Blueprint — page 24 | The Gradient

Paramount, Warner, and the Price of Consolidation

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Paramount, Warner, and the Price of Consolidation

Google AI Overview Data Looks Different For Commercial Queries

A new analysis from Peec AI, an AI search visibility platform, found that Google’s AI Overviews appeared in about 87% of the 500,000 prompts it studied. The sample skews toward commercial, buying-intent queries and leaves out navigational searches. So the figure describes a specific slice of search, not Google overall. What Peec Found For decision-stage

Google adds AI shopping insights to Merchant Center

Google is adding new AI performance insights to Merchant Center, giving retailers a clearer view of how their products appear across AI-powered shopping experiences. The new reports are built for advertisers who want to understand product visibility across Google’s AI shopping surfaces. As more shoppers use conversational search via Search, Gemini, and AI Overviews, product

Preferred Sources Expand, Gmail Brand Lift, Pichai On AI Overviews

Welcome to the week’s Pulse. Each update this week influences what can appear inside Google’s AI answers, and why. Google brought Preferred Sources into AI Overviews and AI Mode, new data looks at how personal data changes which brands appear in AI Mode, and Google’s CEO discussed AI Overview quality. Here’s what matters for you

Overheard at IAB Tech Lab Summit: Tim Berners-Lee on the agentic web

Digiday readers need no reminder that the internet’s infrastructure, not to mention its funding, is in flux, causing equal amounts of trepidation and excitement among those earning a living in the digital economy. Amid this dynamic, IAB Tech Lab, the body responsible for setting tech standards in the ad industry, hosted its annual summit this

Catalyse your creative leadership with UCL’s new master’s degree

Input from advisory board members ensures the MSc CIL programme is moving in lockstep with a world shaped by fast-moving technological innovations pushing forward new demands. What the future of working needs are people who can do what algorithms cannot; bring human storytelling to the heart of strategy. “The role of storytelling is central to

You’re Using AI At The Execution Layer. The Value Is In The Judgment Layer

The tools are deployed. The licenses are paid. And if you’re a senior SEO or GEO practitioner right now, you’re probably using AI every day – for drafts, for summaries, for first passes at content that used to take twice as long. That’s real productivity, and it’s not nothing. It’s also not the return the

60 Minutes Gets Drastic Changes, Nick Bilton Named Executive Producer

Change is coming to 60 Minutes: CBS News announced the appointment of Nick Bilton as executive producer of the long-running newsmagazine show. The author of two New York Times bestsellers, Bilton was previously a columnist for The New York Times and a special correspondent at Vanity Fair. He is also a filmmaker, having written, directed,

I’ve reviewed chairs that cost $2,000… I’d buy this $132 chair instead

I’ve been reviewing ergonomic office chairs since Covid 19 so rudely forced me to sit on my spare kitchen chair at home for work. A severe back ache ensued, and I got into office chairs for back pain quick smart. And it wasn’t long before I discovered the Sihoo M18 – the best budget chair

How To See If Competitors Are Placing Ads In ChatGPT Answers

This post was sponsored by Trendos. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own. Are my competitors running ChatGPT ads? Is there an ad library for ChatGPT sponsored results? How do I track who’s advertising in AI answers? Your highest-intent buyers are asking ChatGPT about your category right now. A sponsored placement appears

AI is not the skill email marketers need most

Many marketers make the mistake of treating AI as a strategy. It’s not. AI is a tool, an accelerator, and, in some cases, a useful assistant. It can help you work faster, support ideation, and summarize data. AI tools can draft campaign copy, suggest subject lines, generate content variations, and reveal unexpected patterns. That helps

2026.5.14

Rather than reproducing emotion, I attend to its afterimage: the residue that lingers immediately after an emotional occurrence, before it becomes language. The figures and forms in my paintings fail to acquire fixed identities, remaining deliberately unresolved. This incompleteness is not a lack, but an intentional pause. In this pause, the viewer is invited not

What is Microlearning? How Bite-Sized Lessons Help Adults Learn Faster

Studies show adult learners prefer training in 90-second bites, not 40-minute modules. Shelly Verkamp shows how we deliver this in the PESO Model Certification®. The post What is Microlearning? How Bite-Sized Lessons Help Adults Learn Faster first appeared on Spin Sucks.

The AI Sameness Trap Is Quietly Eroding Your SEO Competitive Advantage

Machines writing for machines is a race to the bottom. Here’s how to reintroduce human thinking before your brand disappears into the wallpaper. The post The AI Sameness Trap Is Quietly Eroding Your SEO Competitive Advantage appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Knower Tech hires Prebid’s Racic to helm a new data curation offering for buy and sell sides

As the holding companies suck up or build more ad tech, including AI-powered data curation — look no further than Publicis’ recent $2.2 billion acquisition of LiveRamp — independents find themselves in a position of not being able to afford the same kinds of investments. But they want to stay as relevant and up to

“Lots of creatives have a password-protected part of their portfolio”

Lots of creatives have a password-protected part of their portfolio – they share that password with a select few studios with the caveat that it’s under NDA. Of course, there’s still some risk associated with that method. The best scenario is waiting to talk through that work in an interview setting. Show them, but don’t

Google Preferred Sources Hit 345K, Expand Into AI Search

Google announced that Preferred Sources is coming to AI Overviews and AI Mode, alongside new article carousels and an expansion of the “Highly Cited” label across search results. Users have now selected more than 345,000 sources through Google’s Preferred Sources feature, up from roughly 90,000 when the company expanded the tool globally. Preferred Sources In

Vox Media, BuzzFeed, and the End of An Era

The sales of the two companies, just a week apart, mark the end of a digital media experiment.

This digital artist uses strong contrasts and expressive brushwork to create striking atmospheric scenes

Based in India, Raja Nandepu is an environment concept artist and illustrator with over 10 years of experience, including with Magic: The Gathering. Working in Procreate and Photoshop (see our guide to the best digital art software), Raja enjoys creating unique worlds by focusing on atmosphere and storytelling through light and colour with expressive brushwork.

YouTube Now Auto-Detects AI Content, Labels It For Viewers

YouTube is making it easier for everyone to see when AI is used in videos by adding automatic detection and putting labels in more noticeable spots. The changes will affect where labels appear and how they’re applied. YouTube Creator Liaison Rene Ritchie detailed the updates in a video posted alongside the announcement. Where Labels Are

AI won’t save a broken organization

Many marketers missed the initial opportunity to reimagine their organizational models before implementing AI technology. Now, they find themselves at the evolving intersection of AI, data, and modern marketing strategy. In this episode of Conversations with MarTech, Ryan Warren, chief CRM officer at Razorfish, discusses why many organizations struggle to realize the full potential of

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