IAB’s AI in Advertising Use Case Map

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) launched its “AI in Advertising Use Case Map” yesterday for its membership.

The database’s website explained:

“What it is: Real-world AI use cases organized by category, maturity (established vs. emerging), and description.

Why we built it: To demystify AI in advertising, help members prioritize focus areas, and provide shared language for evaluating opportunities, risks, and investments.

How to use it: Benchmark your current AI adoption Identify relevant capabilities for experimentation or deployment Inform strategic planning, education, product development, and policy workstreams.”

The site reframes core ad tech concepts through an AI-innovation lens.

See it now. (September 3)

LLMs & CHATBOTS

Perplexity “fades” at Apple

“[According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman], Apple is no longer considering Perplexity as an acquisition target. Perplexity specializes in using models from leading AI companies to power its own search product. The AI startup had more appeal when Apple risked losing its business arrangements with Google Search.”

Read: Google closer to powering new Siri and Apple’s AI search tool as Perplexity fades (September 3) – 9to5Mac

LLMs & CHATBOTS

Answer engine referral performance

New research from performance marketing agency Amsive said that traffic from answer engines isn’t necessarily converting any better than traditional organic search.

Search Engine Land covered the news:

“Across 54 websites analyzed:

Organic traffic converted at 4.6% vs. 4.87% for LLM referrals. That slight edge disappeared under statistical testing – the difference was not significant. Even on higher-volume sites, LLM conversion lifts didn’t hold up. LLM traffic made up less than 1% of overall sessions, compared to ~32% from organic search….”

Search Engine Land’s Danny Goodwin noted that the findings contradicts Google’s assertion in August that answer engine traffic provides “more qualified visitors or higher qualified clicks.”

SEL’s Goodwin advised marketers:

“Organic search still dominates in scale and reliability. You should track LLM traffic as it grows, but don’t expect it to replace search as a conversion engine anytime soon.”

Read more. (September 3)

BRANDS

AMP Symmetri gets $6 million in seed funding

A new agentic marketing platform (AMP) startup called Symmetri announced $6 million in seed funding yesterday. The executive team is led by Krux co-founders Tom Chavez and Vivek Vaidya, also co-founders of venture studio Superset, Symmetri’s seed investors.

The press release described the AMP product as:

“…designed for marketing organizations and works autonomously across the entire marketing function. From creating LLM-ready content and predictive customer segments to optimizing personalized campaigns and enhancing loyalty programs…”

Perhaps it’s a coincidence, but AMP fits well with Salesforce Marketing Cloud’s current positioning. Messrs. Chavez and Vaidya’s sold Krux —a data management platform (DMP)— to Salesforce in 2016.

Read the Symmetri press release. (September 3)

Steven Wolfe Pereira, Symmetri’s chief growth officer, told Adweek:

“Today, you already see brands struggling because traffic is not coming from Google searches anymore, and the consumer experience has been already radically transformed where it starts with an LLM… How do brands prepare for this agentic world? That’s where we come in with this view of data first to really power what we really believe is a learning system.”

Read more from Adweek. (September 3)

From tipsheet: It will be interesting to see if more answer engine optimization (AEO) or generative engine optimization firms (GEO) begin to adopt the “AMP” acronym. The idea of being a platform feels more substantial and might improve the next round of funding or even accelerate an exit.

To a degree, AEO and GEO firms are getting compared to SEO and SEM firms today, which is like being compared to an agency, due to their lack of scale and capped growth potential.

One key difference is these new answer engine marketing platforms, or agentic marketing platforms, need to unlock multiple black boxes, not just one.

As it relates to Symmetri, their pitch appears to target the data layer, whereas most AEO/GEO firms focus on chatbot placements.

Paid/earned/owned: When one or more of these AI chatbots finally add advertising at significant scale, the “paid” component suddenly enters the AMP picture. It hasn’t happened yet. Could be a “game changer” for whoever the winners are in this category. It feels like there’s “earned” and “owned” (including affiliate marketing/publishing) today with no “paid” as of yet. Get ready, coming soon.

BRANDS

HubSpot tries Loop Marketing for AI

Was “Inbound Marketing,“ now “Loop Marketing,“ said marketing automation platform HubSpot yesterday.

The company rolled out a new “playbook” for the age of AI which seems to understand that a HubSpot client websites may be suffering from the user’s move to answer engines and away from search engines.

In a press release, the company explained the four stages of “The Loop: Express, Tailor, Amplify and Evolve.”

Express: Define your taste, tone, and point of view before bringing in AI. Your brand identity and deep customer understanding are what separates great content from generic content. Use Breeze Assistant and HubSpot Connectors for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini to analyze your high-value customers and create a brand Style Guide that speaks to them. Then bring it to life with Marketing Studio**—give it one campaign idea and it maps out your full strategy across channels.

Tailor: Use AI to make messaging personal, contextual, and relevant at scale. Leverage unified customer data—everything from CRM records to call transcripts to website behavior from the Smart CRM and Data Hub—to craft personal messages to prospects. Use Marketing Hub features like Segments** to build audiences based on intent signals, Personalization** to tailor landing pages to their needs, and AI-Powered Email** to make email marketing personal…”

Read the press release here. (September 3)

AGENCIES

Entry-level hiring at agencies

On LinkedIn yesterday, Ad Age’s Lindsay Rittenhouse previewed her comprehensive article on agency job opportunities at the entry-level.

