Good morning {{first_name|friends}},

Google just announced it's launching AI-powered "Ads Advisor" and "Analytics Advisor" tools that will basically do what your media agency does—but faster and without the retainer.

If you're an agency, this is the existential threat you've been pretending wasn't coming. If you're a brand, it's either liberation or another step toward complete platform dependency. Either way, the rules of the game just changed again.

The platforms are coming for the middle layer.

Google's new AI advisors don't just optimize ads—they render entire categories of agency services redundant. Salesforce's Agentforce 3 doesn't just automate workflows—it replaces the coordinators who used to run them. And Sitecore.ai isn't a feature update—it's a declaration that the future of digital experience is AI-native or nothing.

The winners in 2026 won't be the companies with the biggest teams or the most tools—they'll be the ones who figured out how to leverage AI as infrastructure while their competitors treat it as a feature. The playbook has shifted from "hire more people" to "build smarter systems." And if you're still running your stack the same way you did 18 months ago, you're already behind.

Your agency account manager might want to update their LinkedIn.

Google announced the upcoming launch of "Ads Advisor" and "Analytics Advisor"—AI-powered tools that provide real-time, personalized performance analysis and even generate creative assets on demand. The tools will roll out to English-language accounts this month, effectively giving every advertiser access to the kind of strategic recommendations that used to require a five-figure retainer. For agencies, this is the clearest signal yet that Google wants to own the entire value chain from spend to strategy. For brands running their own media, it's either a game-changer or another step deeper into the walled garden.

(Via Wall Street Marketing)

The CMS wars just got a lot more interesting.

Sitecore has launched Sitecore.ai, a comprehensive digital experience platform that combines content, data, and AI intelligence for real-time customer engagement. This isn't a bolt-on feature—it's a full architectural rethink designed around one-to-one personalization, conversational discovery, and intelligent content automation. For enterprise marketers stuck in the Adobe/Salesforce duopoly, this is the strongest "third option" we've seen in years. The battleground for DXP dominance is officially AI-native.

(Via TS2.tech)

Here's the thing about marketing dashboards: they're great at showing you what happened, terrible at telling you what to do. You've got 47 tabs open, three conflicting reports, and your CFO asking why CAC went up when you "increased spend on the channel that was working."

BlueAlpha isn't another dashboard—it's an AI Action System. It turns your noisy marketing data into real-time decisions: which channels to scale, which to cut, and exactly how to reallocate budget to hit your targets. Clients like beehiiv saw a 50% ARR increase in 90 days. Others cut CAC by 35%.

Stop analyzing. Start acting.

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Here's the dirty secret about competitor analysis: most brands are doing it wrong.

A new framework called SOMONITOR is exposing just how much signal gets lost when humans try to parse competitive data manually. The system combines explainable AI with large language models to automatically extract content pillars, customer personas, and communication themes from competitor campaigns. In testing, it didn't just match human analysts—it crushed them on speed and accuracy. The implication is clear: if you're still building competitor briefs in a spreadsheet, you're bringing a knife to a machine gun fight.

(Via Arxiv)

The agentic AI arms race continues. Salesforce has released Agentforce 3, the latest upgrade to its "digital labor" platform, complete with a new Command Center, updated architecture, and over 200 pre-built actions designed to accelerate AI deployment in business workflows.

The big news? Slack is now embedded directly into the CRM interface, merging customer records with real-time team conversations for AI-assisted collaboration. For marketing ops teams drowning in manual processes, this is either the automation dream come true—or the beginning of the end for a lot of coordinator roles.

(Via TS2.tech)

The skill gap is closing—and not in the way you'd expect.

No-code and low-code MarTech solutions are surging as vendors race to democratize everything from workflow automation to dashboard customization. The pitch is simple: non-technical marketers can now build what used to require a dev sprint. For CMOs, this is a budget play (fewer IT tickets, faster experimentation). For IT leaders, it's a governance nightmare waiting to happen. Either way, the "citizen developer" is officially mainstream in marketing—and that changes everything about how teams operate.

(Via Emergen Research

The third-party cookie is finally dead, and the fallout is forcing a fundamental rethink of how brands collect data.

With Chrome's phase-out complete, marketers are scrambling to build zero- and first-party data pipelines through loyalty programs, interactive quizzes, and gated content. The winners? Brands like Sephora and Nike that invested early in direct consumer relationships. The losers? Anyone who built their acquisition strategy on retargeting pixels and prayed for another delay. The privacy-first era isn't coming—it's here, and the playbook has changed permanently.

(Via ClearVoice)

Remember when AR try-ons felt like a gimmick?

Those days are over. Immersive technologies are now powering serious revenue plays, from Warby Parker's virtual glasses fittings to automotive brands running full VR showrooms for remote test drives. The conversion data is compelling: brands report significantly higher engagement and purchase intent from immersive experiences compared to traditional product pages. For CMOs still treating AR/VR as "innovation theater," the early movers are already capturing market share. The metaverse hype may have died, but immersive commerce is very much alive.

(Via Elinext