Retail media continues to surge, yet the underlying infrastructure supporting it is still painfully fragmented. Agencies operating across retailers, markets, and formats spend more time wrestling with dashboards than optimizing campaigns. GoWit, a global AdTech player already powering thousands of brands, believes the industry has reached a breaking point—and it’s offering a fix.

This week, the company unveiled GoWit One, a unified AI operating system designed to replace the cobbled-together toolchains agencies use today. Instead of jumping between dashboards, rules, and compliance sheets, teams can now plan, activate, and optimize retail media campaigns in one place. GoWit claims the platform reduces manual AdOps workflows by 98%, shrinking tasks that once took hours into minutes.

The launch arrives at a moment when retail media expansion shows no sign of slowing. Yet, according to the IAB, 70% of the market still operates without end-to-end AI adoption. That gap exposes agencies to errors, lost time, and missed opportunities to scale. GoWit One aims to close that gap by treating fragmentation not as an annoyance, but as an industry-wide crisis demanding a technical reboot.

A Single Dashboard for a Fragmented Ecosystem

Retail media has always struggled with complexity. Each retailer has its own ad formats, specs, pricing, policies, and analytics frameworks. For agencies, managing multi-retailer campaigns often requires separate processes for each partner, multiplied across markets.

GoWit One tackles this operational sprawl head-on through a unified command center. It integrates the company’s existing infrastructure, which already connects 7,000+ brands to leading retailers across 20+ EMEA markets.

The platform’s core capabilities revolve around automation, unification, and real-time intelligence:

• Rapid Execution: Automated workflows replace manual data entry and campaign configuration.

• Unified Intelligence: A single performance view spans on-site, off-site, and in-store formats.

• AI-Guided Compliance: Real-time checks ensure formats, specs, and pricing meet retailer requirements before launch.

This structured approach allows agencies not only to move faster, but also to scale consistently, even when campaign volumes spike during high-demand retail cycles.

AI at the Center of AdOps

GoWit’s leadership argues that the answer to retail media’s systemic inefficiency is simple: AI must sit at the center of the ecosystem, not the edges.

“By putting AI at the core of AdOps, we’re enabling agencies to reclaim time, eliminate inefficiency, and scale smarter than ever before,” said Emrah Adsan, CEO of GoWit. He added that GoWit One’s value lies in bringing automation, multi-retailer unification, and real-time intelligence into one connected environment.

This positioning aligns with broader AdTech trends. While platforms like Amazon, Walmart Connect, and CitrusAd invest heavily in retail media innovation, the cross-retailer layer remains underserved. Agencies operating across markets often rely on spreadsheets, custom scripts, or siloed activation tools. GoWit One steps directly into that gap with an infrastructure designed for interoperability rather than isolation.

WPP Media Becomes the Exclusive Pilot Partner

To validate its technology, GoWit has partnered with WPP Media Turkey, naming it the exclusive pilot agency. Given WPP’s global footprint and influence across commerce and retail media, the partnership signals confidence in the platform’s scalability and readiness.

According to Evren Gülyaşar, Managing Director for Commerce at WPP Media Turkey, GoWit One “sets a new benchmark” for retail media operations. He emphasized that the ability to manage multi-retailer and multi-market campaigns end-to-end within a single ecosystem removes critical bottlenecks, granting teams both speed and precision.

For WPP, which handles some of the world’s largest commerce and brand portfolios, that level of efficiency could be transformative. Retail media remains one of the fastest-growing digital advertising segments, yet it also remains one of the most operationally burdensome. If GoWit One performs as advertised, agencies may be able to shift talent away from repetitive tasks and toward strategic planning and optimization.

A Platform Built for Scale, Not Just Convenience

What separates GoWit One from typical workflow automation tools is its attempt to redefine how retail media operations should function at scale. Instead of treating retail media networks as separate entities, the platform brings them under a common architecture.

This matters because the next phase of retail media growth will depend not on new networks entering the market, but on agencies’ ability to manage complexity without losing efficiency. With third-party cookies fading and commerce data becoming the new competitive currency, retail media buyers need platforms that allow smarter and faster decision-making.

GoWit One positions itself as that missing infrastructure layer, linking retailers, brands, and markets in a single operational loop. If adoption accelerates, it may force competitors—both legacy AdOps tools and retailer-specific platforms—to rethink their approach to interoperability.

The Bigger Picture for Retail Media

The timing for GoWit One is notable. Retail media is expected to become the third major digital advertising pillar alongside search and social. As spending increases, agencies face greater pressure to deliver performance while keeping operational costs in check.

