It’s an indictment of the current YouTube user experience that ad-free access is now seen as some internet Holy Grail
Fed up with skipping YouTube ads? Good news: we’ve spotted a sneaky way to watch YouTube ad-free – something that, before the avalanche of commercials, used to just be known as using YouTube
There’s no need to cough up a minimum of $7.99/£12.99 per month for a YouTube Premium subscription… and no need to buy a dodgy ad-blocking app that probably won’t work.
Here’s the trick: You can watch YouTube ad-free in Albania by using a VPN to connect to an Albanian server.
How to watch ad-free YouTube without paying (it works)
YouTube serves no ads in Albania due to its smaller market size. And while some Redditors have spotted the occasional ad, we tried it in January 2026 and were served 0 ads after 2.5 viewing hours.
But what if you’re not in Albania? Well, you can use a VPN (virtual private network) and set your location to ‘Albania’.
It’s clearly a popular workaround for bypassing ads without paying for YouTube Premium. If you’re ready to go, sign up below and watch YouTube ad-free without paying…
Use a VPN to access YouTube Albania from abroad
NordVPN is our best VPN (we actually have our own in-house expert, Mike, who tests VPNs 24/7 and rates NordVPN No.1 for price, features, security, etc).
We find Nord works best for streaming – allow you to access your usual streaming services when abroad.
You can sign up in minutes and start watching YouTube ad-free…
Quick start: Using a VPN to watch YouTube ad-free
Once you’ve signed up with your chosen VPN:
1. Open the NordVPN app.
2. Connect to a server based in Albania.
3. Fire up YouTube Albania. If that doesn’t work, try it in Google Chrome’s Incognito mode and you should be off to the races.
4. Keep in mind that Google may try to close off this particular loophole one day.
In conclusion
It’s an indictment of the average YouTube user experience in 2026 that ad-free access is now being treated as some internet Holy Grail.
It certainly doesn’t help that skipping one or several ads at the start of a video is no guarantee that you won’t then need to navigate one or more ad breaks and possibly an advertorial too.
Disclaimer
We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example: 1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service). 2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad. We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.
Feature Image credit: Sean Gallup via Getty Images
Aatif is a freelance copywriter and journalist based in the UK. He’s written about technology, science and politics for publications including Gizmodo, The Independent, Trusted Reviews and Newsweek, but focuses on streaming at Future, an arrangement that combines two of his greatest passions: sport and penny-pinching.
What will shape the year ahead — and how can businesses prepare?
On Thursday, January 29th at 9.00am, AAI invites you to join an exclusive webinar, The World Ahead 2026, featuring renowned economists Jim Power and Chris Johns.
Now in its 16th year, AAI’s annual look into the future brings together expert insight, economic context and informed analysis to help members and industry stakeholders anticipate change and plan with clarity.
During the session, Jim Power and Chris Johns will explore:
The key economic and global trends influencing 2026
What businesses and industry leaders need to watch now
How to navigate uncertainty with confidence and conviction
The webinar is open to AAI members, members of IAPI and all industry stakeholders.
Meta likely made more than £600m from fraudulent UK advertising in 2024.
Meta likely made more money from fraudulent advertising in the UK last year than the entire news industry made from legitimate online marketing.
The owner of Facebook and Instagram has revealed in internal documents (exposed by Reuters) that around 10 per cent of its annual revenue comes from advertising placed by fraudsters.
These may be so-called pig-butchering scams whereby people are fed real investment advice over a weeks or months to win trust, before they are then lured into making a fraudulent investment and losing their money.
Press Gazette joined the “Richard Quest” investment group and began receiving investment tips and daily messages from a fake persona called Alyssa Mendez.
The scams are effective because Facebook allows fraudsters to create promotions using trusted public figures which look exactly the same as real promotions running on the platform from the likes of Fisher Investments, RBC Brewin Dolphin and UBS.
Meta will sometimes take down scam promotions when notified. But advertisers simply create identical pages again and again using Meta’s self-serve advertising technology.
According to the Reuters investigation, Meta will only block an advertiser if it is 95% certain they are committing fraud.
Reuters also reported on a May 2025 presentation by Meta safety staff which estimated that the company’s platforms were involved in a third of all successful scams in the U.S.
