CEO Linda Yaccarino on xAI’s effect on X

John Ebbert

X CEO Linda Yaccarino

Speaking to eMarketer’s 2025 ad revenue projections of 16.5% growth, X CEO Linda Yaccarino said in an interview yesterday at the Cannes Lions ad festival that the number is “conservative” for her company.

She noted momentum for X’s three developing lines of business (advertising, API and subscriptions) and “soon X Money” on the platform, but demurred on whether the revenue number was bigger than when Twitter was originally purchased by Elon Musk and a cadre of investors.

xAI acquired X in March. Yaccarino has retained her role at the company.

On xAI’s LLM technology being integrated into X business, Yaccarino said, “xAI is already having a profound impact on the company. (…) You bring those two companies together and there is no surrogate for that. There is no company like that. (…) Grok, which is our model out of xAI, is having profound impact on the platform and already working hard at tremendous product improvements on our platform like improving our timeline.” She said “content recommendation, content moderation and search on the platform” were all seeing benefit from xAI.

See the @YahooFinance interview of Ms. Yaccarino on X. And, read a summary.

Also, follow her on X if you want to keep with her at the Cannes Lions ad festival.

Meta features AI

In an interview at Cannes, Nicola Mendelsohn, head of Meta’s Global Business Group, discussed with The Drum the company’s announcement of 11 new AI features, several of which are directly related to advertising.

Mendelsohn says that her company’s advancements with AI and generative AI when paired with advertising are “paying off.”

She “pointed to Meta’s Advantage+ Sales Campaigns, now delivering a 20% boost in ROAS on average. [She said,]‘That’s significant. We’re becoming more efficient in how we deliver returns for advertisers and how we get messages in front of the right people.’” Read more.

also read:

  • “Meta accelerates AI ambitions at Cannes after announcing $14bn Scale AI stake” (June 17) – The Drum – on AI feature #2: “AI agents integrated into ads: Advertisers can now embed AI agents directly into ads, allowing users to chat with a bot instantly when clicking an ad, blending conversational commerce with campaign creative.”

  • Meta and TikTok’s AI changes at Cannes—breaking down what agencies should know – Ad Age (subscription)

Meta Business AI

Meta’s Head of Business AI, Claire Shih, offered her “take” on Meta’s new AI features in a post on LinkedIn:

“This is the agentic future of shopping and advertising we’re unveiling today at Cannes Lions, along with other powerful generative AI tools for advertising:

  • NEW Meta Advantage+ features designed to help advertisers and agencies easily integrate logos, colors, and fonts to customize ad creative.
  • NEW Video Generation and Video Highlights features allow static images to be transformed into dynamic videos to drive engagement.
  • Virtual Try-On and Creative Sticker CTA buttons to create richer, more personalized and immersive experiences for customers.”

If you’re an interested agency, she offered a sign up for the “beta waitlist” here.

more:

Meta Testing New Auto-Generated Video Ads as Part of AI Push (June 17) – Bloomberg (subscription)

tiktok AI & creative

In another launch from the Cannes Lions ad festival, TikTok announced expanded suite of generative AI ad tools which have already been rolled out to WPP and Adobe.

Marketing Dive reports, “TikTok is providing AI-powered dubbing and translation tools that support over 15 languages. Danone, a WPP client, is a launch partner for the Symphony integration, with a focus on its plant-based Alpro brand in Europe. WPP is aligning the TikTok tie-up with a prior commitment to spend 300 million pounds, or roughly $400 million, on AI, data and technology annually.” Read more on Marketing Dive.

more:

  • Create TikTok-style videos faster with new AI tools from TikTok Symphony (June 16) – TikTok

  • WPP and TikTok team up to unleash creative power with Symphony AI integration into WPP Open (June 16) – WPP

  • Here comes the AI sponcon (June 16) – The Verge

WhatsApp ads timeline

Former startup founder and Google and Meta executive, Rob Leathern, provides a streamlined version of Meta’s WhatsApp’s path to advertising in a post on LinkedIn. By his estimation, Leathern’s milestones begin here:

  • “June 2012: The famous Fight-Club-quoting we-don’t-sell-ads blog post”
  • “Feb 2014: The acquisition of WA by Facebook, with founder Jan Koum reassuring users at the time: WhatsApp will remain independent with ‘no ads, no games, no gimmicks.’”
  • “Jan 2016: They drop the $0.99 subscription fee and say they will experiment with business messaging, ‘but not third-party ads.’”