She found opportunity:

“Yes, AI will replace some entry-level advertising and marketing jobs. But that doesn’t mean companies are not hiring junior employees.

I spoke to nine agency executives, educators and marketers about how they are reinventing some junior roles in the wake of AI, and in turn evolving how entry-level talent needs to be trained. Included are some key findings as well as new and tried-and-true skills emerging talent will need to get these jobs.”

AI was nearly always top of mind with one executive calling it a “co-pilot”. Among the executives who spoke to Rittenhouse:

“John Moore—the former global CEO of IPG Mediabrands’ Mediahub, who recently founded consultancy Harmonium with a group of top industry executives—said it will be imperative for every young professional to deeply understand AI and become a true ‘agent’ of it…”

Read more in Ad Age. (September 3)

Related: Why more brands are testing out CMOs before hiring them full-time (September 3) – Ad Age (subscription)

TECH

Google remedies reaction

• AI Wins the Google Antitrust Suit (September 3) – The Editorial Board, The Wall Street Journal
• “Today’s decision recognizes how much the industry has changed through the advent of AI, which is giving people so many more ways to find information.” (September 2) – Google
• Google critics think the search remedies ruling is a total whiff (September 3) – The Verge
• Google antitrust ruling gives Microsoft a shaky bridge over search giant’s competitive moat (September 3) – GeekWire

More:

• “I think it’s funny how so many adtech people completely ignored the Google Search trial and are now saying ‘it’s all over’ because they don’t know the adtech remedies trial is coming right up.” (September 3) – Adam Heimlich, Chalice AI, on LinkedIn

TECH

On agentic commerce and ads

Mobile Dev Memo analyst Eric Seufert delivered a screed to his subscribers on agentic commerce yesterday.

He believes that advertising to agents isn’t going to work within shopping-focused “walled gardens” like Amazon and Shopify unless.. you’re the walled garden!

Mr. Seufert explained:

“But perhaps the most compelling and convincing argument against the notion of agents as recipients of advertising is that the largest retail platforms simply won’t participate in or support it. These platforms will seek to preserve their own advertising businesses. They prefer to layer their own agents into the retail experience, where they control the surface area and can monetize it with advertising.

None of this is to say that I don’t view agentic commerce as unlikely or impractical. Quite the opposite: I see it as inevitable. But agentic commerce as a standalone, independent enterprise strikes me as unworkable and untenable, given that it runs counter to the incentive structure of the largest retail platforms…”

Ultimately, the walled gardens aren’t going to allow their first-party data to get siphoned away by someone else.

Read more on Mobile Dev Memo. (September 3 – subscription)

From tipsheet: It would seem there’s an opportunity for agentic advertising within the networked border of retail media networks (RMNs). But, once again, it will be wholly owned or managed by the RMN due to the underlying, proprietary transaction and product data that the RMN uses to target.

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TECH

From tipsheet: chatbot ads, a shaded section

I’m just ruminating here…

Is a shaded section of a chatbot page going to be the “programmatic ads” rail while the non-shaded is the trusted “answer zone”?

There’s billions at stake, no doubt. Chatbot/LLM companies are trying to figure out the tricky balance between maintaining user trust and monetizing with ads which allows the chatbot to scale (and pay the massive expenses of AI).

A chatbot will take this plunge someday. It’s too easy.

Related: Google Search Tests New Shaded Header Design Interface (September 3) – Search Engine Roundtable

HR

Now hiring

• Alan Schanzer joins independent media agency, Mediaplus N.A., as its first Chief Operating Officer (September 3) – Tamara Alesi, CEO, Mediaplus N.A. on LinkedIn
• Joseph Meehan joins Seedtag as Chief Exchange & Supply Officer (CXSO) (September 3) – Joseph Meehan on LinkedIn
• Former Acxiom CSO David Skinner joins Zeta Global as SVP Strategic Growth (September 2) – David Skinner on LinkedIn

PROMPT

How will retail media networks incorporate an agentic commerce strategy?

Response from Google’s Gemini:

Retail media networks (RMNs) are poised to undergo a significant transformation as they incorporate an agentic commerce strategy. Agentic commerce refers to a future where autonomous AI agents, acting on behalf of consumers, will handle the entire shopping journey, from product discovery to purchase and even returns. This shift will fundamentally change how RMNs operate and how brands advertise.

Here’s a breakdown of how RMNs will incorporate an agentic commerce strategy…

Read more on tipsheet.

MORE

• You[dot]com Becomes a Unicorn, Shifts Away From Search Engine Plans (September 3) – Bloomberg (subscription)
• Baidu’s Core Ad Business Falters: Can AI Growth Offset Weakness? (September 3) – The Globe and Mail
• The State of AI Shopping Agents: Three Predictions for the Future of Agentic Commerce (September 1) – via Albert Shen, CEO, BorderX Lab on LinkedIn
• Meta Allows Advertisers To Restrict Terms From AI-Generated Text (September 3) – Media Daily News