now account for 12% of US ad spend, up from 2% in 2023, even as marketers question their transparency and control. They don’t trust the process, but they like the results. ——— NEW PRODUCTS & SERVICES 🤖 Meta wants you to subscribe to AI Meta One starts at $2.99 a month and goes up to $499 for business plans as Meta looks for some recurring revenue from its massive AI investment. 💬 ChatGPT ads can keep talking after the click OpenAI is testing Sponsored Agents that turn an ad click into a conversation with a brand’s AI agent, giving ChatGPT even more of the customer relationship. +5 more… ——— USE CASE OF THE WEEK: 👙 See what happens when you actually let AI run the campaign Cosabella let an AI platform autonomously run its paid media and reported 336% ROAS, 155% more attributed revenue, and 20x more social purchases. See how to test autonomous AI on one of your own campaigns without handing over the whole budget. ——— OTHER NOTABLE HEADLINES: 🥜 Google paying publishers for AI content, sort of Google is testing payments when publisher content “significantly” contributes to its AI answers, but the math is a black box and some publishers say the payouts are peanuts. 🦄 AEO has another unicorn Profound raised $180M at a $1.8B valuation after tripling revenue in six months and growing to more than 1,000 enterprise customers. +5 more… ——— Full AI Edge Newsletter Here: uof.digital/newsletters/ai-e…

📚 Today is ANA’s Global Day of Learning! We’re pumped to be joining the @ANAmarketers Global Day of Learning for a hands-on session on creating synthetic audiences, led by Veronica ("V") Ripson, @UofDigital's Head of Learning Experience. And here's 2 more chances to join us this month! 📍 September 23: We’ll be in Washington, DC at the ANA AI & Technology for Marketers Conference for a half-day AI bootcamp. 💻 September 30: We’re going virtual for the ANA AI Marketing Accelerator, an interactive bootcamp built to help marketers put AI to work. 20,000+ brands. 50,000+ marketers. A lot of learners to educate, and we’re here for it. 😎 Jump In: uof.digital/ana

Salesforce Disrupting Itself Before AI Does Marco Matos joins Shiv on the AI Edge Podcast and makes the case for Salesforce’s move from seats to tokens: disrupting your own business at this scale is brutally hard, but the alternative is letting the next wave do it for you. Full AI Edge Episode Here: YouTube: piped.video/MmdLIdRtnqo Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas… Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/1GR…

💸 Publishers Are Paying Google to Replace the Traffic Google is Taking Away TOP STORY: The top 100 media publishers spent an estimated $113M on paid search in July, up 41% YoY. As organic search traffic keeps shrinking, publishers are increasingly paying for the clicks they used to get for free. And one publisher accounts for a pretty wild chunk of that spending. OTHER HEADLINES: 💰 Google wants to pay publishers for content that shapes its AI answers. How much? That part’s still a black box. 📈 Ad spend forecasts just got bumped up as AI-powered campaigns take a bigger share of advertiser budgets. The trajectory from here gets pretty aggressive. 🤖 OpenAI is testing Sponsored Agents, where clicking an ad starts a conversation with the brand without ever leaving ChatGPT. That raises some interesting questions about who owns the customer relationship. And lots more… Full U of Digital Newsletter here: uof.digital/newsletters/

💺 Salesforce may need fewer seats to make more money from each customer. Marco Matos, CEO and co-founder of Adora, joins Shiv Gupta on the AI Edge Podcast and looks at Salesforce + Anthropic as a pricing shift hiding inside the product news. If AI lets one employee produce far more, charging by seat stops matching the value Salesforce creates. Tokens give Salesforce a way to get paid for all that extra output, which is why he thinks Benioff’s move could work even if seat counts fall. Full AI Edge Episode Here: YouTube: piped.video/MmdLIdRtnqo Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas… Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/1GR…

So excited to be part of this!

