TikTok has denied a Reuters report claiming it’s building a standalone U.S. app with a separate algorithm.
NBCU’s upcoming Big Game is scoring big ad dollars.
According to several media buyers familiar with negotiations, NBCUniversal’s Super Bowl inventory is already climbing to $8 million for a 30-second unit.
Earlier this year, multiple outlets reported that NBCU was initially asking for around $7 million for a 30-second spot in Super Bowl 60, airing on February 8, 2026. However, due to demand, the company has already reached its cap for the number of spots that were available for advertisers to buy during the upfront season.
Three buyers confirmed to ADWEEK that NBCU is now looking for $8 million for a 30-second ad and an $8 million match across its other sports properties, including offerings like the NBA and the 2026 Winter Olympics.
In addition to the Super Bowl on Feb. 8, NBCU entered this year’s upfront touting a February that also includes the Winter Olympics (starts Feb. 6) and the NBA All-Star Game (weekend of Feb. 13), with all of those tentpoles receiving “a lot of interest,” Karen Kovacs, NBCU’s president of advertising and partnerships, previously told ADWEEK.
“There will be a fair number of clients—a pretty decent chunk of clients—that are paying $8 million a spot and matching that dollar volume in other sports with NBC,” one buyer said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
According to a second buyer, NBCU is creating a list of advertisers that want to get in on its offer, and if advertisers are willing to pay more than $8 million for an ad and an $8 million match, they’ll be higher on that list.
For Super Bowl 59, Fox also initially priced ads around $7 million for 30-second units. However, after Fox had a successful upfront, more than 10 advertisers dropped out of the game due to a variety of difficulties, including the California wildfires. The openings led to a waiting list of advertisers willing to pay $8 million to get in the Big Game—a game that notably became the most-viewed Super Bowl ever. Fox also reportedly required a spending match across its portfolio for waitlisted advertisers.
However, this year’s demand caused NBCU to reach the $8 million figure more quickly than expected. A third buyer noted that the company is already in discussions with the NFL for additional inventory, something which Fox added last year as well.
NBCU did not respond to a request for comment by press time. The NFL declined to comment.
Fox currently holds the record for Super Bowl ad revenue. With the help of its $8 million ad units for Super Bowl 59, the company announced in February that it reached $800 million in gross revenue from advertising sales across its platforms.
Okay, it’s happened. I’m fully getting that Prime Day itch that comes after a couple of days of covering it – I want to actually buy something. I’ve had my head turned by many different products, but I’m reluctant to actually spend any money because, well, I don’t really have any.
So I’m being sensible and sticking to a budget of $20. Obviously in the world of many of these shouty deals posts, this won’t get me very far, so I’m making sure it counts by buying something that will actually add value to my life. I’ve narrowed it down to the following. (I wish, though I could afford some of these kitchen design classics… Or a Nintendo Switch, come to that)
Credible rumors are circulating that OpenAI is developing a browser. However, the timing of the anonymous tip is curious, because Perplexity coincidentally announced they are releasing a browser named Comet.
It’s a longstanding tradition in Silicon Valley for competitors to try to overshadow competitor announcements with competing announcements of their own, and the timing of OpenAI’s anonymous rumor seems more than coincidental. For example, OpenAI leaked rumors of their own competing search engine on the exact same date that Google officially announced Gemini 1.5, on February 15, 2024. It’s a thing.
According to Reuters:
“OpenAI is close to releasing an AI-powered web browser that will challenge Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O), opens new tab market-dominating Google Chrome, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The browser is slated to launch in the coming weeks, three of the people said, and aims to use artificial intelligence to fundamentally change how consumers browse the web. It will give OpenAI more direct access to a cornerstone of Google’s success: user data.”
According to TechCrunch, Perplexity’s Comet browser comes with its Perplexity AI search engine as the default. The browser includes an AI agent called Comet Assistant that can help with everyday tasks like summarizing emails and navigating the web. Comet will be released first to its $200/month subscribers and to a list of VIPs invited to try it out.
There’s something old-school about Google, Perplexity, and OpenAI battling it out for browser dominance, a technological space that continues to have relevance to users and perhaps the one constant of the Internet, which is that and pop-ups.
This year, Pride Month saw a marked decrease in ad spending and corporate engagement with the LGBTQ+ community. It would be easy to see this as a loss for that community, which had to scramble as corporations canceled sponsorships of Pride Parades and similar events. It would also be wrong. The losers are the brands that lost their credibility with consumers of all political persuasions.