Reuters reports that Meta has taken action to curb scam advertisers (but only in a limited way). One internal document reported that the Meta team responsible for vetting questionable advertisers had a cap of 0.15% on the amount of total revenue they were allowed to impact.
Another internal Meta document revealed that the company ignored 96% of 100,000 weekly scam reports it was receiving in 2023 from Facebook and Instagram users
A recruiter from the Royal Canadia Air Force had her Facebook account hacked in 2024, Reuters reports. It was taken over by a scammer who stole her identity and purported that she was now promoting cryptocurrency investments.
Meta ignored her repeated attempts to get the scam Facebook profile taken down. One former colleague of the woman was conned out of $28,000.
Meta spokesman Andy Stone told Reuters that the documents it had seen “present a selective view that distorts Meta’s approach to fraud and scams”.
He said the 10% revenue estimate was “rough and overly inclusive” adding: “We aggressively fight fraud and scams because people on our platforms don’t want this content, legitimate advertisers don’t want it and we don’t want it either.”
iOS 26.2 is available now, and it’s packed with a bunch of new features. Many of those features are additions to Apple’s built-in iPhone apps. Here’s everything new across six Apple apps in iOS 26.2.
Reminders
Reminders used to be a simple list app, but after years of progress Apple has made it into a full-featured task manager. And iOS 26.2 adds a new feature I’ve been wanting for years.
You can now mark a reminder as ‘Urgent’ when it has a set due time. Marking it ‘urgent’ means an alarm will go off on your iPhone when that reminder comes due.
Just like your morning wakeup alarm, the new Reminders alarm can be snoozed for 9 minutes. So if you can’t get to a task right then, you can silence the alarm temporarily without forgetting about the task entirely.
The new alarm feature also uses Live Activities as a further visual prompt so you don’t forget about a task.
Apple Podcasts
Apple Podcasts is just one of many popular podcast apps available on iPhone, alongside YouTube, Spotify, Overcast, and more.
But in iOS 26.2, three new features make Apple’s Podcasts app more compelling than ever:
Automatic chapters
Podcast mentions
’From this episode’
My early favourite of the group is automatic chapters. Apple is using its excellent podcast transcripts feature, feeding that transcript into its Apple Intelligence models, and creating chapters for all podcasts automatically.
Tech-focused podcasts often have creator-generated chapters. But most mainstream podcasts don’t offer chapters. Now in iOS 26.2, they do—at least in Apple Podcasts.
The other additions aim to make it easier for users listening to a show to access links to other podcast episodes that are mentioned by hosts, or recommendations of TV shows, music, books, and other links.
If you’re not familiar with Freeform, it’s Apple’s open canvas whiteboard/playground app where you can create ‘boards’ filled with a mixture of text, images, charts, files, links, and more. It’s especially great for collaboration.
Now Freeform has expanded its available toolset with tables. If you’ve used tables in other Apple apps like Notes, it’s a similar experience in Freeform.
Apple Games
Apple Games is a brand new app that was added in iOS 26. And after gathering initial user feedback, Apple has three enhancements in iOS 26.2:
Library Filters: Now you can filter your game library in several new ways, including by titles that offer challenges, or ones your friends are playing.
Controller Support: If you’re doing any serious gaming, there’s a decent chance you might use a Bluetooth controller, so iOS 26.2 makes the Games app easier to navigate via controller.
Real-time challenge updates: Challenge scores now stay current while you’re playing thanks to live, real-time updates.
Whether you’re new to the Games app or a regular user, these changes should hopefully make it a more refined experience overall.
Lyrics debuted years ago and quickly became one of my favourite features in the Music app. But they’ve always required a Wi-Fi or cellular connection.
Now lyrics will be available even when you’re on a flight, underground train, or roaming the wilderness with no connection.
It’s unclear exactly what triggers the Music app downloading a song’s lyrics offline. Hopefully though, all music added to your Library will support the feature.
Apple News
Apple News has some great updates in iOS 26.2 centered around making the app’s expanding feature set easier to access.
iOS 26.2 brings several design changes that surface previously buried features so they are much more prominent.
For example, there are brand new quick links at the top of the Today screen for accessing sections like Puzzles, Sports, Politics, and Food.
Additionally, the navigation tab bar has been updated in two ways.
