LLMs & CHATBOTS
AI Mode à la mode
In a Google Search blog post, VP of Product, Google Search, Robby Stein introduced “AI Mode” enhancements to Google Search just in time for back-to-school season.
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Read “New ways to learn and explore with AI Mode in Search” (July 29) – Google The Keyword blog
Mr. Stein explained, “For example, you could upload PDF slides from your psychology lecture and ask follow-up questions to deepen your understanding beyond the primary course materials.”
There are student, parent and teacher applications here for a new product known as Canvas within AI Mode:
“With Canvas, you can build plans and organize information over multiple sessions in a dynamic side panel that updates as you go. (…) In the coming weeks, users enrolled in the AI Mode Labs experiment in the U.S. will begin to see Canvas on desktop browsers.”
Adweek’s Kendra Barnett described Canvas as “an interactive workflow and project management tool” and noted:
“As part of the slate of new updates, Google announced that its Search Live tool, which allows users to ask verbal questions about what they’re seeing in real time using their device’s camera, will add video input directly within AI Mode on mobile starting this week. Taken together, the developments signal Google’s intent to expand AI Mode across its product suite.”
Read Adweek. (July 29)
From tipsheet: This “workflow” product announcement would appear to have implications far beyond the educational setting. Unlocking a “learning and teaching” opportunity in a business setting would seem to be huge.
Coincidence? About an hour after Google, OpenAI offered up an education tool.
- “Open AI introduces ‘study mode’” (July 29) – OpenAI
- Also, read “OpenAI launches Study Mode in ChatGPT” on TechCrunch.
LLMs & CHATBOTS
Creative tools and AI
Yesterday, in the AI-enabled creative tools world, an insurgent and incumbent’s approaches were highlighted:
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“Turn written content into professional designs with Claude + Canva” (July 29) – Anthropic on X
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“Using AI: Photoshop just made it shockingly easy to edit objects and people into photos (July 29)” – The Verge
Canva and Anthropic had announced their partnership earlier this month. (July 14)
From tipsheet: Free online graphics tool maker Canva partnering with a Large Language Model (LLM) is a stark contrast to Adobe’s seemingly “in-house” approach.
Also of note, publicly-tradeed Adobe must please Wall Street with earnings. Privately-held Canva has more flexibility and can presumably take more risks. Given how rapidly AI may be changing the creative tools market, the private company may get an edge.
Canva CEO Melanie Perkins showed just how competitive she and her company is with Adobe in an interview in The Verge last year. Ms. Perkins is rumored to have spurned an Adobe acquisition offer many years ago.
More: How does Canva make money? (June 2024) – Four Week MBA
BRANDS
Optimize for the bottom of the funnel
Apropos to the AI-enabled ads platforms of today, performance-marketer-turned-analyst, Eric Seufert, said in a LinkedIn post yesterday that “if an advertiser wants to construct a medium-term (18-24 month) competitive advantage with respect to platform automation, they should consider how these tools are likely to evolve over that period.”
He recommend that marketers concentrate on bottom-of-the-funnel tools.
“…Assume that ad platforms optimize the top of the funnel on behalf of advertisers to the greatest possible extent. In that case, advertisers must focus their own optimization efforts on the in-product experience, where ad platforms most likely won’t be allowed to operate. This will be the theater of competition.”
Read more on LinkedIn. (July 29)
AGENCIES
Agency Q2 earnings: Havas
“Havas Delivers Solid Performance in the First Half of 2025, With Organic Growth of +2.3%, and Adjusted EBIT up 8.3% Year-on-Year” (July 29) – press release
From the release, Havas CEO and Chairman Yannick Bolloré stated:
“The rollout of our global strategy and operating system, launched one year ago and now evolved into Converged[dot]AI to reflect its expanded capabilities, is clearly bearing fruit and delivering meaningful impact for our clients worldwide. As we continue to scale our AI-powered product suite, we are committed to equipping all our teams with the knowledge and tools to fully embrace its potential, ensuring that technology and creativity reinforce one another across every part of our organization.”
From June 2025: Converged[dot]ai platform update – press release
From 2024: Havas launches new strategic plan, Converged, as group prepares for next chapter – press release
From tipsheet: Havas doesn’t own the Converged[dot]ai domain, yet.
AGENCIES
AI is an incentive to hire more, not less
On the latest episode of performance marketer Andrew Faris’ podcast, Taylor Holiday, former CEO of ecommerce agency Common Thread Collective, shared optimism on the impact AI will have on services business, i.e. agencies.
“There is no business better equipped to benefit from AI and the change in technology in the present state and to create operating leverage off of human service than human service agencies. And so you don’t have to grow revenue and cost at the same time. You can create expanding margin over time, like all of those things.