The decreased ad spend is part of a trend that began in 2023. That year, Bud Light’s sponsorship of transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney sparked possibly the most successful product boycott in U.S. history, one which ended its decades-long run as the nation’s best-selling beer.
Dig deeper: Target’s DEI retreat: Inclusivity was never more than a marketing stunt
Furthermore, Gravity Research’s 2025 Pride Pulse Poll, conducted in late March, found:
The Bud Light boycott wasn’t the primary reason for these decisions. Almost two-thirds (61%) of the executives surveyed changed their Pride marketing strategies because of actions by the Trump administration.
Numbers from June show the scope of these changes.
An analysis of social media content and ad campaigns over the last twelve months by influencer marketing firm Buzzoole found a 21% decrease in content related to diversity and inclusion compared to the previous year. During Pride Month, content posted between June 1 and 18 fell 43% compared to the same period in 2024, with ADV volumes declining by 49%.
Last month, the number of U.S. brands publishing Pride-related hashtags on Facebook dropped by more than half from last year, according to Emplifi.
Dig deeper: How to market in the age of outrage
The LGBTQ+ community, like any marginalized group, is hypervigilant about representation in all forms of media. They are willing to boycott brands that withdraw support, with 80% ready to take action against brands that retreat, according to a Pew survey.
They are understandably suspicious of brands’ motivations for including cultural holidays in advertising, especially if it only happens during Pride Month or feeds into stereotypes. The Pew survey found that 68% of LGBTQ+ adults (and 54% of straight/cis adults) believe Pride marketing is “mainly for profit.”
“Consumers are sensitive and aware of companies using greenwashing, pridewashing, pinkwashing and using diversity, equity and inclusion to further their brand in marketing,” said Nicole Kyle, managing director and co-founder of CMP Research. “It shouldn’t come as a surprise. Consumers are more informed now than they’ve ever been.”
That’s bad for fair-weather brands but good for the ones that stick around through tough times. Emplifi’s research found that engagement with brands’ Pride-related Facebook posts more than doubled compared to 2024, and they had more engagement than in the previous three years.
Being inconsistent on important issues hurts brands with the community they were pandering to—it hurts them with everybody. Research by Australia’s University of New South Wales found liberal and conservative consumers dislike brands that appear inauthentic or opportunistic in their political stances. That’s true regardless of whether they agree or disagree with the brand’s new or old stance.
Just look at what is happening to Target. It was a reliable sponsor of Pride and spotlighted products from Black-owned companies during Black History Month for years. So, you can imagine consumers’ surprise when, on January 24th — four days after President Trump’s second inauguration — CEO Brian Cornell very loudly announced he was doing away with DEI initiatives. Since then, the company’s stock has fallen 26%, from 142.5 to 102, it has slashed its earnings outlook for the rest of the year and store foot traffic has declined monthly.
MarTech is owned by Semrush. We remain committed to providing high-quality coverage of marketing topics. Unless otherwise noted, this page’s content was written by either an employee or a paid contractor of Semrush Inc.
So what exactly does Tausend offer? In short, flexibility. The collection spans six subfamilies, from the standard version to Plakat, Soft, Plakat Soft, Stencil and Shaded. Each has its own texture and tone and uses variable font technology, meaning weight, width and style can be adjusted on the fly, with 1000 options built in.
Better yet, we found that Tausend is designed with usability in mind. Optical sizes are built into the family, which means text looks just as good at six point as it does on a billboard. The typeface conforms to DIN 91379, a character encoding standard that ensures compatibility with all official EU languages and several others beyond. For brands, institutions and organisations working across borders, it’s a practical detail with real creative implications.
But there’s personality here too. Tausend is described by Koeberlin as “brutally honest, proud and confident,” traits that come through clearly in the design. At lighter weights it reads as soft and spacious and at heavier settings, particularly the ultra-bold Too Black styles, it becomes denser and more expressive. Particularly, the Shaded and Stencil variants add a layer of experimentation, with options for shadow play, texture and contrast.
The last few years have fundamentally transformed how businesses and consumers discover, evaluate, and engage with brands.
What began as a digital acceleration in 2020-2021 has evolved into an AI-driven revolution that’s reshaping the entire search landscape in 2025 across every industry vertical.
Where organizations once relied on monthly snapshots and historical data, today’s market reality demands real-time AI intelligence with a 360-degree view across all platforms.
The traditional customer journey – whether B2B, B2C, or D2C – which used to span multiple sessions, site visits, and vendor comparisons, can now unfold in a single AI interaction.
When a decision-maker asks Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, or Perplexity for the best HR software, skincare routine, or investment strategy, they’re no longer sifting through dozens of links.
