Return to ad tech M&A?
“Google’s corporate development team has also explored acquiring AI tools for creating ads,” The Information’s Alix Coutures wrote yesterday, citing a person with direct knowledge — signaling a potential return to ad tech/martech acquisitions as the company works to improve monetization in AI search.
Her report identifies no targets but names Higgsfield, Runway and Typeface as competitors to Google’s own creative tools.
A brief Google ad tech M&A history:
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- Google once built advertising capabilities through acquisitions such as Invite Media for its DSP tech (2010) and Admeld (2011) for its SSP capabilities.
- More recent examples include its 2016 purchase of FameBit, which connected brands with creators, and its 2020 agreement to acquire Pointy, which helped retailers bring inventory online.
Separately, according to The Information, Google is paying agentic marketing platform Hightouch to move advertisers onto its customer data tools.
Coutures framed Google’s thinking as follows:
“Partnerships aim to solve a problem that AI has magnified: Google often doesn’t know what its advertisers’ customers have already purchased before it shows them an ad, because smaller advertisers often don’t use its tools to send that information, said a person with direct knowledge.”
Read: “Google Grapples With AI’s Hit to Its Ads Juggernaut” (Nov. 10) – The Information (subscription)
From tipsheet: Google already builds AI creative tools, but buying outside capabilities could help it improve advertisers’ results as it works through AI Mode’s lower monetization exemplified in Q3.
Related: “Google Ads Tests A Weekly AI Report Card For Your Ad Creative” (Nov. 9) – Search Engine Journal
LLMs & CHATBOTS
OpenAI gives businesses a home in ChatGPT
OpenAI launched Businesses in ChatGPT in beta yesterday, letting companies claim their business, manage information and see how often they’re mentioned or receive website clicks — overlapping with part of what GEO analytics providers offer.
(As we noted on Monday, e-commerce analyst Joe Kaziukėnas noticed this product bubbling just last week.)
The potentially bigger development for advertisers: eligible U.S. ecommerce and online service businesses can launch Business Agents that answer questions about their offerings.
“Businesses can also sponsor their Business Agent and use it as the destination for ChatGPT Ads to reach more potential customers,” OpenAI said.
Users can also reach an agent through a business’s profile when the business appears in a ChatGPT response. Agent conversations are clearly labeled and separate from ChatGPT’s independent answers. Businesses don’t receive users’ conversations or Business Agent chats.
Business Hub also accepts product feeds with pricing and availability and provides aggregated “discovery topics” from conversations where a business’s website is cited.
Read: “Introducing Businesses in ChatGPT” (Nov. 10) – OpenAI
More: “OpenAI Gives Brands Some Data About How They Appear in ChatGPT” (Nov. 10) – Adweek (subscription)
From tipsheet: OpenAI is connecting organic discovery, business information and paid promotion with a conversation that can keep prospective customers inside ChatGPT.
COMMERCE MEDIA
Shopify expands marketing autopilot
Shopify has added SEO optimization to Campaign Autopilot (first launched in June), expanding the scope of its AI-driven marketing automation, AdExchanger’s James Hercher reports.
“That is our first foray, so to speak, outside of ads toward this broader vision of helping automate more of a merchant marketing,” Samir Pradhan, Shopify’s VP of product for merchant marketing, told Hercher.
Merchants set budgets and guardrails while Shopify creates campaigns and shifts spending across channels including Meta, Microsoft Advertising and Snapchat. Email marketing and ads in Shopify’s Shop app are also available, with X in the pipeline.
The product builds on existing platform automation: Shopify’s documentation says it runs Meta Advantage+ and Microsoft Performance Max campaigns.
Read: “Shopify Noses Further Into Ad Tech With Campaign Autopilot Expansion” (Nov. 10) – AdExchanger
From tipsheet: Shopify is moving into the decision above each platform’s optimization: which channels deserve the merchant’s next marketing dollar.
LLMs & CHATBOTS
Anthropic counts free Claude access as marketing
Anthropic includes the computing costs of providing free access to Claude in its sales and marketing expenses, according to its amended IPO filing.
Separately, Anthropic spent $147 million on advertising in 2025, up from $33 million in 2024. The figures, also disclosed in the filing, show the Claude developer becoming a larger advertising customer.
Its broader sales and marketing expenses reached $6.6 billion in the first nine months of 2026, up from $530 million a year earlier. That category includes “channel partner costs, marketing and advertising, personnel-related costs, compute and infrastructure costs associated with providing free access to the Company’s intelligence service, and allocated overhead costs.”
The filing, in advance of the company’s expected IPO on Thursday, November 19, doesn’t separately identify 2026 advertising spending. But, in a separate expense breakdown, Anthropic says a $4.8 billion increase in channel partner fees drove most of the growth in sales, marketing and partnerships costs.
Read: Anthropic launches roadshow for proposed initial public offering (Nov. 10) – Anthropic
From tipsheet: The chatbot is the ad.
Free access to Claude serves as a customer acquisition expense and the disclosure illustrates how AI companies’ marketing investment extends beyond paid media to the computing capacity that lets prospective customers try the product.
LLMs & CHATBOTS
OpenAI builds large-advertiser marketing team
OpenAI continues to develop a separate enterprise advertiser marketing operation alongside its SMB growth organization.
Former Meta and LinkedIn executive Caroline Couvillon announced last week that she has joined OpenAI as Head of Global Large Advertiser Marketing (GLAM). Read more on LinkedIn. (Nov. 5)
She said she’s already hiring for two open roles:
OpenAI has spent months hiring people to sell and operate ads. Now it is staffing the function that builds its presence in industry conferences, trade associations, CMO conversations, agency relationships and research agenda.
MEASUREMENT
Amazon: Measurement must validate AI
Yesterday:
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- “To me, measurement isn’t the end of the story, it’s where it all starts. And it’s more important than ever in the world of AI. With AI, insights can be instant and impactful. But more than that, measurement becomes your validation layer for AI…” (Nov. 10) – Paula Despins, VP, Ads Measurement, Amazon Ads on LinkedIn
In other words, measurement checks whether the AI’s decisions actually produced the business results the advertiser wanted.
More: “From Reporting to validation: Measurement’s evolving role in AI-driven advertising” (Sept. 30) – Paula Despins on the Amazon Ads website
LLMs & CHATBOTS
Developments
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- “Gemini 4 Carbon is now available” (Nov. 10) – Google
- “Claude Fable 5.2” (Nov. 9) – Claude Platform Docs
- Graphon Labs: “This startup says AI agents suffer from ‘amnesia.’ It raised $35 million to solve that with this pitch deck.” (Nov. 10) – Business Insider (subscription)
MORE
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- SSP OpenX: “What customer data misses—and how AI can use context to predict ad performance” (Nov. 10) – Ad Age (subscription)
- Agents as ads: Priceline brings Penny to Snapchat’s AI Sponsored Snaps, carrying users’ trip details over to its booking platform. (Nov. 10) – Marketing Dive
- Got budget for GEO? “Profound is now available on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace.” (Nov. 10) – James Cadwallader, CEO, Profound on LinkedIn
- Rethinking the auction: “Google Owns the Auction. Prebid Wants to Take Away the Gavel.” (Nov. 9) – W Media Research analyst Karsten Weide on Marketecture
- Advertising as intelligence: “The Renaissance of Marketing: Part one” (Nov. 10) – AJL Advisory’s Lou Paskalis on The Current, owned by The Trade Desk