By centralizing workflows and introducing unified intelligence, GoWit One provides a blueprint for how Retail Media 2.0 could unfold. It brings AI-driven decisioning to an ecosystem that still depends heavily on manual execution. And it creates a shared operational standard where none previously existed.

The early endorsement from WPP Media suggests the platform may become a template for how global agencies manage multi-retailer commerce advertising. If the pilot succeeds, broader adoption across EMEA—and potentially beyond—seems likely.

For now, GoWit One enters the market with strong momentum, a clear value proposition, and an industry-wide pain point to solve. Whether it becomes the connective tissue retail media has been missing will depend on execution, but the direction is unmistakably forward.

The future of social media marketing is arriving faster than most teams expect—and Emplifi believes 2026 will be the year everything converges. The social media marketing platform released six predictions based on performance data and insights from tens of thousands of global brands using its tools for marketing, customer care and commerce. The message is clear: AI, authenticity, and integrated workflows will define the next era of brand building.

Susan Ganeshan, Emplifi’s CMO, puts it bluntly: “The next era of social media marketing will test brands like never before.” With generative AI now embedded across nearly every martech stack, marketers are gearing up for major strategic and operational changes.

What Emplifi outlines isn’t vague futurism—it’s a blueprint shaped by actual usage patterns from high-performing global brands.

1. Short-Form Video and UGC Will Dominate Creative Strategy

Marketers are doubling down on formats that feel real, immediate and unpolished. Emplifi’s data shows that 73% of marketers will prioritize short-form video in 2026, with 47% leaning into user-generated content.

Consumers want authenticity, not cinematic perfection. Brands that win will swap high-gloss production for customer-driven stories that feel natural, relatable and fast to consume.

2. Paid Budgets Shift Toward Instagram, YouTube and TikTok

Video-centric platforms are becoming full-funnel commerce engines. Emplifi sees budgets moving aggressively toward Instagram, YouTube and TikTok, where social commerce continues to surge.

But the biggest unlock isn’t spend—it’s creative fit. Repurposing generic content won’t work. Emplifi expects top performers to build:

• immersive Shorts for YouTube

• creator-first narratives on TikTok

• interactive, high-retention Reels on Instagram

Native content will be the price of entry.

3. Generative AI Will Move From Experiments to Embedded Workflows

The pilot phase is officially over. In 2026, Emplifi predicts generative AI will become a foundational workflow layer for marketing and customer care teams.

We’re heading toward agentic AI—systems that handle real-time tasks like drafting copy, making optimizations, adjusting spend and responding to customers. This shift frees human teams to focus on strategy, creative direction and experience design instead of execution.

4. Virtual Influencers Will Play Supporting Roles, Not Replace Humans

Even though purely AI-generated influencer partnerships fell 30%, Emplifi expects virtual creators to remain valuable—when used wisely.

Brands will use AI-generated influencers to scale storytelling and experiment with visual formats. But human voices still carry the most trust. Transparency will be mandatory, especially since 83% of consumers want disclosure when AI is involved.

The takeaway: virtual influencers should amplify, not replace, human creators.

5. Agentic AI Will Reduce Burnout Across Social Teams

Burnout remains one of the industry’s biggest challenges. Emplifi’s research shows 52% of marketers experience burnout frequently, and another 24% feel it occasionally.

The company expects a shift in the next 12 months. As brands adopt agentic AI for scheduling, reporting, routing and operational tasks, teams will spend less time on manual work and more on high-impact creativity.

In short, automation becomes a pressure valve, not a threat.

6. Social, Care and Commerce Will Merge Into One Unified Experience

With two-thirds of social teams already partnering closely with customer care and commerce, Emplifi predicts 2026 will break down the remaining silos.

Social platforms will become the front door to the entire customer experience, handling:

• discovery

• product research

• purchase

• support

Consumers will expect everything to happen in one continuous journey, with no hand-offs or channel breaks.

Ganeshan sums it up: “Brands that thrive will balance AI-powered workflows with authentic experiences. They won’t just survive the new age of generative AI—they’ll define what customer-centricity really means.”

Emplifi’s CMO will dive deeper into these trends during a live webinar on December 9, offering tactical insights for brands preparing for 2026’s rapid shifts.

GDC is entering a new era—and it’s bringing one of gaming’s most iconic creators to the center stage. The newly expanded GDC Festival of Gaming announced that Hideo Kojima will deliver its first keynote in five years, marking a major milestone for the event and a symbolic moment for the industry. The festival returns to San Francisco on March 9–13, 2026, and registration is now open.

