The news that moves growth.
A daily digest of what's happening in search, social, AI and advertising — curated headlines linking to the original sources, refreshed every morning.
Curated from the sources we actually read.
Last updated: 18 October 2026, 04:30 IST
Search & Digital Marketing
Shopify Extends WebMCP Into Checkout For Browser Agents
Shopify has extended its WebMCP tools into checkout, letting browser agents update a shopper's checkout and place the order after the buyer confirms it.
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Google Desktop CTR Fell In Q2 While Mobile Rose, Data Shows
Q2 data shows Google desktop CTR down and mobile up at top positions, in a comparison spanning the end of a Search Console logging error.
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EmDash 1.0 Challenges WordPress Freedom With Cloudflare Lock-In
EmDash 1.0 trades WordPress's freedom of choice for heavy reliance on Cloudflare's infrastructure.
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ChatGPT Ad CTR Topped 1% In 4 Markets, Not In The U.S.: Report
A report using Similarweb panel data breaks down ChatGPT ad click-through rates by market and tracks how often the top ChatGPT advertisers changed.
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AI Won’t Kill Us All, But It’s Rewriting How Marketers Have To Work
Better AI marketing starts with testing assumptions, aligning brand messaging, and building evidence into PR pitches before publishing.
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Google On What’s Next In AI Search + 5 Local Marketing Strategy Fixes
Google and Uberall explain how to improve local AI-search readiness through accurate Business Profiles, relevant content, review responses, and location-level…
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Google Rolls Out AI Mode Info Monitoring To All Users Globally
Google is rolling out AI Mode’s information monitoring globally, with ongoing updates and suggested monitoring tasks in Search.
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Anthropic Publishes Prompting Guidance For Claude Opus 5.5
Anthropic's Claude Opus 5.5 prompting guide asks developers to retest effort settings and reconsider chat prompt lines telling Claude to think carefully.
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Court Filing Quotes OpenAI Engineer: Users “Won’t Click” Links
A court brief quotes an OpenAI engineer saying users "won't click" links and cites Microsoft data on lower CTRs in Bing Chat than in search.
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At its flagship unBoxed conference, Amazon Ads collapses buying silos as AI takes a bigger role in media decisions
Amazon’s dominance in retail media budgets is hardly a surprise, with Madison Avenue observers expecting a push to win similar spend in adland. And at its flagship…
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The Rundown: Average CMO tenure has shrunk by over a third in 16 years
A survey of 13,000 U.S. marketing professionals has found the median time in office enjoyed by CMOs is down 35% since 2010. It’s a stark proof of what media experts and…
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Behind Hoka’s bid to own the NYC marathon’s run-up period
Hoka’s newest campaign marks its latest attempt to corner the loyalty of running enthusiasts across New York City in the run-up to the city’s marathon in just over a…
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Condé Nast, Hearst among 300 media execs to push federal ‘bad bots’ bill on AI scraping
Executives from Condé Nast, Hearst Magazines, USA Today Co., and The Seattle Times will be among more than 300 news publishers heading to Washington D.C. today to press…
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Here’s what OpenAI needs to do to reach its billion-dollar ad ambitions
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts • Spotify OpenAI has billion-dollar goals for its ChatGPT ads by the end of this year. The question is: Can execs woo advertisers enough to…
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Ad Tech Briefing: AI is changing programmatic buying faster than who controls it
A survey released last week found widespread use of AI for campaign optimization, though caution remains around fully autonomous trading, with recent updates to Google’s…
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With Dazzle, Marissa Mayer bets your camera roll has more info on your life than your inbox
Mayer argues that if a photo is worth a thousand words, your camera roll is worth millions. By analyzing all the photos stored on your phone, Dazzle claims to understand…
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Meta is expanding its AI agent Muse to small businesses
The tech giant says the agent can help owners run their business and find new customers.
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OpenAI apologizes to Australia after its AI agents breached government sites
The company also detailed how some of those breaches had happened, and outlined additional measures it is taking to assess the impact of the events.
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Reco raises $55M as AI agent security startups crowd the market
The round builds on a $30 million fundraise in February, taking the company's total funding to $140 million.
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Anthropic’s prospectus details losses, growth, and, yes, a warning that its AI could end humanity
In its prospectus, Anthropic just told investors it's losing tens of billions of dollars a year, but also growing like crazy, and — oh yeah — its own AI might pose an…
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Peak XV ups Surge seed investment ceiling to $5M, unveils 18-startup cohort
Thirteen of the 18 startups in Peak XV’s latest Surge cohort are targeting global markets, while more than half are based in India.
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OpenAI reportedly ditches model over safety concerns
A top executive at the AI lab told the Wall Street Journal that the model in question had displayed a poor aptitude for following orders.
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Source: Inference provider Modal Labs closing in on $750M round at $15.75B valuation
The new financing is expected to more than triple the AI infrastructure startup's valuation from just four months ago.
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AMD will acquire Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs for $8.2 billion
The acquisition will see World Labs founder Fei-Fei Li join AMD as executive vice president and chief scientist.
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