AI immediately assembles a shortlist with commentary, pros and cons, and implicit recommendations.
Recent BrightEdge data reveals the magnitude of this shift: Impressions on all content have skyrocketed by over 49% since the launch of AI Overviews, while Google still maintains over 90% of market share.
However, the game has undergone a fundamental change. AI isn’t just retrieving information; it’s actively evaluating, framing, and recommending brands before prospects even click a link.
Consider the stark reality facing all marketers: Only 31% of AI-generated brand mentions are positive, and of those, just 20% include direct recommendations.
Source: BrightEdge, June 2025
This means that whether you’re marketing enterprise software, consumer products, or direct-to-consumer services, how your brand appears in AI results across Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity varies dramatically depending on the AI model, its training data, and interpretive logic.
The growth trajectory tells the story:
This isn’t just channel diversification; it’s a complete redefinition of discoverability where AI serves as both gatekeeper and advisor.
Many marketers have traditionally taken an immediate and microscopic approach to SEO. Without thinking, the focus goes straight to the keyword and the link.
However, working across all market segments requires a shift in mindset towards understanding not just the business but the broader market and economic implications that may affect how you tailor your strategy.
Overall, market factors influence short-, mid-, and long-term strategies. Utilize models such as PEST analysis to understand what is going on in the market from a political, economic, social, and technological perspective:
Modern marketing intelligence requires mastering three critical dimensions: Mention, Authority, and Performance – what I call the MAP Framework for AI search success.
This framework applies whether you’re marketing SaaS solutions, consumer electronics, fashion brands, financial services, or any product or service in today’s AI-influenced marketplace.
While Google still commands the foundation with over 90% market share, the ecosystem has diversified rapidly.
AI Overviews (AIOs) now appear in over 11% of Google queries – a 22% increase since debuting last year.
More significantly, longer, more complex queries have increased by 49% in AI Overviews since May 2024, specifically designed to support complex B2B decisions.
In contrast, ranking-style content and comparison queries have decreased by 60% and 14%, respectively.
BrightEdge data shows the industries with the strongest AI Overview presence are healthcare, education, B2B tech, and insurance. Travel and entertainment are on the rise, while ecommerce has not seen rapid growth in the past year.
The most critical insight for all marketers is understanding how AI systems interpret and present brand information across every category.
Our research shows significant variation in how brands are portrayed across different AI platforms and industries:
Whether AI is evaluating enterprise software, consumer products, or professional services, it effectively writes the evaluation criteria and creates shortlists without brands having direct input, making perception management mission-critical across all verticals.
Traditional key performance indicators (KPIs), such as rankings, impressions, and traffic, aren’t disappearing, but they’re insufficient for AI-driven discovery.
While impressions on all content have skyrocketed by over 49% since the launch of AI Overviews, click-throughs have steadily declined, with a nearly 30% reduction since May 2024.
Yet, conversion rates remain strong, suggesting that AI successfully qualifies leads before they reach websites.
Monthly reporting cycles have become obsolete. AI-generated results can shift within hours based on content updates, prompt trends, or model training, demanding real-time monitoring capabilities.
Read more: How AI Is Changing The Way We Measure Success In Digital Advertising
Modern marketing intelligence extends far beyond traditional keyword monitoring, requiring a 360-degree view across all consumer touchpoints and all key AI search engines.
Today’s successful organizations – whether B2B, B2C, or D2C – leverage AI to understand market pulse through multiple lenses:
AI agents now research on behalf of consumers across all categories, from enterprise software to skincare products.
These agents analyze your brand through your digital presence, social proof, customer reviews, and competitive positioning.
They’re becoming sophisticated evaluation consultants that assess everything from product specifications to brand values.
Advanced business intelligence now incorporates AI behavior patterns to forecast demand shifts across all sectors.
When AI systems consistently recommend specific product categories, highlight particular brand attributes, or emphasize certain consumer benefits, these signals predict broader market movements – whether in B2B procurement, consumer purchasing, or direct-to-consumer trends.
Different AI platforms treat content differently across all industries.
For consumer brands, ChatGPT might emphasize user reviews and social proof, while Perplexity focuses on expert analysis and technical specifications.
For B2B brands, LinkedIn-integrated AI may prioritize professional endorsements, whereas general AI platforms tend to emphasize case studies and return on investment (ROI) data.
Understanding these platform-specific nuances enables strategic content distribution across every marketing vertical.
In many ways, AI is the voice of the customer across all industries.
Search queries contain intent signals, SERP analysis reveals how customers prefer to consume content, and keyword reports enable us to produce content that resonates – whether for enterprise buyers, individual consumers, or any audience in between.