The keynote, titled “Restarting from Zero: A Message to Creators Considering Independence,” revisits the bold decision Kojima made a decade ago when he founded KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS. For an industry facing massive restructuring and creative uncertainty, the session promises a candid look at what it really takes to break away, rebuild, and chart a new path—something many developers are actively considering in today’s turbulent landscape.

A Creator Who Redefined the Medium

Hideo Kojima needs no introduction. Often referred to as the father of the stealth genre, he changed how players experience narrative, tension, and cinematic storytelling. His move to establish KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS in 2015 was more than an exit—it was a signal that independent studios could still shape the future of complex, large-scale games.

The studio’s debut, DEATH STRANDING (2019), became a landmark release, winning global praise for its unconventional design and atmosphere. Its sequel, DEATH STRANDING 2: ON THE BEACH, launched in 2025 on PlayStation 5, continuing the franchise’s blend of emotional storytelling, star-powered performances, and experimental design.

The studio’s pipeline also includes OD, created with Xbox Game Studios, as well as a growing slate of DEATH STRANDING universe projects: a live-action adaptation in partnership with A24, an animated series, and additional expansions. Kojima is also developing PHYSINT, a new action-espionage IP that nods to the genre he helped define.

Along the way, he has earned some of the highest honors in the field, including the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Game Developers Choice Awards (2009) and a BAFTA Fellowship (2020).

A Keynote Aligned With a Changing Industry

GDC Festival of Gaming isn’t just a rebrand—it’s a realignment. The event is evolving to bring together the full ecosystem: developers, publishers, founders, toolmakers, technologists, marketers, educators, and investors. Kojima’s keynote captures that shift toward inclusivity and creative reinvention.

“Hideo Kojima is one of the most influential creative voices of our time,” said Nina Brown, President of GDC. She noted that his presence sets the tone for the festival’s next chapter—one powered by bold thinking and the willingness to rebuild from scratch.

As studios continue to face layoffs, consolidations, and rising production costs, many creators are exploring independent paths. Kojima’s keynote will address that reality head-on. He plans to share personal insights into founding a studio, building a brand from nothing, securing talent, and navigating the complexities of creative control. It’s the kind of behind-the-scenes perspective that rarely surfaces in public forums.

A Festival Designed for Today’s Game-Making Era

Beyond the headline keynote, the GDC Festival of Gaming aims to deliver a broader, more interactive experience. The week-long celebration includes:

• Festival Hall immersive experiences

• GamePlan, an expanded networking and matchmaking program

• GDC Nights, featuring community-driven evening events

• Luminaries Speaker Series, designed for executive-level insights

The goal is clear: create a space where everyone who touches the game-making process—from brainstorming to launch to scaling—can connect, collaborate, and build what’s next.

Why This Moment Matters

Kojima’s appearance comes at a moment when creative independence is both attractive and daunting. Many developers aspire to break away from traditional structures, yet few fully understand what that transition demands. Kojima’s journey offers a blueprint for navigating the risks, pitfalls, and rewards of rebuilding from zero.

His keynote is more than a retrospective. It’s a timely message for an industry facing reinvention. As GDC steps into its new identity, choosing Kojima to open the festival underscores a shared belief: the next decade of gaming will be shaped by creators willing to take bold leaps—and the ecosystems that support them.

AI platforms are fast becoming the new front door for business discovery—and Aker Ink wants to make sure brands aren’t left standing outside. The PR and marketing agency has launched AkerGEO™, a generative engine optimization service that helps organizations improve how they appear, rank and get referenced inside tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Copilot and Perplexity.

Unlike traditional SEO, which focuses on web search visibility, GEO tackles the AI layer, where generative models increasingly influence what people read, trust and choose. With more research now happening in AI chat interfaces than search bars, this shift isn’t subtle—it’s rewriting the rules of digital visibility.

AI Is Becoming the New Decision Engine

AI systems pull from a hybrid mix of owned content, earned media, technical signals and perceived authority. The problem? Many brands haven’t optimized any of these inputs for AI consumption. That often leads to incomplete profiles, outdated references or, worse, invisibility in algorithm-generated recommendations.

AkerGEO addresses this by blending PR fundamentals, digital marketing infrastructure and a structured content strategy. The goal is simple: provide generative engines with accurate, trustworthy and strategically positioned signals so brands appear consistently in AI-driven outputs.

