What you need to know this week (and the past 2 - I’m back! 🙂 ) in AI + Marketing in 15 seconds:

More top news, tools, jobs, events, posts, and something special I built 🎁 below.

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🔵 TOP AI + MARKETING NEWS/GUIDES

OpenAI says it’s turned off app suggestions that looked like ads
TechCrunch | ~3 minutes
After backlash to “app suggestion” prompts in ChatGPT that felt like disguised advertising, OpenAI disabled them.

IBM to Acquire Confluent to Create Smart Data Platform for Enterprise Generative AI
IBM Newsroom | ~4 minutes
IBM announced it will acquire Confluent for about $11 billion. The deal aims to give IBM a real-time data streaming backbone, something it argues is essential for scalable, enterprise-grade generative and agentic AI.

The State of Enterprise AI 2025 Report
OpenAI (2025 Report) | (PDF – ~8 minute skim)
The report from OpenAI reviews how enterprises are adopting AI: which sectors move fastest, what obstacles remain (data silos, trust, tooling), and how companies structure teams around agentic workflows.

How OpenAI and Google see AI changing go-to-market strategies
TechCrunch | ~4 minutes
Both companies argue that GTM in the AI era becomes less about traditional funnels and more about orchestrating workflows. Instead of selling “features,” they’re pushing end-to-end task automation that blurs the line between product and ops.

Adobe nears 1.9 billion dollar deal for Semrush
Reuters | ~3 minutes
Adobe is reportedly close to buying Semrush, aiming to pull SEO, content intelligence, and campaign measurement under one roof. It’s a classic Adobe play: scoop up the data layer that marketers touch every day and integrate it into Creative Cloud and Experience Cloud.

Nearly 70 percent of marketing leaders say agentic AI will be transformative
Capgemini | ~5 minutes
Leaders are sold on agentic AI, but most feel they can’t get it to reliably deliver outcomes yet. The gap is process, not tools: marketers have old workflows wrapped around new tech.

Why people are frustrated with AI’s impact on search
BBC | ~6 minutes
Consumers feel search results are getting noisier, slower, and less trustworthy as AI rewrites and reshuffles content. Some feel certain queries got easier, but most say they’re working harder to find the “real” answer.

Ulta, Best Buy, and Adidas dominate holiday AI chatter
Modern Retail | ~4 minutes
Shoppers are talking about AI-powered gifting tools, product finders, and deal surfacing. These retailers won mindshare by making AI useful rather than flashy.

Brands push back on the idea that AI “killed the internet”
PRWeek | ~4 minutes
Marketers argue the internet isn’t “dead”, it’s just changing. Yes, content is noisier, but brands still see organic moments, community engagement, and good storytelling outperforming AI sludge. The real issue is scale without taste.

How retailers are actually using AI for marketing and merchandising
Retail Dive | ~5 minutes
Most retailers are using AI to sharpen personalization, manage inventory, and test creative at scale. The splashy AI features get headlines, but behind the scenes, AI is quietly reshaping demand forecasting and product mix decisions.

Five ways AI changed marketing strategy this year
MarTech | ~6 minutes
AI pushed teams toward faster testing, smaller creative cycles, more ops-heavy roles, and tighter integration between product and marketing. The biggest shift: velocity is now a competitive advantage, not a nice-to-have.

Marketers ask: What’s real, what’s hype, what’s next for AI?
Ad Age | ~5 minutes
Leaders are wrestling with budgets, talent gaps, and proving that AI’s lift shows up in revenue. Many feel the pilot phase is over, and the mandate now is measurable, repeatable outcomes, not one-off experiments.

Why the future of marketing looks a lot like engineering
Search Engine Land | ~5 minutes
Marketing is shifting closer to systems design: prompt workflows, automation layers, versioning, QA, and structured testing. Creative still matters, but it now sits inside a more technical operating model.

Which AI path should you take as a marketer?
CMSWire | ~6 minutes
The article breaks down three directions: operational automation, creative acceleration, and insights generation. Most people end up blending all three, depending on their team’s maturity.