Following is a new tab containing content that used to be hidden behind the Search tab. And Search adds new quick link recommendations.
The online marketing game has completely changed. Remember spending late nights manually digging through those massive, confusing reports, trying to figure out why your ad performance suddenly tanked, or constantly scrambling to come up with fresh ad ideas? Google is officially ending that headache. They’re rolling out their new AI-powered Ads Advisor and Analytics Advisor.
These tools, powered by Gemini AI, aren’t just fancy reports; they’re essentially your personal, always-on AI consultant. They give you instant, straightforward insights and can even apply those approved fixes directly to your live campaigns. This shift takes campaign management from a manual, reactive struggle to a quick, data-driven conversation. The big opportunity now is learning how to blend these new advisors into your workflow to maximize the power of those AI-based strategies, boost your ROI, and get your campaigns growing faster than ever before.
The AI Advisor Mandate—Speed and Simplification
The fundamental assurance of the Ads and Analytics Advisors is speed. They bring time that was once used to go between the data analysis (Google Analytics) and implementation (Google Ads) into a high-level strategy; instead of implementation, marketers can spend time on the strategy.
1. Ads Advisor: Optimization and Execution in One Place
AI-Generated
The Ads Advisor lives directly inside your Google Ads account, acting as an in-platform AI partner that manages, troubleshoots, and scales campaigns.
Performance Optimization: The Advisor provides personalized recommendations tailored to your specific campaign goals. You can ask a natural-language question like, “How can I optimize my Performance Max campaign for the upcoming holiday season?” and the tool suggests specific actions, such as adding relevant sitelink extensions or adjusting targeting. Crucially, with your approval, it can apply these changes directly.
Creative Generation: This tool acts as a powerful creative co-pilot. It generates new keywords, ad copy, and assets based on your website content and historical campaign data, helping marketers meet the persistent demand for fresh, high-performing creatives. This feature ensures that the implementation of AI-powered strategies is faster and more dynamic than ever before.
Policy and Performance Diagnostics: Campaign troubleshooting is simplified. If an ad is disapproved, you can ask, “Why are my ads disapproved?” The Advisor identifies the root cause, recommends a fix, and can even apply simple policy-compliant fixes for your final approval.
2. Analytics Advisor: Instant Insight from Complex Data
The Analytics Advisor brings conversational AI into Google Analytics, serving as your personal, always-on data analyst.
Fast, Comprehensive Insights: It solves the challenge of getting a holistic view of data. You can ask broad queries like “How is my site performing?” or specific questions like “What were my active users doing over the last 30 days?” The advisor immediately infers the necessary reports to give you a clear, tailored summary with dynamic visualizations.
Root Cause Analysis: When performance spikes or drops, the advisor conducts a key driver analysis to explain the “why.” For instance, if you ask, “Why did my conversions drop yesterday?”, the tool identifies and attributes the most relevant causes, prioritizing drivers that align directly with your business goals. These AI-powered strategies are essential for accelerating analysis.
Pillar 2: Strategic Shifts—How to Maximize AI Advisor Value
These tools are built on the principles of agentic AI—systems designed to identify, explain, and execute improvements autonomously. Maximizing their value requires shifts in how marketing teams operate.
3. Shift from Analysis to Action
The traditional marketing workflow involved hours dedicated to analysis before any action was taken. The Advisors collapse this time frame.
Actionable Step: Focus on Interpretation, Not Compilation: Instruct your analysts to spend less time pulling and compiling data reports and more time interpreting the meaning of the AI-generated insights. The human role shifts to verifying the accuracy of the AI’s suggestions and integrating those suggestions into broader business objectives.
Actionable Step: Prioritize AI-Driven Recommendations: Make it a weekly mandate to review all “High Impact” recommendations surfaced by the Ads Advisor. The AI’s ability to analyse millions of accounts and industry benchmarks allows it to spot optimization opportunities that manual review would miss. Regularly acting on these AI-powered strategies is crucial for compounding gains.
4. Provide Clean Data and Clear Goals
AI systems are only as smart as the data and goals you provide. Marketers must focus on ensuring the AI has a solid foundation for its decisions.
Actionable Step: Define Clear Conversion Goals: Ensure all your conversion goals are correctly configured and accurately track actual business outcomes (sales, qualified leads). Vague or inaccurate goals lead to flawed AI optimization decisions.