“AI is driving one of the most meaningful shifts we’ve ever seen in how people discover and evaluate businesses,” said Andrea Aker, CEO of Aker Ink. She noted that generative platforms evolve by the hour, and brands can’t afford piecemeal fixes. A unified approach is required to maintain clarity, competitiveness and authority across these fast-changing environments.

Research Shows the Shift Is Already Here

A recent McKinsey analysis found that over half of U.S. consumers now use generative AI for online research. That trend aligns with the rise of zero-click behavior, where people get answers—or recommendations—directly from AI, bypassing search engines altogether. As this becomes the default information pathway, companies risk losing influence over how they’re represented unless they adapt their strategies.

AkerGEO is designed to bridge this gap. By strengthening AI-facing signals, the service helps organizations:

• Improve accuracy in generative model outputs

• Increase authority across AI-driven recommendations

• Enhance how products, experts and brand narratives are framed

• Support greater trust and relevance in early-stage decision flows

Tiered Options for Different Maturity Levels

Because organizations are at wildly different stages in understanding AI-driven visibility, Aker Ink built tiered entry points. These include:

• Foundational Assessments – For companies exploring how they currently appear in AI platforms

• Integrated GEO Programs – Blending PR, content and digital execution to consistently shape AI signals

• Advanced Optimization – For brands already deep into SEO, thought leadership and long-term digital investment

This flexible structure allows companies to adopt GEO without overhauling their existing marketing approach.

GEO Doesn’t Replace SEO—It Extends It

Aker emphasizes that GEO isn’t a substitute for SEO, PR or owned content. Instead, it acts as the connective tissue that allows these efforts to translate properly within AI models.

“Strong SEO, PR and content programs are still doing the heavy lifting,” Aker said. “But GEO helps transfer that equity into AI environments. In a market full of new AI gadgetry, the biggest impact will come from treating AI visibility as part of a unified marketing strategy—not a standalone tactic.”

The rise of AI-based discovery means companies can no longer rely solely on traditional search visibility. As generative engines become the primary interface for recommendations, credibility and brand recall will increasingly depend on how well organizations optimize for the AI layer.

AkerGEO enters that landscape with a clear message: the future isn’t search-first or social-first—it’s AI-first, and the brands that prepare now will own the next wave of digital visibility.

Online holiday shopping is exploding, and new data from Algolia shows just how big the surge really was. Between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, shoppers generated 33.5 billion search queries, up 13% from last year. November overall hit 184 billion searches, a massive 61% YoY spike.

Algolia kept everything running with 99.999% uptime, even as traffic reached nearly 120,000 queries per second at peak.

So what were people looking for?

The top search growth came from:

• Pet Products: up 81% (the biggest surprise of the season)

• Apparel & Fashion: up 51%

• Health & Wellness: up 41%

• Home Goods: up 16%

Pets officially took over Cyber Weekend—shoppers might be cutting back on luxury splurges (down 49%), but not on spoiling their furry family members.

Algolia’s CEO Bernadette Nixon says the trends show consumers aren’t spending less—they’re spending smarter, focusing on comfort, wellness, value, and everyday joy.

How people shop is changing too. Nearly half of consumers now use AI tools like Perplexity and ChatGPT to compare products, find deals, or discover gift ideas. Only 23% are ready to buy directly inside AI tools, but that number is expected to grow as GenAI shopping gets smoother.

Another major insight: 72% of shoppers want retailers to use AI ethically, and say it will influence where they choose to shop. That puts pressure on brands to modernize their tech infrastructure for the “agentic AI era,” especially as peak season traffic gets even heavier.

Algolia says relevance and speed in search directly translate into revenue—every millisecond saved helps shoppers find what they want, boosts conversions, and keeps customers loyal.

Postmedia Network Inc. has introduced Tails Told, a digital platform designed to help pet owners honour the animals that shaped their lives. The launch expands Postmedia’s growing portfolio of consumer-facing storytelling tools and builds on the success of Lives Told, the company’s biography service.

Tails Told converts personal memories into polished digital tributes. Users can submit photos and stories, and Postmedia’s team turns them into crafted narratives that capture each pet’s personality. The concept feels familiar to anyone who has seen the rise of digital memorial platforms, yet it stands out because of its focus on pets and its use of narrative craft rather than automated templates.

Aleya MacFayden, Vice President of Product Innovation & Partnerships at Postmedia Elevate, says the platform offers a direct way for people to celebrate the animals that shaped their daily lives. The service aims to make remembrance less overwhelming and more accessible for families who want something lasting but simple.