However, especially in an agentic world, AI is not just forming opinions. It is taking actions for users. In shopping, it can actually make transactions for people.
Keeping a daily pulse on new insights impacting your market and on what is changing in AI responses daily should be of mandatory importance for those who want to benefit from fresh, new opportunities.
For example, a single result and opinion generated by AI in a search can significantly impact revenue in just one day.
During important seasons (especially in retail), subtle category-related demand shifts will require granular action.
New product launches require daily monitoring so stakeholders can see the daily impact and adjust accordingly, leveraging AI to automatically optimize the offering.
More than ever, organizations are seeking business intelligence (BI) to transform data into actionable insights that can be quickly leveraged across traditional search and every AI engine where customers discover solutions.
BI enables marketers to easily analyze insights for larger-than-usual data sets to uncover new opportunities and highlight campaign strategy inefficiencies.
Here is an example from my company:
Source: BrightEdge, June 2025
This type of intelligence can inform you about what is happening now and what has happened in the past across all discovery channels.
Many types of business intelligence can help deliver digestible snapshots of the current state of your market, not just for SEO but also for digital, sales, product, and customer service functions.
Move beyond keywords to comprehensive topic authority, regardless of your industry.
AI prioritizes content from known, trusted entities, making authoritative content three times more likely to be cited in AI responses across B2B software, consumer electronics, fashion, healthcare, financial services, and every other vertical.
Implement robust schema markup, ensure consistent entity references across all digital properties, and build connections with recognized authorities in your space – whether that’s industry analysts, consumer advocates, or subject matter experts.
Success requires presence and optimization across traditional search and every AI engine where your customers might discover solutions. This means:
Traditional search data must be combined with the following:
This approach reveals not just what consumers search for but how AI interprets and presents your brand across every possible discovery moment.
Mobile and desktop AI Overviews aren’t just different sizes. They’re fundamentally different products targeting distinct user behaviors.
According to BrightEdge Generative Parser data from May and June 2025, these platforms serve different user intents and require tailored optimization strategies.
Mobile Opportunities:
Desktop Patterns:
As Jim Yu, CEO of BrightEdge, notes: “If marketers are not paying attention to how AI operates on different devices, they may be missing some key opportunities, especially in ecommerce!”
Read more: Newly Released Data Shows Desktop AI Search Referrals Dominate
Strategic Implications:
Industry-specialized AI models are emerging for cybersecurity, manufacturing, fintech, and healthcare.
Content strategies must account for domain-specific AI companions that understand industry nuance and evaluate solutions using sector-appropriate criteria.
This can be visualized via daily dashboards, visualizations, and custom-based reports, and can be used to:
Success in 2025’s marketing landscape requires understanding that AI isn’t just a channel. It’s becoming the primary interface between your brand and potential customers across every industry and buying scenario.
The organizations that master the MAP Framework (Mention, Authority, and Performance) while maintaining a 360-degree view across traditional search, AI engines, and consumer intelligence will be the ones AI recommends when it matters most.
The shift from traditional search to AI-powered discovery isn’t coming – it’s here.
Marketers across B2B, B2C, and D2C who embrace comprehensive AI intelligence tools, implement real-time monitoring across all platforms, and optimize for AI evaluation criteria will capture market opportunities.
In this new reality, staying attuned to the market means understanding not only what customers search for but also how AI interprets, evaluates, and presents your brand across every possible touchpoint.
The future belongs to brands that learn to collaborate with AI, guide its understanding across all platforms, and position themselves to stand out in an era where artificial intelligence often makes the first – and sometimes, final – impression, whether someone is buying enterprise software, choosing a restaurant, or selecting a healthcare provider.
Unless otherwise indicated, any data mentioned above was taken from this BrightEdge study.
More Resources:
Featured Image: innni/Shutterstock
After just over two years at X, CEO Linda Yaccarino is stepping down from the role.
“When @elonmusk and I first spoke of his vision for X, I knew it would be the opportunity of a lifetime to carry out the extraordinary mission of this company. I’m immensely grateful to him for entrusting me with the responsibility of protecting free speech, turning the company around, and transforming X into the Everything App,” she posted on X.
Her departure marks the end of two tumultuous years at the platform, whereby for a lot of her earlier tenure, the industry wondered how much power she truly had, working for X owner, billionaire Elon Musk.
Yet despite such a high-profile departure from the platform, Musk has yet to make any public comment (or post) on the matter.