Actionable Step: Supply High-Quality Assets: For the Ads Advisor to generate the best creative, you must feed it a variety of high-quality assets (images, videos, headlines). The AI will test and learn which combinations perform best, but the quality of the starting materials is paramount. Utilizing data to execute precise AI-powered strategies starts with clean inputs.
5. Embracing Conversational Workflow
The new advisors require a shift in interaction—you must communicate with them naturally, like speaking to a human colleague.
Actionable Step: Ask Follow-Up Questions: Don’t treat the initial response as final. If the advisor suggests a reason for a performance drop, ask, “Which specific audience segment was most affected?” or “What change did that competitor make?” This continuous, contextual conversation leads to deeper, more nuanced insights.
Pillar 3: ROI and Future-Proofing with AI-Powered Strategies
The primary benefit of the advisors is accelerated ROI by reducing waste, improving targeting, and enhancing time-to-value for campaigns.
6. Accelerating Performance Max and Multi-Channel Efficiency
The Advisors are explicitly designed to optimize complex, AI-driven campaigns like Performance Max (PMax).
The ROI Benefit: PMax thrives on having diverse assets and clear signals. Ads Advisor streamlines asset management and provides tailored recommendations for maximizing reach across Search, Display, YouTube, and Discovery. This ensures your PMax campaigns run at peak efficiency, driving higher conversions at a similar Cost Per Action (CPA). Effective AI-powered strategies are built into these modern campaign types.
The Time Benefit: Analytics Advisor accelerates the time it takes to diagnose cross-channel performance, allowing marketers to quickly shift budget and focus to the highest-performing channels.
7. Future-Proofing Measurement and Growth
The integration of these advisors signals Google’s long-term commitment to AI-first marketing solutions.
Staying Ahead of the Curve: Businesses that adopt these tools now build operational advantages that compound over time. They gain faster feedback loops and greater organizational confidence in deploying more advanced AI solutions in the future.
Enhanced Measurement: The advisors contribute to better measurement by linking analytics insights directly to advertising implementation. This integrated view provides a more accurate understanding of marketing attribution and ROI across the entire customer journey.
Conclusion: The New Mandate for Digital Marketing
The launch of the Ads and Analytics Advisors marks a watershed moment: campaign optimization is now officially a conversational task. These agentic tools promise to eliminate guesswork, reduce manual reporting time, and provide data-driven answers in seconds.
In today’s competitive online marketing era, video lookbooks are a necessary tool for brands to establish their identity and promote their products. While an aesthetically pleasing lookbook grabs attention, a quality voiceover can be the most influential aspect, turning a quiet showcase into a memorable, engaging story. It’s a frequently neglected resource that extends beyond mere narration, offering a straightforward and compelling vehicle for engaging with your audience. The points below distinctly identify the powers of transformation that a professional voiceover can exert in video lookbooks.
1. It Creates Brand Credibility and Trust
A professional voiceover is the human voice of your brand’s video presence, making direct contact that cannot be achieved through visuals alone. The correct voice, spoken with power and authenticity, immediately establishes your brand’s credibility.
When a lookbook has a refined, eloquent voice, it communicates to the audience that the brand is professional, meticulous, and trustworthy. On the other hand, an amateur or poorly recorded voice can ruin the entire production and render a brand untrustworthy.
The sound quality is unconsciously linked to the product or service quality offered. A clear, confident, and well-modulated voice soothes audiences, making them feel that they are dealing with a trusted company, creating a foundation of trust that is paramount when converting audiences to loyal customers.
1. It Establishes a Deeper Emotional Connection
Aside from mere narration, voiceover is an effective instrument for expressing emotion and crafting brand personality. The voice’s tone, pace, and style can be selected thoughtfully to match your brand’s personality.
A luxury brand might find a sophisticated, smooth voice conveying luxury and exclusivity. A young, dynamic business might prefer an energetic and friendly tone to convey approachability and excitement.
A good voice artist or modern AI voiceover tools like Murf.AI have the ability to bring a script to life with the help of inflection and emphasis that will create a mood for the visual content. This element makes it more memorable and creates a stronger connection with the audience.
The voice is used as a brand identifier, a sonic logo that audiences will learn to associate with your business.
