In an interview with YouTube CEO Neal Mohan, New York Times reporter Lulu Garcia-Navarro poked at the growing impact of social media, and YouTube video in particular, in our daily lives.
Though nothing specifically ads-related was discussed, Garcia-Navarro asked about the “AI slop” trend which Mohan had previously “declared war” on in a speech in January.
He said in the NYT interview published Saturday:
“I don’t think that this is a solved question by any means. And frankly, the rate at which A.I. is impacting all of our lives, the ground beneath that question is changing on a weekly basis, if not faster. But I have this very firm conviction that it will never replace human creativity. People want to see an artist onstage because they know something about her life story and they have some background in terms of why she wrote the lyrics that way and why she’s performing it that way.
Because of this notion of human stories on YouTube, I absolutely cannot have it be overrun with A.I. slop. A.I. can be a tool to produce amazing content or further democratize content creation, but it can also allow for the creation of lots of low-quality content. There are aspects of it that are not new. The part that’s new is the scale, but the notion of low-quality content, clickbaity content — we’ve been able to deal with that on YouTube. I also think that we have to have a bit of a delicate hand on this. And I would tell you that every day we’re trying to really strike that balance, but we’re very, very focused on making sure that when you open up the YouTube app, it’s not a feed of A.I. slop.”
Read: “The Interview: What Is YouTube’s Dominance Doing to Us? We Asked Its C.E.O.” (March 28) – New York Times (subscription)
Related: “YouTube Lays Claim to Another Crown: The World’s Largest Media Company” – The Hollywood Reporter
From tipsheet: Like just about everything in media and AI, we’re just getting started with AI-generated content. It will only get better and more compelling. For starters, imagine a massive compendium of AI-generated video clips bringing to life much of recorded history for educational purposes.
And yes, there will be tons and tons and tons of AI slop.
Quality-seeking, contextual ad tech to the rescue?
LLMs & CHATBOTS
Developments
- Anthropic’s Claude popularity with paying consumers is skyrocketing (March 28) – TechCrunch
- Plugins in Codex (March 27) – OpenAI Developers
- Anthropic acknowledges testing new AI model representing ‘step change’ in capabilities, after accidental data leak reveals its existence (March 27) – Fortune
COMMERCE MEDIA
Retailer apps in ChatGPT: Carrefour
The race is on for retailers to establish their footprint — i.e., apps — within ChatGPT.
European retailer Carrefour is the latest according to Retail Insight Network:
“Carrefour has introduced a new AI-powered grocery shopping service on ChatGPT, becoming the first major European retailer to integrate its full product offering directly into the chatbot interface. (…)
The launch targets France’s estimated 26 million ChatGPT users and forms part of Carrefour’s broader digital transformation strategy focused on AI-driven retail services.”
Read: “Carrefour becomes first European retailer to offer shopping on ChatGPT” (March 27) – Retail Insight Network
From tipsheet: The retail media network (RMN) executive today is wondering, “When will ads appear in my retailer’s app which is embedded within ChatGPT?”
PLATFORMS
Forrester report: Amazon Ads in the lead
On Friday, Amazon Ads executive Galen Sather announced that Amazon Ads platform has been awarded a “Leader” designation in The Forrester “Wave” report: “Omnichannel Advertising Platforms, Q1 2026.”
Sather also highlighted the company’s agentic efforts, which she positioned as a key differentiator:
“Over the past few months, I’ve been the STO GTM lead working with our talented product managers on Ads Agent, our always-on, AI companion that simplifies how you plan, launch, and optimize campaigns on Amazon Ads. This provided me with the opportunity to partner with our product marketing team and sales leaders to demo Ads Agent for Forrester, so this is a big personal win for me as well!”