I have this little theory, which is that if your revenue per head goes up because of AI, it’s incentive to hire more, not hire less.”
Mr. Holiday thinks Ai is expanding operating margin for agencies and, at the same time, is growing the salaries of agency employees.
Hear more on the Apple Podcasts app.
From tipsheet: Mr. Holiday’s opinion is aligned with the interests of bottom-of-the-funnel performance marketers and agencies.
SELL-SIDE
AI benefits Spotify ad-supported margins
Digital streaming entertainment platform Spotify reported stagnant ad revenue in the second quarter of 2025 for advertising. But, behind the veil of the “top line” was the AI-enabled “automated sales channels” segment which “were the largest contributors to overall advertising growth.”
Spotify’s automated sales channels include:
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Spotify’s self-service ad manager – which includes AI-powered creative and campaign optimization
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Spotify ad exchange (SAX) – which includes AI-powered podcast targeting and real-time bidding
From the Spotify Q2 2025 earnings deck (PDF), ad revenues were down:
But, Spotify ad-supported margins were up significantly due to the ongoing AI-enabled ads “transformation” at Spotify.
All that said, The Information’s Catherine Perloff tweeted on X post-Spotify-earnings-call:
“Spotify’s CEO said on earnings this morning that the ad business is growing too slowly. Their ad chief Lee Brown is out (‘we need to see more progress within ads’ and ‘We felt it was the right time for a leadership change’ said chief business officer Alex Norstrom.).”
More: “Introducing Spotify Advertising’s new path to automation and how it’s democratizing ad buying for the market.” (April 27) – Spotify blog
Also read:
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Spotify is Booming—Except For Its Ad Business (July 29) – The Information (subscription)
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Spotify Hits 276 Million Paying Subs, Exceeding Forecasts, But Swings to Quarterly Loss (July 29) – The Hollywood Reporter
SELL-SIDE
Media planning and CTV
Charter Communications’ Spectrum Reach was touting its new AI-enabled “Architect” platform yesterday.
The company explained the opportunity for connected TV (CTV) buyers begins with its first-party data:
“Informed by historical performance from tens of thousands of campaigns and drawing from Spectrum Reach’s exclusive, privacy-focused first-party data insights, including from the Spectrum TV App, the most-viewed streaming service in the U.S. on an hours per household basis*.
Spectrum Reach Architect gives advertisers customized media-planning recommendations, ensuring advertisers’ budgets are allocated effectively and their ads reach their intended audience with the right frequency. Over time, Architect’s AI-powered insights will grow even more refined, enabling advertisers to better plan campaigns in a dynamic, fragmented advertising market.”
The company explains that Architect is built upon Spectrum’s Audience Reach Optimizer and Customer Data Match tools.
Spectrum Reach has reportedly (April) been a part of FreeWheel’s Streaming Hub – an AI-enabled platform focused on campaign tools for publishers.
SELL-SIDE
AI opens publishers to events
The Rebooting’s Brian Morrissey joins The WARC podcast for a discussion about media and its potential “existential crisis” in the age of AI.
Morrissey opined on the “in-person” opportunity for publishers:
“… when I’m talking with a lot of publishers, they’re really focused on things like their events businesses.
Think about Cannes itself and being able to gather together that kind of breadth and depth of an ecosystem, as Cannes does – it is unbelievably valuable.
And it is also not going to be threatened by AI. If anything, it’s going to make it more valuable. I think that’s why events are on such a roll. That’s why I think that people are talking about the ‘festivalization’ of these kinds of events. It’s because this is not something that an algorithm is going to be able to do.
People are still going to be needing to interact with other people. And it is one area that you’re not going to get wiped away by AI or by tech companies…”
Hear more on the Apple Podcasts app. (July 29)
PROMPT
As an ad agency executive, how should I think about my compensation today versus 5 years from now?
Response from Anthropic’s Claude.ai:
Think about your compensation strategy in the context of significant industry disruption and changing value creation models…
MORE
- AI glasses are coming… “Meta Ray-Ban, Ads in AI Chats” (July 29) – MBI Deep Dives
- Opinion: Why LLMs Might Finally Be Good News for Premium Publishers (July 23) – Michael Lehman, CEO, Nativo on Adweek
- Amazon-backed Skild AI unveils general-purpose AI model for multi-purpose robots (July 29) – Reuters (subscription)
- Opinion – “The third browser war: The fight that’s set to rewrite the rules of digital advertising” (July 24) – AdNews
- Yelp is creating its own AI videos about restaurants (July 29) – The Verge