As global regulators increase their scrutiny on Visa and Mastercard over merchant fees, India has chosen a different path: creating rival payment networks that are increasingly sidelining international card networks. The strategy builds on India’s Unified Payments Interface, known as UPI, a nine-year-old system that now processes more than 13 billion real-time transactions monthly, or […]

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Elon Musk-owned social network X said today that it is rolling out labels for parody or satire accounts to differentiate them from other accounts. In the past, users, including news presenters, have mistaken posts from parody accounts as authentic statements made by real people or entities. The company’s safety account on the platform said that […]

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After another year of rapid AI development and experimentation, tech and marketing experts think 2025 could help move adoption beyond the testing phase.

The factors in play come from multiple fronts. Tech companies are expanding access to AI content creation, agencies are working on ways to improve workflows for various tools, and enterprise-focused companies are looking for more ways to drive better performance with specific applications. Meanwhile, tech companies are rushing to deploy new ways for companies and consumers to use AI agents.

While there are plenty of topics to follow in the coming year, here are five things industry experts think will happen with AI in 2025 — not to mention all the news from Las Vegas this week during CES. (Read more in our 2024 AI news timeline and how platforms are evolving with AI content and ads.)

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No one doubts that 2025 is going to be a fasten-your-seatbelt kind of year.

A new (but also not-so-new) president known to shake up norms, an expected deregulatory environment, but one that generally discourages pro-social initiatives and generative AI adapting and getting more powerful with each new iteration — the latest buzzword being “agentic” AI. 

So what’s in store for the media agency world? A lot, it would seem. For one, the mid-December news that Omnicom moved to acquire Interpublic Group has observers and analysts thinking it’s bound to set off a wave of acquisition and consolidation among the other agency holding companies — at least most of them. Scenarios usually involve WPP, which has been the largest global holdco, or Havas, which has just spun out from parent Vivendi, making it a much easier acquisition target now. 

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Ads that target AI agents rather than humans might sound like something ripped from the pages of sci-fi, but it’s a concept that’s gaining traction among marketers thanks to recent musings by Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas. On the “Marketing Against The Grain” podcast, he painted a picture of a future where  “user never sees an ad. Unlike Google, the different merchants are not competing for users’ attention. They’re competing for the AI agents’ attention”.

Naturally, Srinivas’ comments have unleashed a torrent of hot takes. Somewhere in the swirl of opinions, a few recurring arguments emerge — both for and against this seemingly far-fetched, yet not entirely implausible, vision.

Cases for ads served to AI agents

It provides a cleaner user experience
People are over the endless deluge of ads — especially the ones that miss the mark entirety. But if AI agents became the new target for advertisers, the constant stream of ads could disappear from view altogether. The result? A cleaner, ad-free user experience, letting consumers enjoy the web and their platforms without the usual interruptions.

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This edition of Digiday’s daily CES Briefing examines how brands and agencies are seeing a need to change payment structures to account for AI tools handling some agency work, what marketing and media execs may have missed on the CES show floor and how Disney’s tech showcase reflects real-time bidding finally being fast enough for live sports.

Agency compensation models in the AI era

A change to how clients pay agencies seems inevitable in the AI era. How the agency compensation model should change, though, is anyone’s guess. But it has very much been a topic of discussion during CES this week.

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TikTok’s new ultimatum — shutdown in the U.S. or get a lifeline from the Supreme Court — is the latest plot twist in a whirlwind month that’s left markets in a tailspin. With the app’s future hanging by a thread, marketers are navigating murky waters, scrambling to make sense of what it all means for their plans.

Late last month, Chris (not his real name) fired off an email to his TikTok rep. As the go-to guy for managing client ad spend at his agency, he needed clarity ahead of a critical moment for the app, the looming federal deadline that could force ByteDance to sell TikTok — or face a U.S. ban. The response he got wasn’t just telling, it was practically a confession. TikTok reps were offering make-goods to advertisers locking in ad inventory through the end of the second quarter.

For the first time since whispers of a ban began six years ago, TikTok seemed to be bracing for the possibility that its American swan song might not be far off.

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Over the past two weeks, a growing cohort of digital creators has spoken out against the Honey browser extension for swapping creators’ affiliate marketing links with its own. Beyond their stolen affiliate revenue, however, creators are criticizing — and suing — Honey because they believe it has hurt their ability to sign future brand partnerships.

The controversy kicked off on Dec. 21, 2024, when the YouTuber MegaLag released a video essay claiming how Honey, a PayPal-owned browser extension, makes money by replacing creators’ affiliate marketing links with its own, thus gleaning a share of affiliate revenue that would otherwise go to the creators themselves. A Honey representative did not respond to a request for comment.

Since December, the Honey scandal has become something of a cause célèbre within the YouTube community, in part due to the fact that prominent creators such as James “MrBeast” Donaldson and Marques “MKBHD” Brownlee had previously promoted the service in sponsored videos. On Jan. 2, legal YouTubers such as Devin “LegalEagle” Stone initiated a class-action lawsuit against the company.

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Five gadgets to make life a little easier

It may be impossible to run an uncensored network while presenting an environment where anyone can feel safe

Huge recent fundraising deals for Databricks, SpaceX and OpenAI further delay need for stock market debuts

While the destructive Los Angeles fires rage, all eyes have turned to the app that lets you track them. WIRED spoke with Watch Duty founder John Mills about how the platform has met the moment.

Last year was the warmest on record, the first to breach a symbolic threshold, and brought with it deadly impacts like flooding and drought, scientists have said.

Last year, Google released eight updates for its streaming dongles. The first Chromecast with Google TV update of 2025 is now rolling out, with Android 14 not yet here.

more…

As wildfires rage for the third consecutive day through parts of Los Angeles, now including the Hollywood Hills, several neighborhoods have been forced to evacuate for safety purposes. But on Thursday afternoon, a wildfire evacuation alert was mistakenly sent to the smartphone of every resident in Los Angeles County, a region with more than 9 […]

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Doorbell cameras are standard fare these days. More and more people have invested in connected security systems, as the technology has become both cheaper and more user friendly. There’s one important thing these system won’t do, however: shoot people and animals with paintballs. That is, however, pretty much the Eve PaintCam’s whole M.O. Carrying the […]

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Tesla has revealed a new-look Model Y meant for the Chinese and other Asian-Pacific markets, marking the first major update to the SUV since its launch in 2020. The redesign comes as Tesla finished 2024 having delivered fewer vehicles than it did in 2023. It was the first year-over-year drop since the company started selling […]

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Also in this newsletter: the bull run in defence stocks, and the car industry’s software problem