The launch comes with a charitable component. Postmedia will donate ten per cent of all Tails Told stories sold in Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia to the provincial SPCAs. The timing matters, as the winter months typically strain shelter resources. The move offers a way for the platform to contribute beyond engagement metrics and early adoption.

Tails Told also supports gifting. For the holiday season, the company expects stories to become an option for pet lovers searching for something more meaningful than a typical pet accessory or treat. With digital storytelling gaining momentum across consumer categories, Postmedia is positioning Tails Told as both a keepsake creator and a marketing channel with emotional depth.

The platform is available now at TailsTold.com.

Category Communications, one of Canada’s emerging PR agencies, has promoted Rachael D’Amore to Vice President and Partner. The move marks a strategic leadership expansion as the firm positions itself as a top choice for changemakers across technology, real estate, and financial services.

The agency launched in 2024 and has been scaling at a notable pace. It has secured clients such as Clutch, Xanadu, Merchant Growth, Singlekey, and Nextdoor—an impressive lineup for a firm not yet two years old. Equally telling is the talent it continues to attract. Recent hires include veterans like former BetaKit and The Logic journalist Jessica Galang, along with communications professionals Rachel Caria and Kirstie Bowman. With these additions, the team now stands at 11.

D’Amore, who spent a decade in traditional journalism before shifting into PR, will continue shaping senior-level strategy while accelerating team development and business growth efforts. Her storytelling background gives the agency an edge in a market where narrative, credibility, and clarity increasingly separate standout brands from the noise.

She says joining the partnership alongside co-founders Chantel Cassar and Lauren Arnold is a milestone that reflects the agency’s ambition. Her focus remains on supporting innovators across Canada and strengthening the firm’s impact-driven approach.

The co-founders point to her leadership over the past year as a catalyst for the agency’s upward trajectory. From overseeing flagship accounts to mentoring rising talent, D’Amore has played a central role in shaping Category Communications’ model—one that blends newsroom instincts with PR execution.

With rapid growth, a sharpening client mix, and a leadership team built on editorial and strategic depth, the agency is positioning itself as a competitive force in Canada’s evolving communications landscape.

Attentive reports its strongest Cyber Week ever, driving nearly $2B in revenue as AI-powered personalization boosts performance across SMS, email, and push.

Attentive has capped Cyber Week with its strongest performance to date, delivering nearly $2 billion in revenue for more than 8,000 brands. The AI-driven marketing platform pushed out 5.7 billion SMS, email, and push messages, marking a 46% jump in volume year-over-year—all while maintaining zero downtime during the industry’s most pressure-packed week.

The surge reflects a year of strategic expansion across enterprise clients, deeper investment in email and push, and significant platform optimization. In an ecosystem where reliability is non-negotiable, Attentive’s uninterrupted performance helped brands cut through the noise with targeted, transactional messaging.

Amit Jhawar, Attentive’s CEO, credits real-time intent understanding as the differentiator. AI enabled marketers to deliver tailored content at scale, turning billions of signals into moments of conversion. In a Cyber Week defined by shifting consumer patterns and constant competition, precision mattered more than promotion volume.

The numbers back it up. Brands using Attentive’s agentic AI grew twice as fast as those not using the technology. Smart segmentation and channel optimization ensured messages landed where customers were most likely to act. The result: higher engagement, fewer missed opportunities, and stronger omnichannel consistency.

Attentive’s CMO, Keri McGhee, says the winners this season were the brands that prioritized relevance over broad reach. AI stitched together individual preferences—timing, product interest, channel selection—and turned them into conversion-ready workflows. With consumer attention fragmented across every device, this level of responsiveness proved essential.

Omnichannel orchestration was another story driver. Record performance spanned every channel. SMS revenue rose 42%, while email climbed 29%, supported by a 4.7% increase in click-through rates and a 17% reduction in opt-outs. Even as inbox competition intensified, Attentive’s tooling helped brands sustain engagement without sacrificing consumer trust.

CTO Antonio Silveira underscores the achievement as a proof point for platform scalability. Many companies promise personalization at scale, but few deliver it during Black Friday–Cyber Monday, when message spikes and unpredictable demand can break even seasoned systems. Attentive’s stability under peak load signals its readiness for the next evolution of AI-powered marketing.

With AI now firmly embedded in the shopping experience, Cyber Week 2025 showed a clear shift: brands that adopted intelligent orchestration accelerated, while others played catch-up. Attentive is betting that the next retail cycle will deepen this divide as marketers push harder for efficiency, automation, and real-time personalization.