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Who Won, Who Cut and What Comes Next in Advertising

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The GRADIENT

Who Won, Who Cut and What Comes Next in Advertising

Perplexity Launches Comet Browser For Free Worldwide

Perplexity released its Comet browser to everyone today, shifting from a waitlist to free desktop downloads worldwide. Comet bakes an AI assistant into every new tab so you can ask questions, summarize pages, and navigate without jumping between search results and multiple tools. Perplexity first introduced Comet in July in a limited release. Since then,

AI search is shifting traffic from volume to value

AI is changing how audiences find and engage with brands. Clicks may be fewer, but they are arriving later in the funnel, better qualified and far more likely to convert. For marketers, that shift is a challenge and a rare opportunity. “We hear both the threat and the opportunity from CMOs every day,” said Guy

Jasper Golding creates a metaverse protest in support of Medical Aid for Palestinians

Jasper feels that most mainstream videogames today are trying to be too polished, instead referring to Hylics or Lunacid as examples of “old skool” styled graphics packed with soul. In Jasper’s march for Palestinian aid, a real feeling of togetherness is present, even if none of these people met each other. Using reference images, he

W3C Rolls Out A New Evocative Logo

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) unveiled a new logo for the organization that is designed to transcend one language family and expresses abstract qualities like timelessness and reliability. The result is an abstract logo in the familiar blue and white colors, purposely designed to be evocative, to suggest but not concretely explain. This evocative

Marketers on why having all the answers is not the sign of a good leader

Marketing directors from M&S and Cancer Research UK share why “humility” is an underrated leadership skill, and that the era of needing to have all the answers is over. Source

This new VR game reimagines your living room as a 3D mini-golf course

The just-announced House of Golf VR is officially the world’s first mixed reality mini-golf game. But while it sounds like a quirky sports title, it’s really a powerful playground for creativity, a tool that lets you design and share 3D courses in the real world. Created by Liverpool-based Starlight Games, the project uses advanced passthrough

How AI Is Redefining Search And What Leaders Must Do Now

Artificial intelligence is transforming how people search, discover, and act on information. For chief marketing officers and senior leaders, this is not a question of whether SEO is “dead” but of how to adapt to a new era where visibility spans AI-driven assistants, multimodal tools, and fragmented user journeys. Two forces drive this disruption: rapid

Discord reports positive numbers in early Quests measurement test

Discord has shared the results of its first-ever ad measurement test — and brands and marketers find the numbers encouraging. In June, AppsFlyer ran its first performance measurement test of Quests — Discord’s in-platform, reward-based ad experiences — collaborating with the studio Second Dinner to promote its mobile trading card game “Marvel Snap” via two Mobile

Angela Kirkwood illustrates a reissue of Magical Athlete – the zany Japanese board game that’s absurd and fun in equal measure

After being out of print for over a decade, the cult-classic racing game Magical Athlete is being relaunched by CMYK, the party games developer behind beloved games like Wavelength, Spots and Monikers, as well as reimagined classics like Quacks. Better yet, the reimagined edition features new product design and vibrant artwork from Angela Kirkwood, with

The Current State Of Marketing Analytics

As a marketing specialist who has gone through the transition from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4 on countless projects, I can confidently say that no platform migration has divided the marketing community quite like GA4. Five years after the initial launch of GA4 in October 2020, and more than a year since the complete

AI Is Disrupting Everything. Why Not Podcasting?

The technology is used for back-end efficiencies, but a startup replacing hosts with AI has raised new questions about the future of the form.

What is Sora 2, the AI model some say could be the end of Hollywood?

You know AI video generation is getting convincing when people start to suspect that genuine filmed footage is AI. Some of the posts on social media claiming Sora 2 to be the end of Hollywood are actually showing a Chat GPT ad campaign that was filmed on 35mm film. Sora 2 does seem to be

How AI Really Weighs Your Links (Analysis Of 35,000 Datapoints)

Before we jump in: I hate to brag, but I will say I’m extremely proud to have placed 4th in the G50 SEO World Championships this past week. I’m speaking at NESS, the global News & Editorial SEO Summit, on October 22. Growth Memo readers get 20% off when code “kevin2025” Boost your skills with Growth

IAB cuts ad forecast as tariffs take a bite out of spending

Tariffs are cutting into digital advertising: The IAB has revised its 2025 U.S. ad spend outlook downward, trimming projected growth from 7.3% to 5.7%. The cut reflects rising concern over tariffs and broader economic headwinds, with second-half growth now forecast at just 5.0%. Marketers are reacting in real time: 91% of buyers say tariffs are

Pencil Magazine reconnects us to the tactility of the humble pencil

Sasha Wizansky, a Maine-based writer and visual artist, is interested in pretty niche magazines. In 2007, she co-founded Meatpaper with journalist Amy Standen, a printed quarterly journal exploring meat culture through origins art and journalism. With a background in art books, book binding, letterpress printing, and drawing, her creative endeavours led her to another idea

How People Really Use LLMs And What That Means For Publishers

OpenAI released the largest study to date on how users really use ChatGPT. I have painstakingly synthesized the ones you and I should pay heed to, so you don’t have to wade through the plethora of useful and pointless insights. TL;DR LLMs are not replacing search. But they are shifting how people access and consume information.

The Week in Tech: A payments revolution and a face to an AI

Marketing Week’s weekly round-up of the technology stories that impact the marketing sector: from AI to martech, regulation to public perceptions. Source

How one simple idea sparked this vibrant indie open-world action adventure

The first thing that strikes you about The Knightling is the vibrance of the action-adventure RPG’s art style. There’s just so much colour in this indie game’s charming open world. The next thing you notice is a curious twist. You play the character of an aspiring knight, but you have no sword; only a shield.

Google Explains Expired Domains And Ranking Issues

Google’s John Mueller answered a question about an expired domain that was unable to rank for relevant search queries, including its own brand name. The answer sheds light on how expired domains are handled by Google after they are re-registered. History Of Expired Domains And SEO Buying expired domains for their link profiles was a

About 16% of Nike’s footwear comes from China

Nike yesterday revealed that it expects $1.5 billion in gross incremental costs, on an annualized basis, because of tariffs. That’s a 50% increase from Nike’s last estimate, provided in June, of $1 billion. Meanwhile, Nike’s gross margin for its first fiscal quarter of 2026 decreased 320 basis points, in part due to “increased product costs,

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