Read more on LinkedIn. (March 27)
More:
- The Forrester Wave™: Omnichannel Advertising Platforms, Q1 2026 – Forrester ($$$)
- “Boost advertising efficiency with Ads Agent” (November 2025) – Amazon
- Amazon Ads’ Ads Agent – product page
Related: Podcast: “In the Know” with Amazon’s Galen Sather to discuss the latest Amazon DSP’s global buying updates…” (June 2025) – LinkedIn
From tipsheet: As always, Forrester Wave reports reflect one firm’s methodology and vendor set—Meta, for example, is not included.
The report is another directional indicator on the “Amazon DSP vs. The Trade Desk” battle.
Amazon is not missing an opportunity to say so. The DSP remains the execution layer within Amazon Ads.
Meanwhile, ‘DSP as product’ is becoming ‘DSP as infrastructure’ beneath an AI agent interface.
SEARCH
adMarketplace recalibrates for AI search
adMarketplace chief product officer Sam Cox talked to AdExchanger last week about the latest plans for his company’s platform. The former Google/Amazon/IAS executive is tasked with shepherding adMarketplace’s search ad network into the age of “AI search.”
Mr. Cox told AdExchanger’s Allison Schiff, “I think this is a time for betting, and betting hard.”
On his company’s AI roadmap, he shared:
“It comes down to three things: relevance, what I call “objects of decoration” and ad selection.
On relevance, we’re using AI to better interpret and normalize queries from long, messy natural language to more structured intent.
What I mean by objects of decoration is that we’re borrowing from OpenRTB. An RTB call can contain hundreds of fields, and third-party search has a lot to learn from that. We’re figuring out which fields matter, which are populated and how to layer causal signals on top of the query term without drifting into user-specific targeting, especially with privacy-centric partners like Firefox and Opera.
The third piece, ad selection, is about using AI to decide which ads, formats and copy to show in a given context.”
Read more in AdExchanger. (March 27)
TECH
eMarketer monitoring LLM visibility
eMarketer CEO Matthias Braun announced his firm’s formalized entry into the generative engine optimization space with its “AI Visibility Index.”
He explained on LinkedIn Friday:
“There are now over 900m people using ChatGPT every week. And one question we keep getting from brand managers is – does my brand show up when someone asks ChatGPT for a product recommendation?
We’ve been quietly building something at eMarketer: a tracker that monitors which brands ChatGPT recommends across dozens of categories, and how that changes over time. We call it the AI Visibility Index.”
eMarketer’s index data is likely through a partner such as Highwire which eMarketer discussed last November.
Regardless, the stats and rankings are something CMOs and marketers everywhere could become obsessed with due to eMarketer’s very public reach.
Read more from Braun on LinkedIn. (March 27)
See eMarketer’s “Personal Care & Beauty Leaderboard” below.
From tipsheet: An aggressive CFO might set a marketer’s MBOs with an index like this.
PEOPLE MOVES
New Apple marketer addresses AI, Siri
Apple announced Friday that it poached former Google Shopping executive Lilian Rincon to serve as VP of product marketing for AI and report to Greg Joswiak, Apple’s SVP of worldwide product marketing.
Axios provided context:
“Apple has been seeking to reboot its AI strategy after early stumbles. Much of its near-term work centers around transforming Siri into a more powerful chatbot-style app.
A key part of that effort is a multiyear partnership with Google that gives Apple the ability to run Google’s Gemini models from its own devices and servers.”
Read more. (March 27)
Back around 2010, Ms. Rincon was an ad product executive for Microsoft’s MSN ad platform and Bing Mobile, according to her LinkedIn profile.
From tipsheet: I’m not sure those were “early stumbles” with Apple regarding its AI strategy other than the poor performance of Siri.
Apple has chosen an AI roadmap which involves little of the unprecedented capex investment that the other AI players are making. Whether this was the right move for Apple or any of them, we do not know yet.
Given its financial performance to-date and projections in the near term, Apple’s AI strategy doesn’t feel wrong.
Mobile Dev Memo’s Eric Seufert had some sharp thoughts on the topic in January in a blog post titled, “Apple, Gemini, and the value of on-device AI.”
