Ad platform for AI chatbots

Adweek reporter Trishla Ostwal revealed details on Kontext’s recent fundraising pitch deck, which helped the company raise $10 million.

“Kontext, the startup helping brands like Amazon, Uber, and Canva run real-time ads on AI chatbots (…) While rivals like Perplexity that run ads via sponsored follow up questions, Kontext inserts branded links directly beneath chatbot replies,” according to Ms. Ostwal on Linkedin yesterday.

LLMs & CHATBOTS

Developments

Claude Opus 4.1 (August 5) – Anthropic
Google’s new AI model creates video game worlds in real time (August 5) – The Verge
OpenAI Just Released Its First Open-Weight Models Since GPT-2 (August 5) – Wired

From tipsheet: The OpenAI open weight models news has a strategic element. New Street Research’s Dan Salmon reported yesterday that the models “are available on a variety of platforms, including AWS and Azure but not GCP. This is the first time any OpenAI models have been available through AWS.”

Amazon moves a small step closer to OpenAI and fulfilling its cloud services’ need$$$.

More: “OpenAI available in Amazon Bedrock 😎” (August 5) – Stephanie Layser, AWS on LinkedIn

BRANDS

Fashion’s AI marketing toolkit

On trade publication Business of Fashion, an article titled, “Unpacking Fashion’s New AI Marketing Toolkit” revealed what some brands are doing with AI today:

“From Mango to Zalando, fashion brands are using AI tools to produce faster, cheaper and more personalised campaigns — but keeping content on-brand still requires human creativity and strategic control.”

Regarding spanish fast-fashion retailer Mango, the company reportedly tripled its revenue by using AI-powered social media ads through Smartly—”a performance marketing platform—enabling dynamic content swaps across images.”

BRANDS

Yum! Brands integrating AI

Yum! Brands outgoing CEO David Gibbs said during his company’s second quarter results yesterday that artificial intelligence is already “supercharging” his $39 billion company’s marketing across its brands such as Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.

He explained that over “200 million AI-generated communications had been sent so far this year,” according to Marketing Week. And Mr Gibbs claimed the efforts were “delivering up to five times incrementality compared to traditional approaches”.

BRANDS

Browser wars, continued

“A new generation of AI-powered browsers is poised to disrupt how brands appear and sell online. Marketers are already rethinking how their websites surface in the new tech, but with AI-powered browsers now entering the mix, the need to reengineer brands’ digital presence is accelerating…”

5 facts about AI browsers brands need to know (August 5) – Ad Age (subscription)

AGENCIES

Holding companies betting on AI

“Publicis, Omnicom, IPG, WPP, Havas, and Stagwell are doubling down on AI-led transformation, balancing tech with talent and proving platforms like Meta aren’t replacing them anytime soon…”

Ad holding giants supercharge growth with AI; bet big on efficiency, and future-proof creativity (August 5) – Storyboard 18

SELL-SIDE

Lawsuit update

“OpenAI is preparing to raise what could be its final defense to stop The New York Times from digging through a spectacularly broad range of ChatGPT logs to hunt for any copyright-infringing outputs that could become the most damning evidence in the hotly watched case.”

OpenAI offers 20 million user chats in ChatGPT lawsuit. NYT wants 120 million.(August 5) – Ars Technica

Related: Ad.com acquires Public Good, launches AI-powered search engine Search.com (August 5) – TheDesk.net

SELL-SIDE

Future of publishing

A video interview on “the future of publishing, adtech, and AI” with Lindsay Van Kirk, GM of Decipher at Dotdash Meredith (now People Inc) and Matthew Scott Goldstein.

According to OpenWeb on Linkedin, the interview includes:

— “[Ms. Van Kirk’s] early days at AppNexus scaling sales operations and learning from tough feedback
— Navigating ops, strategy, and product to drive publisher-side innovation
— The strategic vision behind Decipher: intent-based data, cookieless targeting & scalable ad solutions
— The unique partnership between People Inc and OpenAI
— What “Google Zero” means for publishers & how diversified traffic is becoming essential
— AI’s growing role in content creation, attribution, and marketplace equity

— Why original, human-created content still reigns in an AI world…”

See it on OpenWeb’s website.

TECH

AI marketing platform Clay gets funds

Clay, which was founded in 2017 and provides an AI‑powered go‑to‑market platform that helps companies personalize and scale outbound sales and marketing strategies (in short – lead gen!), announced another $100 million in funding yesterday.

According to its home page, the Clay platform offers access to “130+ premium data sources and GTM’s most beloved AI research agent. Then automate growth workflows to turn insights into revenue.”

Clay’s co-founders are CEO Kareem Amin and Head of Operations Varun Anand.

Clay marketer and another co-founder, Yash Tekriwal, said on LinkedIn about the latest funding news:

“Today is a huge day for Clay.

$100M raise. a $3.1B valuation.

But more importantly, we’re forging a NON-dystopian AI future…”

Read about his experience growing Clay on LinkedIn.

More: Clay, a Sales Tool for the A.I. Era, Raises $100 Million (August 5) – The New York Times’ Deal Book (subscription)

TECH

Earnings preview: AppLovin

Ad tech company AppLovin will report its second quarter 2025 earnings after the stock market closes at 4p ET today. Read the press release.

An earnings preview on Yahoo Finance says that AI could be a difference maker for the $127 billion company:

“Execution risk remains elevated. While the sale to Tripledot strengthens AppLovin’s focus, it raises questions on sustainability of share buybacks and FCF conversion going forward. With the stock now trading at 40 forward earnings, expectations are high. Q2 commentary will need to reinforce scalable growth and AI ad traction.”

TECH

Planning, buying & measurement agents

AdExchanger’s Joanna Gerber reports on $9 million Series A funding for Newton Research led by Greycroft and Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from Sir Martin Sorrell’s S4S Ventures, Aperiam Ventures and LiveRamp Ventures.

Ms. Gerber outlined the ad product:

“Newton has a team of specialized AI agents built on top of OpenAI, Claude and Gemini that function as analysts of sorts, each with a specific area of expertise, to assist with media planning, buying and measurement.

The agents can get pretty specific in terms of what they can do, including designing incrementality tests and updating MMM.”

TECH

Google search ads performance

“Google search is not working as well for advertisers, but they’re still buying Google ads. First, advertisers like Sam T. say Google ads are appearing next to searches that are less relevant for their product — an $135 skin cream appearing next to a search for a drug store brand, for example. That might be because more consumers are beginning their shopping searches on TikTok or ChatGPT, and only coming to Google once they already know the product they want. Second, brands are getting less traffic this year to their websites. Despite these issues…” – Read more from The Information’s Catherine Perloff on LinkedIn yesterday.

HR

Now hiring

Piotr Korzeniowski joined Vaudit as COO (August 5) – via Mike Hahn, CEO of Vaudit, on LinkedIn

PROMPT

How will web browsers change in 5 years?

Response from Meta[dot]ai:

“Artificial Intelligence (AI) Integration: Browsers will become smarter and more personalized, with AI-powered features like automated tab organization, content summarization, and intelligent search…”

Ad platform for AI chatbots

LLMs & CHATBOTS

Developments

BRANDS

Fashion’s AI marketing toolkit

BRANDS

Yum! Brands integrating AI

BRANDS

Browser wars, continued

AGENCIES

Holding companies betting on AI

SELL-SIDE

Lawsuit update

SELL-SIDE

Future of publishing

TECH

AI marketing platform Clay gets funds

Earnings preview: AppLovin

TECH

Planning, buying & measurement agents

TECH

Google search ads performance

HR

Now hiring

PROMPT

How will web browsers change in 5 years?

MORE