The influx of AI agents is quickly creating new ways to autonomously browse the internet and shop online. However, the feature also poses potential challenges for publishers, advertisers, and e-commerce companies — including new problems with how to deal with bot traffic.

Last week, Google debuted a range of new features as part of its release of Gemini 2.0, including a preview of a new agent called Project Mariner that offers to help people with everything from researching and booking trips to shopping for a range of other products.

One demo developed in collaboration with Etsy showed Project Mariner helping to research and buy paint supplies based on the kind of art someone would want to create. Google also pointed out it wouldn’t purchase products without first getting human approval and that it can’t autonomously browse in the background. Although Mariner was designed as a Chrome browser feature, that could change depending on the outcome of its search antitrust trial. 

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There’s been a lot of speculation about Acxiom’s potential role in Omnicom’s acquisition of IPG, but an ongoing lawsuit could end up a wildcard, depending on its outcome.

In a case against IPG’s data warehouse Acxiom and performance marketing agency Kinesso, legal filings in recent weeks give a timely glimpse into allegations of the IPG companies allegedly misusing data to build their Real ID identity-resolution product. The lawsuit, filed in April by data firm Adstra, claims Kinesso and Acxiom breached a master data-supply agreement and used Adstra data to create a competing product. It also puts Acxiom’s offerings under a legal microscope, which could reveal strengths and weaknesses not spun by corporate statements or marketing materials.

The case has the potential to shape where Acxiom and Kinesso fit into IPG and Omnicom’s plans to bolster their combined adtech stack with new options for alternative IDs. Acxiom’s identity-resolution products are seen as a cornerstone of IPG’s data strategy that could help it compete with WPP and Publicis. However, a court ruling in favor of Adstra could bring potential financial, operational, and reputational risks.

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Omnicom’s plan to acquire Interpublic Group is a long way from being finalized. However, the combined company could help the holding companies make  — and benefit from — larger AI investments. 

On a Monday call with investors about the deal, executives from both companies mentioned ways the merged company could benefit from combining resources. Omnicom CEO John Wren said businesses need to continue investments to “stay on the cutting edge” adding both clients – and agency employees – will benefit from investing more into AI efforts.

“If Interpublic was three quarters of our size, yesterday I had $1 to invest in those efforts, now I have $1.67 to invest in those efforts,” Wren said. “It should make me more agile, it should make me take great investment risks in testing new technologies and platforms as they come along — all to benefit from better information, more accurate information, so our real knowledge workers and whatever craft they lie in are going to have the best tools to service those clients.”

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One of the most buzzy bets in Las Vegas this week had nothing to do with poker or slots.

At the AWS Reinvent cloud conference in sin city, Amazon debuted a suite of six foundation models called Nova. The new models include a text-to-text model designed for speed, and three multimodal models that can understand and create text, images and videos.

Another model (Nova Canvas) was designed for generating studio-quality images and while a six model (Nova Reel) specializes in studio-quality videos.

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New lawsuits and deeper partnerships highlight the delicate balancing act between major publishers and AI companies.

Some of the first media companies to strike deals with OpenAI say they’re getting ready to release new AI-enabled features that aim to benefit readers, publishers and advertisers. One of the latest examples is Dotdash Meredith, which used AI to create a new way to target readers with contextual ads.

Using historical audience data and Amazon shopping data, the company trained a large language model to find correlations between content consumption and potential user behaviors. The new unit is expected to launch today with a major (undisclosed) retailer, Dotdash Meredith chief innovation officer Jonathan Roberts said yesterday while speaking at the AI Trailblazers marketing conference in New York. Other panelists included executives from Time, The New York Stock Exchange and The New York Times.

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