Today’s Insights

🔍 Google AI Mode
🤖 Meta’s Advantage+ Update
🌍 Threads Hits 320M
📺 YouTube is majority TV
📱 Snapchat goes Ad-Free

Feature

🔍 Google tests ‘AI Mode’ on Google.com

Google is testing a new change to stay competitive as AI chat is reshaping how people search.

Google has added a new filter (alongside the usual ones for Images, News, Shopping etc.) called ‘AI Mode’.

AI Mode brings the full-screen conversational AI experience of ChatGPT and Gemini to the main Google search engine.

AI Mode is aimed at open-ended questions that are “not well served by” today’s Search market, including requests for advice and comparisons.

Meanwhile, this week, Sam Altman posted a chart from SimilarWeb which shows ChatGPT as the 6th most visited website for January (with 2.33% to Google’s 29.21% share of traffic) with the caption “man, still a long way to go to run down google”.

9to5 Google

Google & Meta

🌍 Threads reaches 320 million monthly active users

During Meta's Q4 earnings call, Mark Zuckerberg said the platform has added 20 million users in a month and predicted that Threads will reach 1 billion users in the coming years.

TechCrunch

🤖 Meta is testing a unified AI-powered Advantage+ campaign setup

The goal is to enable advertisers to launch campaigns without the ability to select between manual and Advantage+ shopping campaigns.

Meta

🚀 Google is looking more closely at the landing pages of Search ads

Google now identifies when a Search ad leads to an “unexpected destination” or a page without helpful navigation. Google says the update is intended to show fewer ads that fail to meet user expectations by predicting landing page quality.

Google

📈 Google 2024 Q4 earnings show strong ad revenue growth

Google’s ad revenue climbed 10.6% to $72.46 billion, driven by YouTube’s record $10.47 billion, a 14% year-over-year increase. Search ads brought in $54 billion, up 12%. Both segments slightly outperformed Wall Street estimates but showed a modest slowdown compared to last year’s growth rates.

Google

More Headlines

📺 TV is now the most used device for YouTube video consumption

YouTube CEO, Neal Mohan, says U.S. viewers now watch over 1 billion hours of YouTube content on TVs daily. He claims, "YouTube is the new television” while outlining the platform's 2025 plans.

YouTube

📺 Tumblr launches 'Tumblr TV,' a new video feature to compete with TikTok

Tumblr is shifting its focus to video content with the launch of Tumblr TV. The feature is now fully integrated into the app and will be enabled by default for new users.

Tumblr

📱 Snapchat launches an ad-free plan for $15.99 per month

Snapchat+ now offers a Platinum subscription that removes in-app ads, including Sponsored Snaps, Story ads, and Lens ads. Priced at $15.99/m, it is a jump from the standard $2.99 plan.

Social Media Today

📈 Amazon's ad revenue reaches $17.3 billion in Q4 2024

Amazon’s ad business grew 18% YoY in Q4. This falls slightly below Wall Street’s estimate and marked a slowdown from last year’s 26% growth. Still, ad revenue outpaced Amazon’s overall business, which saw an 11% increase in net sales.

Amazon

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