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Your weekly guide on everything AI marketing. Covering everything from AI marketing news, tips, deep dives, events, podcasts, jobs and much more. Never miss a beat with our 5-minute newsletter.
In Today’s Email:
South Korea makes AI ad labelling compulsory
Uber launches new data insights platform for marketers
Shopify unveils Product Network for contextual commerce
Plus: a must-listen podcast on the workings of LLM search discovery, a YouTube breakdown of how he created a marketing team with Claude in 23 mins, and 4 trending tools and a quick AI workflow which turns customer reviews into high-converting ad angles
The Week’s Top Stories
1. South Korea to make AI-generated ads clearly labelled by law
South Korea will require advertisers to disclose when ads are created with artificial intelligence starting in early 2026, with penalties for non-compliance and platform accountability. The move targets deceptive deepfake ads and aims to protect vulnerable audiences.
Why it matters: Transparency will become a legal baseline for generative creative. Marketers must prepare disclosure strategies now. 📰 AP News
2. Uber launches “Uber Intelligence” for marketer insights
Uber’s new platform merges trip and delivery data with clean room tech to help brands understand consumer behaviours like travel patterns and food purchases. It integrates with privacy-safe data partnerships to fuel smarter audience targeting.
Why it matters: Location and purchase behaviour data becomes a mainstream marketing asset beyond typical web signals. 📰 Business Insider
3. Shopify releases Product Network to boost contextual commerce
Shopify’s Product Network surfaces items from across merchants based on contextual relevance, letting advertisers reach customers even when a store does not stock the searched product. Revenue comes via commissions or Shopify ad credits.
Why it matters: Ecommerce marketing gains a hybrid between contextual recommendations and ad optimisation. 📰 Search Engine Land
4. EU opens antitrust probe into Google’s use of content for AI training
The European Commission is investigating whether Google is leveraging publisher and creator content unfairly to train AI models, potentially skewing competition. Google warns regulation may curb innovation. Why it matters: Content rights and SEO will face another battleground as AI training intersects with marketing economics.
Why it matters: Content rights and SEO will face another battleground as AI training intersects with marketing economics. 📰 Financial Times
5. McDonald’s pulls controversial AI Christmas ad after backlash
McDonald’s Netherlands removed a generative AI holiday ad that viewers found “creepy” and soulless, sparking online criticism about emotional resonance in AI creative.
Why it matters: Creative authenticity remains a risk factor for brand reputation with AI campaigns. 📰 TechRadar
Quote Of The Week
Authenticity is not optional. Even AI cannot fake the bond between brand and audience."
Context: Svensson called out generative AI ads that sacrificed emotional resonance for novelty after multiple campaigns backfired.
The Weekly Deep Dive
Why contextual commerce could redefine holiday sales
AI is turning product discovery inside commerce platforms into a dynamic experience that feels less like advertising and more like relevance.
Context over placement
Traditional ads rely on interruption to drive attention. Contextual commerce surfaces relevant products at the moment of intent inside shopping environments. This reduces friction and increases conversion probability. It also shifts optimisation from clicks to relevance.
Merchants become media owners
Smaller merchants gain exposure beyond their own storefronts through shared commerce ecosystems. This turns product catalogues into distribution channels. Media value is created through relevance rather than spend. Performance becomes the currency.
Revenue follows intent signals
Commission based models reward outcomes instead of impressions. Ad credits and optimisation loops incentivise better matching over louder messaging. Marketing spend aligns closer to purchase probability. Waste is reduced by design.
Our takeaway: Contextual commerce rewards relevance over reach. Marketers who understand intent signals will outperform those chasing placement.
📖 Read the full article at Search Engine Land
Shoppers are adding to cart for the holidays
Over the next year, Roku predicts that 100% of the streaming audience will see ads. For growth marketers in 2026, CTV will remain an important “safe space” as AI creates widespread disruption in the search and social channels. Plus, easier access to self-serve CTV ad buying tools and targeting options will lead to a surge in locally-targeted streaming campaigns.
Read our guide to find out why growth marketers should make sure CTV is part of their 2026 media mix.
What To Watch
I Built An Entire AI Marketing Team With Claude Code In 23 Minutes
A practical build-along showing how to spin up agent-style marketing workflows (brief creation, draft generation, QA, and iteration) using Claude Code. It’s useful if you want “small team output” without the Slack chaos, and it’s realistic enough to copy for next week’s campaign - watch it here.
Podcasts
How AI search really picks winners: ChatGPT, LLMs and the future of retail discovery
This episode digs into how LLMs are becoming the new “front door” for shopping, and what that does to discovery when the model recommends one product instead of ten blue links. It covers what “Generative Engine Optimisation” actually means in practice, plus the practical prep marketers need (content, product data, trust signals) for AI-driven retail discovery.
AI Training
Turn customer reviews into high-converting ad angles
The overview: Use AI to extract emotional triggers from real customer reviews and turn them into performance-ready ad angles in under 30 minutes.
Step-by-step:
Export reviews
Export recent reviews from Google Reviews, Trustpilot or G2 into a Google Sheet.Cluster themes
Paste the raw review text into ChatGPT and prompt it to cluster feedback by emotion, objection and outcome.Write angles
Ask ChatGPT to convert each cluster into 3 ad angles with a headline, hook and CTA.Adapt channels
Use Claude or ChatGPT to rewrite the angles for paid social, search ads and landing page hero copy.Tag tests
Drop the final angles into your ad platform or testing doc and tag by theme for optimisation.
Pro tip: Run the same workflow on competitor reviews to uncover angles they are underusing.
Trending AI Tools For Marketers
Here are 4 trending tools to explore this week. Quick, practical upgrades to your AI marketing arsenal:
✍️ Incredible (Deep Work AI Agents) – Automate workflow tasks and free up human creativity.
🔗 SnapTodo – AI-powered priority task assistant for marketing teams.
🎬 Echo – Turn your inbox into a live dashboard so you can track leads, renewals and client signals without spreadsheets.
📈 Protaigé – Your AI marketing agency that launches branded campaigns. Protaigé automates campaign creation end-to-end, from messaging and creative assets to channel scheduling.