Read ’em all.

What happens with WhatsApp and advertising now that AI is involved remains to be seen – but there will definitely be more data for the AI model.

podcast: the long tail

In a special Cannes Lions episode of the Marketecture podcast (hear on Apple Podcasts), Marketecture’s Ari Paparo speaks to Tony Marlow, CMO of LG Ad Solutions, about connected TV and other points of interest. Paparo and Marlow explored suggestions that AI’s effects – agents, in particular – were going to negatively impact spend on publisher websites.

Marlow says [12:20], “…AI has the capability to do things at scale that humans can’t. (…) It is able to get into maybe granular areas, or maybe places of not-large-scale, but cobble enough of them together to form a long-tail. (…) My guess is that if you’re in a media planning agency, you’re human team will have an AI team that helps them consolidate these nooks and crannies of highly desirable content that may not have enough of scale on its own. I suspect that’s where it’s going…”

podcast: AI & journalism

“The best thing publishers can do with generative AI is experiment with it. If journalists don’t decide the best use of AI in journalism, then others will decide for them.” – Christian Broughton, CEO of British-based, online newspaper The Independent on the AdExchanger Talks podcast.

Also: See Bulletin.news, The Independent’s publication focused on a blend of journalism and AI which specializes in brief, “tight stories”. Broughton says the new site has been a success (“Margin is great. Revenue is growing.”).

AI not saving ads

Apple’s Tor Myhren Says ‘AI Will Not Save Advertising’ in Rallying Cry for Human Creativity (June 16) – Adweek

  • Adweek quote from Apple marketing leader Myhren at Cannes: “AI will ride shotgun and be the best creative partner this industry has ever seen(…) But we’ve got to drive.”

prompt: Can you make a display ad that will sell a cup of coffee?

Google Gemini response:

Sure, here are a few options for a display ad to sell a cup of coffee, keeping in mind different angles you might want to take:

Option 1: Focus on the Experience

  • Headline: Your Perfect Moment, Brewed Daily.
  • Body: Escape the ordinary. Indulge in the rich aroma and comforting warmth of our expertly crafted coffee. It’s more than a drink; it’s your moment of peace.
  • Image: A close-up of a steaming coffee cup, perhaps with gentle morning light or a cozy, inviting background.
  • Call to Action: Sip & Savor Now!

Option 2: Focus on Energy/Boost

Read more on tipsheet.ai.

from search, to discovery

Yesterday on LinkedIn, EVP Sunil Rao at performance marketing agency Merkle, promoted his company’s efforts in the search engine optimization space as AI-enabled chatbots takeover. Three solutions for SEO strategy today according to Rao:

  • “Making content machine-readable”

  • “Building semantic trust signals“

  • “Auditing performance beyond search engines“

Read more about what he means in Merkle’s “Search+AI: AI Visibility Starts with Smarter SEO.” (June 11)

job of the day

Research Engineer, Monetization AI (PhD) – Meta

  • job intro: “We are the Monetization Ranking AI Research organization [at Meta], dedicated to delivering personalized ads that maximize both user utility and advertiser value. We focus on advancing AI and ML technologies for all aspects of Monetization, including ranking, retrieval, model architecture, and optimization. By consistently integrating cutting-edge AI/ML advancements, we help Meta’s products achieve long-term goals and have contributed tens of billions in revenue. With our growing impact, we’re seeking motivated AI specialists to join our team and drive [state-of-the-art] research across the Monetization organization.”

See more.

more stuff

    • Amazon CEO Says AI Will Lead to Smaller Workforce (June 17) – The Wall Street Journal

    • Streaming Viewership Surpassed Cable and Broadcast Combined for the First Time Ever in May, Nielsen Finds (June 17) – Variety

    • “We’ve just announced Canva’s intention to acquire MagicBrief, an AI-powered creative intelligence platform…” – Founder and COO Curt Obrecht, Canva, on LinkedIn

    • ADWEEK and ProRata Bring AI-Powered Answers to ADWEEK.com – press release