💺 AI may kill the software seat before it kills SaaS Marco Matos brings nearly 20 years of experience building Ad Tech products inside walled gardens. Now he’s CEO and co-founder of Adora, and joins Shiv on the AI Edge Podcast to explain why marketing’s Frankenstack is starting to break under AI. They get into: 🤝 Why Salesforce + Anthropic could make Salesforce more valuable even as companies buy fewer seats 📉 Why the early “ChatGPT ads don’t work” takes are way too premature, and why measurement is the bigger issue 🤖 Why marketers may eventually want their own agents buying media on their behalf instead of trusting someone else’s They also talk The Trade Desk, Google’s AI creative tools, why creative keeps getting left out of the automation conversation, and how Adora is building a system where every campaign teaches the next one what works. Full AI Edge Episode Here: 📺 YouTube: piped.video/MmdLIdRtnqo 🍎 Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas… 🌐 Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/1GR…

📚 @UofDigital is delivering AI education for marketers with the ANA! We’re teaming up with the Association of National Advertisers for three learning experiences designed to help marketers accelerate their at AI knowledge and workflows. September 17: ANA Global Day of Learning, virtual. Get hands-on creating synthetic audiences. September 23: ANA AI & Technology for Marketers Conference in Washington, DC. Join us live for a half-day AI bootcamp. September 30: ANA AI Marketing Accelerator, virtual. An interactive monthly bootcamp for ANA members. 3 amazing U of Digital opportunities for you happening with the ANA this month. Get in on it. Learn more: uof.digital/ana

⚖️ Google broke antitrust law but gets to keep its ad tech business. TOP STORY: Google won’t have to sell AdX or DFP after a judge rejected the DOJ’s proposed breakup of its ad tech business. There are still behavioral remedies coming that could give publishers and open web ad tech a boost. But while regulators work to loosen Google’s grip on the open web, Google is busy pulling more of the web into AI. OTHER HEADLINES: 📉 The Trade Desk is cutting 15% of its workforce, then got dropped from the S&P 500 a day later. Hopefully this is rock bottom. Hopefully… 🥤 PepsiCo is moving its global media business from OMD to Publicis, ending a 30-year relationship and handing Publicis the account without a formal pitch. 🛒 Google’s AI Mode may be making shopping more expensive. One study found identical products averaged 21.6% higher prices than in regular Search. And lots more… Full U of Digital Newsletter here: lnkd.in/eqBbCbre

14 days left! @UofDigital’s AI Accelerator starts September 22, with hands-on training for marketers and advertising pros who want to get better at putting AI to work. Seats are going fast. 💡 Use code EarlyBirdsLearnAI for 20% off. 👉 Register: uof.digital/ai/accelerator/

📉 ChatGPT ads have a performance problem. TOP STORY: OpenAI’s ad business has already hit a $1B annual run rate, but some early advertisers aren’t seeing the results. One campaign delivered nearly 2x the expected impressions, but just a 0.6% CTR and zero conversions. Another saw OpenAI report 57 clicks while Google Analytics logged fewer than 20 visits. It’s early, but OpenAI has a lot to figure out, and a $1T IPO doesn’t exactly give it unlimited time. +1 more… NEW PRODUCTS & FEATURES: OpenAI released GPT-6 Astra, its new flagship model for computer use, coding, and complex professional work. It’s also OpenAI’s first model to cross its “Critical” cybersecurity threshold. +3 more… USE CASE OF THE WEEK: See how wellness brand Rouge Care used AI agents to plan and buy its TV ads, turning $25K in spend into $125K in sales, and how you can test it yourself. OTHER NOTABLE HEADLINES: 🤗 Nvidia is buying Hugging Face for $12.9B. ⌨️ ChatGPT can now watch your clicks and keystrokes in approved Mac apps. 🍪 Oreogate went viral on Instagram, then people discovered the school-lunch drama was tied to a paid partnership with AI music company Suno. +4 more… Full AI Edge Newsletter Here: uof.digital/newsletters/ai-e…

We’re throwing a house party. 🍻 The marketers behind the scenes make AdWeek happen. So @UofDigital is teaming up with #UnpluggedCollective to give 50+ marketers from media, adtech, and martech a chance to enjoy the week themselves. A penthouse, games, drinks, and a chance to hang out with the people you spend all week working alongside. 🪩 Wednesday, October 7 🪩 4–8 PM 🪩 Unplugged Collective at the Virgin Hotel, NYC Register: luma.com/thehouseparty-awny-… See you at AdWeek. 😎