Five capabilities that separate AI-native teams from everyone else
MarTech | ~5 minutes
AI-native teams share traits: solid data foundations, clear experimentation loops, reusable workflows, strong documentation, and cross-functional fluency. They treat AI like infrastructure, not a side project.

SMBs are using AI for landing page design more than any other tactic
eMarketer | ~4 minutes
Small businesses are leaning heavily on AI for fast, testable landing pages because it saves time and removes guesswork. The trend shows how quickly AI is becoming a default part of the conversion stack.

A backlash against AI images is starting to show up in ads
The Conversation | ~6 minutes
Some brands are returning to human-made imagery after consumers said AI visuals felt cold, generic, or untrustworthy. Real faces and real settings still signal authenticity more clearly than perfect AI gloss.

Amazon’s AI chatbot Rufus drove real Black Friday sales
TechCrunch | ~4 minutes
Rufus helped shoppers compare products, find deals, and understand features. It didn’t feel like a tech demo…it felt like a helpful layer inside the buying flow. That’s why it worked.

A simple guide to writing better prompts
Tofu | ~3 minutes
This guide covers clarity, constraints, examples, and iteration…nothing fancy, just practical ways to get better results. It’s grounded in real marketing workflows, not academic theory.

Think first, AI second
Every | ~7 minutes
A strong reminder that AI shouldn’t replace thinking. The best results come when teams decide what they’re solving before they automate anything. Tools amplify judgment; they don’t replace it.

The 2026 Design and Marketing Trends Report
Venngage | ~8 minutes
The report highlights a shift toward lo-fi authenticity, fewer polished visuals, more modular content, and collaborative AI workflows. It also shows that audiences crave clarity and emotional grounding in a noisy landscape.

🎁 EARLY ACCESS FOR YOU

You know how we all screenshot competitor SMS campaigns and save them in random folders? Yeah, I had way tooo many of them of those.

So I built what I kept wishing existed: a searchable library where you can actually find that perfect launch text or back-in-stock example when you need it. 1,000+ campaigns from brands like Olipop, Quince, and Rare Beauty, with new ones added every day.

Testing it with 150 people first. Jump on the waitlist if you want in early (founding members get 60% off when it launches).

🟣 LINKEDIN POSTS YOU SHOULDN’T MISS

Kieran Flanagan - “We’re going to need new metrics to define what ‘success’ is in B2B marketing”
Kieran says marketers’ top AI question is how to prove marketing value to CEOs; traditional B2B marketing relied on SEO, paid ads and automation, but AI is shifting budgets to less‑measurable channels and automating prospecting, discovery and qualification. See Post

Victoria Rusnac - “How AI will change marketing in 3 years”
Victoria predicts that by 2028 AI skills will be mandatory on marketers’ resumes; a new field, AIMarTech, will emerge with conferences, certifications and dedicated teams. See Post

Josh Grant - “How Webflow Boosted Signups with AI Search”
Josh explains that Webflow grew signups by owning roughly 60% of AI answers in the CMS category despite holding less than 2% market share; LLM traffic converts six times better than non‑brand Google traffic, and LLM‑attributed signups are up 129% YoY while customers have grown eightfold. See Post

JK Sparks - “How AI is changing Product Marketing for the better”
JK argues that AI isn’t changing product marketing so much as revealing its inefficiencies: PMMs have been drowning in unused enablement materials. He says top teams are now building AI tools that generate custom talk tracks, embed knowledge directly in CRM workflows and deliver real‑time competitive intelligence. See Post

🟡 LATEST AI MARKETING TOOLS

⚫️ COOL AI + MARKETING JOBS

Adobe - GenStudio Product Specialist

Gusto -GTM AI Agent Builder 

Basis - Narratives & Communications Lead 

Navan - Product Marketing Manager, AI Solutions

F2 - Head of Growth

🟢 EVENTS TO CHECK OUT

Marketing Brew, Dec 10, Virtual

Learn more