What you need to know this week in AI + Marketing in 15 seconds:

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🔵 TOP AI + MARKETING NEWS/GUIDES

Why marketing data governance and AI skills now go hand in hand
Think with Google | ~5 minutes
As AI gets embedded across marketing workflows, weak data governance is becoming a real blocker. This piece argues that clean data, shared standards, and clear ownership matter more than adding new tools. AI skill gaps are often data discipline gaps in disguise.

Digital marketing trends for 2026
Google | ~6 minutes
A forward look at how privacy shifts, AI-assisted measurement, and changing consumer expectations are reshaping marketing strategy going into 2026. The next wave of marketing wins won’t come from growth hacks, but from trust and clarity.

AI powers the back end of digital marketing more than the front end
eMarketer | ~4 minutes
Most AI impact today is happening behind the scenes, from data processing to optimization, rather than in consumer-facing experiences. Quiet AI work is doing more than flashy demos.

AI will change the way you shop in 2026
Fast Company | ~5 minutes
AI-driven recommendations, search, and checkout flows are set to make shopping feel more assisted and less transactional. Convenience is rising, but so are questions about control and choice.

Key enterprise SEO and AI trends for 2026
Search Engine Journal | ~6 minutes
Enterprise SEO teams are preparing for AI-driven search results, structured data demands, and brand authority signals replacing keyword tricks. SEO is becoming an engineering and content quality problem, not a keyword game.

What happens to personal style in the age of AI-powered shopping
Glossy | ~4 minutes
As AI styling tools grow, fashion brands are questioning whether personalization enhances taste or flattens it. Style still needs humans to break the pattern.

To take advantage of AI, marketing must evolve
Fast Company | ~4 minutes
This argues that plugging AI into old org structures limits its value. Teams need new roles, workflows, and decision rights. AI doesn’t fix broken systems, it exposes them.

Meta just bought Manus, an AI startup everyone’s been talking about
TechCrunch | ~3 minutes
Meta’s acquisition signals continued investment in AI-driven creation and tooling across its platforms. Big platforms are buying leverage, not experiments.

Three ethical AI questions every brand leader should be asking
Fast Company | ~4 minutes
A practical look at responsibility, transparency, and trust as brands deploy AI at scale. Ethics shows up fastest in customer backlash.

The rise of AI-generated advertising
Rolling Stone | ~6 minutes
AI-generated ads are becoming more common, forcing brands to rethink authorship, originality, and creative ownership. Efficiency can’t replace taste.

2026 will prove whether AI checkout is here to stay
Modern Retail | ~4 minutes
Retailers are testing AI-driven checkout and payment flows, but consumer trust remains the big question. Speed matters less than confidence at checkout.

Four AI research trends enterprise teams should watch in 2026
VentureBeat | ~5 minutes
A look at emerging research areas shaping enterprise AI adoption, from reasoning models to efficiency gains. Research timelines don’t match marketing timelines.

OpenAI and the push toward sponsored ads
Futurism | ~3 minutes
Discussion around OpenAI experimenting with sponsored placements raises questions about trust and intent. Ads change how people interpret answers.

OpenAI bets big on audio as Silicon Valley declares war on screens
TechCrunch | ~4 minutes
Audio-first AI experiences are gaining momentum as companies look beyond screens for engagement. Voice lowers friction but raises expectation.

Instagram CEO, Adam Mosseri, on AI and content direction
Threads | ~1 minute
Mosseri shares thoughts on how AI fits into content creation and platform evolution. Platform signals matter more than product announcements.

🟣 LINKEDIN POSTS YOU SHOULDN’T MISS

Alex Vacca – “Top AI Agents for Business: Sales, Research, Customer Service, and More”
Alex lists 33 agentic solutions that automate sales, research, customer service and marketing, arguing that smart companies use agents as “employees” to handle low‑value work and even follow up on leads.

Alexandra Charters Zubko – “LLMs Diverge: Claude for Enterprise, ChatGPT for Consumers”
Alexandra argues 2026 is the year large‑language models fork: Claude is becoming an enterprise workhorse for extended thinking and integration, ChatGPT is leaning into consumer and shopping use‑cases, and Gemini must prove it’s different. Her advice: stop asking which model is “best” and start asking which fits your workflow.

Ronnie Parsons – “Master Claude with Anthropic’s Free Learning Path”
Ronnie highlights Anthropic’s free ten‑step roadmap for getting from Claude novice to building autonomous systems, spanning fundamentals, prompt engineering, tool use and retrieval‑augmented generation.

Michelle Blaser – “My 2026 Prediction? The Rise of ‘Seussian’ Brands”
Michelle predicts brands will react to AI’s sameness by embracing “Seussian” qualities - whimsical, unexpected, human and craft‑driven - to stand out.

🟡 LATEST & TRENDING AI MARKETING TOOLS

Unusual
Unlike competitors who treat AI models like a new search engine (coining terms like AEO and GEO), Unusual treats AI models like human influencers. "People use ChatGPT for more than just search," said founder Will Jack. "The entire buyer journey - search, discovery, research, evaluation, and selection-is compressed into a single conversation with an AI chatbot." This week they announced it has raised $3.6 million in early-stage funding.

Akii AI Visibility Score Directory
Akii launched the AI Visibility Score Directory, the first public, longitudinal directory measuring how AI systems evaluate, interpret, and recommend brands.

Listen Labs
Replaces slow, manual qualitative studies with AI agents that conduct, transcribe, and synthesize customer conversations.

Bear
Helps teams capture high-intent leads from AI agents by zeroing in on visitors who arrive from conversational tools like ChatGPT or Perplexity. Scans the exact questions prospects ask and guides brands on what content to publish.

Eden
AI agents that autonomously schedule campaigns, run A/B tests, and personalize experiences across email, SMS, and onsite displays for e-commerce brands.

TheHog.ai
Predicts "your next customer before they enter the market" by leveraging a proprietary Global Graph that fuses live social listening with identity resolution.

⚫️ COOL AI + MARKETING JOBS

Clay - Product Marketing 

DataAnnotation - Senior Marketing Manager

AirOps - Product Marketing Lead 

Chalk - Growth Marketing - NY 

Braintrust - Marketing SME - AI Evaluation (US-Remote)

Aidoc - Sr. Director, Growth Marketing

🟢 EVENT TO CHECK OUT

San Francisco, April 6-9, 2026; Amsterdam, Sept 22-24, 2026
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