Still, while Yaccarino’s put a full stop in her X career, the platform still lives on. And as such, these are the five key questions that’ll be doing the rounds in marketing circles for the foreseeable:
Who will take over from Yaccarino? That’s the multibillion dollar question — if there’s even a job to take. Elon Musk handpicked her to soothe advertisers and bring order to the chaos only to undermine her repeatedly. Now, with Yaccarino on her way out, it’s unclear whether Musk will bother finding a replacement or simply absorb the role himself as he’s done before. The bigger question might be: who would want it? The next CEO would inherit a platform in flux a skeptical ad market and a boss who’s unpredictable at best, hostile to structure at worst.
As a former ad exec herself, Yaccarino joining X seemed like the way to build bridges back (albeit slowly) with the advertising community.
And arguably she did. According to eMarketer, ad spend on X more than halved between 2022 and 2023, following the takeover. But since then, spend did return — just nowhere near to the extent it was before Musk originally acquired the platform back in October 2022.
The number of companies advertising each month on X during the second half of 2024 was up 18% year-over-year, and increased further by 30% in January 2025 to 4,200, according to data by Media Radar.
In December 2024, 52 of the top advertisers spending on the platform at that time had not advertised on X prior to Musk’s takeover in October 2022, according to data from Sensor Tower, further indicating that X has cultivated a new base of advertisers.
However, let’s not forget X filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), which resulted in its closure back in August 2024, yet more recently in June, the platform managed to broker a deal with Omnicom.
Even user-wise, X recorded more than 145 million worldwide mobile daily active users until May this year, however it’s still a 14% year-over-year decline, according to estimates by Sensor Tower. At the same time, Yaccarino herself confirmed at Possible in April that the platform had amassed 600 million monthly active users.
That’s anyone’s guess. Yaccarino was the one pitching a vision where X became an “everything app”, integrating payments, video and AI via Grok. But with her likely exit, the fate of that roadmap is murky to say the least. Musk may double down on his own vision or toss the whole thing and start afresh — again. The platform’s strategy has always been more reactive than reliable, and without Yaccarino to package it for partners and advertisers, X’s next iteration looks even more uncertain. The only constant: Musk’s appetite for disruption over direction.
Unlikely. While her exit removes one of the few remaining bridges between Madison Avenue and Musk, major advertisers are in no rush to make waves. Another boycott is always possible, especially if brand safety issues ensue, but most marketers are treading carefully. Few want to provoke Musk given his penchant for reprisals. Publicly pulling dollars could invite backlash, which would be precarious given the volatile state of the macroeconomic environment. For now, most will watch from the sidelines.
X did not respond to Digiday’s request for comment.
Samsung has just announced its latest lineup of Z series foldable and flippy smartphones during its summer Unpacked event, and I’m here to give you a brief rundown of these 3 new devices, plus share some discount codes to help you save on any potential pre-orders. The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7, Z Flip7, and Z Flip7 FE are all available for pre-order right now, with general availability beginning on July 25th, via Samsung’s website.
I’ve covered Samsung Unpacked for a few years now, and while it’s exciting hearing about all of the latest advancements to some of the best camera phones on the market, it can also get a bit overwhelming and tough to determine if a new flagship is really worth the upgrade.
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Yoast SEO announced a new feature that enables SEO and readability analysis within Google Docs, allowing publishers and teams to integrate search marketing best practices at the moment content is created instead of as an editing activity that comes after the fact.
Yoast SEO is providing SEO optimization and readability feedback within the Google Docs editing environment.
SEO feedback consists of the familiar traffic light system that offers visual confirmation that the content is search optimized according to Yoast SEO’s content metrics on keywords, structure and optimization.
The readability analysis offers feedback on paragraph structure, sentence length, and headings to help the writer create engaging content, which is increasingly important in today’s content-first search engines that prioritize high quality content.
According to Yoast SEO:
“The Google Docs add-on tool is available to all Yoast SEO Premium subscribers, offering them a range of advanced optimization tools. For those not yet subscribed to Yoast Premium, the add-on is also available as a single purchase, making it accessible to a broader audience.
For those managing multiple team members, additional Google accounts can be linked for just $5 a month per account or annually for a 10% discount ($54). This flexibility ensures that anyone who writes content and in-house marketing teams managing multiple projects can benefit from high-quality SEO guidance.”
This new offering is an interesting step for Yoast SEO. Previously known as the developer of the Yoast SEO WordPress plugin, it’s expanded to Shopify and now it’s breaking out of the CMS paradigm to encompass the optimization process that happens before the content gets into the CMS.
Read more at the Yoast SEO:
Optimize your content directly in Google Docs with Yoast SEO