PLATFORMS
product Q&A: Samsung Ads and LLMs
At IAB’s NewFronts last week, Samsung Ads and Samsung TV Plus presented an AI-powered CTV platform called “Performance TV,” a new integration with Amazon Ads for CTV which includes shopping functionality and new creator-led “live” programming.
Read the release. (March 24)
Samsung Ads’ Rui Chen, who is the company’s Senior Director of AI & ML, answered a selection of follow-up questions from tipsheet via email including:
- How is Samsung Ads uniquely using large language models (LLMs) to service its ad clients?
- With AI-Powered Contextual Targeting and Audience Collectives, can you clarify the AI — is this ML, GenAI?
- Can a Samsung Ads advertiser use Amazon Ads’ identity graph (announced in December) to target in a ‘live’ environment?
Read: “Q&A: LLMs and Samsung Ads delivery in CTV” (March 27) – tipsheet
Related: “NewFronts 2026—how media buyers are responding to platform pitches” (March 27) – Ad Age (subscription)
VIDEO
Show me: Images to video for Google ads
Google has introduced new video creation functionality using Google’s state-of-the-art Veo video generation model within Google Ads Manager, according to Search Engine Land.
Search Engine Land’s Anu Adegbola reported:
“How it works. Upload up to three static images into Asset Studio and Veo generates videos up to 10 seconds long with natural motion, designed specifically for YouTube formats and audiences. These can then be turned into ready-to-serve ads using customisable templates.”
Hop Skip Media founder Ameet Khabra provided a video of her tests of the new functionality on LinkedIn. (March 24)
On Search Engine Land, Adegbola concluded:
“As Google continues building AI creative tools directly into the ads platform, the gap between advertisers with production budgets and those without narrows. For anyone who struggles to get video production budget approved and have assets with inherent motion logic, now could be the best time to test AI-generated video in Google Ads.”
Read Search Engine Land. (March 27)
More: “Resonate with the YouTube audiences that matter most to you, with Veo in Google Ads” (March 2026) – Google Business (sign up required)
VOICES
Opinions
- “The Screen Is a Lie. There Are Two Screens” (March 29) – Vinny Rinaldi, VP, Consumer Connections, The Hershey Company on LinkedIn
- “Stop Shipping Your Agentic Org Chart” (March 25) – Adam Epstein, co-founder and CEO, gigi on his Beehiiv blog
- “Why can’t TikTok identify AI generated ads when I can?” (March 28) – Jess Weatherbed on The Verge
LLMs & CHATBOTS
Netflix and ads in a chatbot
Does this sound like the pre-advertising days of OpenAI and its AI chatbot, ChatGPT?
Variety’s Todd Spangler observed on Friday that Netflix is feeling quite good about its decision to incorporate advertising into its streaming business back in 2022. Insights from a new report by Wall Street investment research firm MoffettNathanson adds fuel to the advertising “fire”:
“Netflix execs once swore they wouldn’t implement an advertising model, asserting that it’s a subpar user experience. But it’s clear people are willing to sit through ad breaks if it means paying less — and in the U.S., Netflix’s Standard With Ads plan is half the cost of the no-ads tier.”
Read: “Why Netflix Hiked Prices, Explained in One Chart” (March 27) – Variety
From tipsheet: Ads to the rescue in the name of content — streaming, chatbots et al.!
MORE
- AAO March Town Hall is today, 4p. ET – AgenticAdvertising.org
- Google RTB Settlement Gains Final Approval (March 27) – MediaPost
- Former WPP Open Chief Product and Growth Officer, Roy Armale, joins agency DEPT as Chief Product Officer (March 27)- LinkedIn
- Advanced Curation Officially Launches AI-Powered Deal ID Platform to Streamline Programmatic Media Buying (March 24) – press release
- Social media is populist and polarising; AI may be the opposite (March 27) – Financial Times (subscription)