Hi and welcome back to another edition of our newsletter. The first of the new year. New around here? This is our weekly round-up of the big digital marketing stories from the past week.

Normally I write one ‘feature’/deepdive but last week there were 2 pretty huge developments, from OpenAI and from Google, so we’ve doubled up.

— Kole

Coming up:

Shoppers in Google’s AI Mode or the Gemini app will soon be able to discover products, get recommendations, and complete purchases without ever clicking through to a retailer's website.

Of course, we’ve seen Google move toward “zero-click” before. By surfacing answers and snippets directly on its results pages, it reduced traffic to publishers’ websites.

Now, Google has the technology to eliminate the need to send shoppers to retailers’ websites to complete transactions too.

This is powered by Universal Checkout (UCP) — Google’s new commerce system that lets shoppers complete purchases directly inside AI Mode or Gemini, while the retailer remains the merchant of record.

How it works

Google uses agents to complete the checkout process directly with the backend of the retailer’s website.

As one Google VP put it: “Google is just the matchmaker.”

This will give businesses “reduced abandoned carts… while still maintaining the relationship with end consumers”, Google predicts.

What this means

For the past couple of decades, online transactions have funnelled through retailer websites. UCP flips that script. Billions in commerce are now at risk of shifting to zero-click, in-chat purchases.

Leigh McKenzie from Semrush writes, “Websites aren’t going away. But they’re no longer the only door.”

He describes how it matters less to AI that you have the best landing page, copy and internal linking. It matters more that your data relevant to your product is “machine readable”.

Steps to take

To participate in Google's UCP-powered experiences, you need a solid product data feed in your Merchant Center account.

Google recently added dozens of new attributes to Merchant Center feeds specifically for this "conversational commerce" era.

OpenAI have confirmed that ads will be introduced to ChatGPT

Firstly, what exactly has been said: OpenAI is going to start testing ads in the ChatGPT free and Go tiers. ‘Go’ is a new $8/month option.

With ChatGPT's massive user base (900M weekly active users and counting), subscriptions won’t be able to sustain OpenAI’s operational costs.

Ads were inevitable but the only question is how ChatGPT can maintain users’ trust.

Sam Altman took to X to highlight that ads will not influence the answers that ChatGPT provides. The ads will be separate and independent of chat conversations.

OpenAI hasn't opened a public self-serve platform or signup yet. The focus right now is internal testing taking place over the “coming weeks” and gathering user feedback before broader rollout.

The multi-year deal will see Apple’s next generation of Foundation Models built on Google’s Gemini AI and cloud technology. The upgraded Siri and other Apple Intelligence features will run on Apple devices and private servers, keeping user data under Apple’s control.

The pilot lets retailers show discounts in AI Mode when Google’s systems detect strong buying intent in AI Mode. The offers run alongside PMax and Standard Shopping, using Merchant Center feeds and uploaded promo codes.

Adam Mosseri faces up to the challenges Instagram has in world where it will be impossible for the platform to distinguish between real and fake media. He explained how we won’t be able to trust our eyes, and need to focus on who is posting and why.

The plan lets brands outside Shopify connect their product catalogs to AI platforms such as ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google AI, and Gemini. Merchants only need to set up their data once through Shopify’s Agentic Storefront.

Alexa.com lets users type questions and receive AI responses directly in a web browser. The site offers a text-based chatbot interface similar to ChatGPT and Claude. Early access is available for Prime members, while non-Prime users can subscribe for $19.99 per month.

The new campaign type uses AI to automate targeting, bidding, and ad placement in real time. Max Campaigns also give insight into a campaign’s ‘Top Audience Personas,’ a feature that shows which personas engaged the most.

Merchants can sell products and complete transactions directly inside Copilot without sending buyers to external sites. The rollout in the U.S. works with partners like PayPal, Shopify, Stripe, and Etsy.

The new platform provides a central library of AI agents for marketing tasks and insights. Initial offerings include tools for brand analytics, behavioral science, creative insights, and analogy generation. WPP is also creating custom agents tailored to individual client data and strategies.

I’m taking on a new challenge this year. This is nothing I’ve done before. But I’m a few months in and it continues to feel like the right decision. I’ve had great support so far. So here it goes.

Late last year I decided to create a new tool to give business leaders better insight into their ad performance.

We’re starting with Meta. The first feature is a creative leaderboard. Connect a Meta ads account, and the tool will rank your ads in one helpful view without having to go into the Meta Ads platform, or create Excel pivot tables.

I’ve named this tool Wilow. I’ll explain why another time. For now, you can read more and sign up to the waitlist to get free access to the beta, here, if it sounds useful.

— Kole, Creator of The Keyword (and, now) Wilow.

✦ Wilow: Ad Creative Leaderboard
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You’re caught up
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