1. It Guarantees Scalability and Global Accessibility
One of the greatest strengths of professional voiceovers, particularly with the usage of contemporary technology, is how easily they can scale and reach the world.
Traditional voiceovers work well, but they can be expensive and time-consuming to translate for various markets. Contemporary audio dubbing software and artificial intelligence-based voice generation platforms have streamlined this process. These software applications can easily translate one script into several languages with a natural-sounding voice. This capability enables a brand to produce versions of its video lookbook for various regional markets without the cost or time of independently contracting voice artists for each language. Not only does this increase a brand’s potential audience, but it also shows dedication to inclusivity by making content more accessible.
1. It Clarifies the Story and Emphasizes Important Features
Video lookbooks, no matter how aesthetically pleasing, tend to fall short of providing accurate information to make the spectator well-informed. Voiceover provides a clear and effective way of supplementing that deficiency without overloading the screen with too much text. It can draw the eye of the viewer to specific details such as a special feature in a product, a material’s quality, or a design’s background. Clarity is highly necessary for products or collections with intricate or pioneering aspects where a visual explanation may not be sufficient. The voiceover functions as a narrator so that the viewer understands the entire message and doesn’t lose track amidst the aesthetics. This degree of intentional communication is a primary strength that cannot be obtained with visuals and music alone.
1. It Raises Perceived Quality and Value
With a noisy digital landscape, in which audiences are constantly being pummelled with content, the quality of a brand’s voice can be the variable that stands out and creates loyalty. A professionally voice-overed video lookbook is seen as more valuable and of higher quality than one that is not. The cleaned-up sound makes the whole production classier, so the brand is seen as more mature and reliable. The cost of hiring professionals for the sound indicates that the brand cares about what it is making and how it is communicating. This quality perception can affect buying decisions, since customers tend to associate a company’s professionalism in advertising with the quality of its goods.
Final Word
The effectiveness of a professional voiceover in a video lookbook cannot be overemphasized. It is an essential component that commands trust, creates emotional bonds, guarantees world scalability, and clarifies the brand message. Therefore, investing in professional voiceovers is not an extravagance but a must for brands wanting to take their presence seriously and engage with a global audience.
With Christmas and the peak retail season over, many small businesses may think it’s a good time to pull back on their marketing. But some data suggests that it’s an excellent time of year to continue the holiday momentum and increase revenue while other businesses go silent. Here’s why.
Online Advertising Costs Go Down
As businesses turn off their holiday campaigns and enter a quiet period, it’s common for CPC (cost per click) and CPM (cost per 1000 impressions) on online advertising platforms go down in January. In fact, according to indixital, January sees the lowest CPM of the year, making it a good time for small businesses to advertise, especially if you have a limited marketing budget. One LinkedIn study found that CPM and CPC costs in January reduced by 19% and 24%, respectively, compared to previous weeks.
With fewer advertisers in January, there’s also less competition and fighting for consumers’ attention. Continue to push out content to get ahead of competitors.
Consumers Are Still Willing To Purchase
Despite the fatigue of Christmas, some consumers are still willing to part with their cash in January. However, these purchases lean towards purpose, motivation, and practical solutions to kick-start their year, according to Zeta. Small businesses could lean into the “new year, new me” sentiment and wellbeing-focused mindsets. Furthermore, The Drum reports that January typically sees more sensible “deferred purchases” take place, such as whiteware.
January is an underrated time for advertising a small business. Use it to your advantage and continue marketing your business while others take a break. You can capitalize on cheaper online advertising costs and reach consumers who are still in a shopping frame of mind.
Here are five things in small business technology that happened this week and how they affect your business. Did you miss them?
This Week in Small Business Technology News
Small Business Technology News #1 – As AI search hits 700M users, new WordPress tool democratizes ‘AI SEO’ for small businesses.
A new WordPress plugin called LovedByAIhas launched to help small businesses get found in the growing world of AI-powered search. As AI “answer engines” like ChatGPT and Gemini surpass 700 million weekly users, traditional SEO alone isn’t enough for visibility in AI responses. LovedBy.AI is designed to help small businesses with gap analysis to find where site content isn’t structured for AI. Features also include automated schema/data formatting so AI bots understand core business details; and visibility tracking & performance metrics – similar to enterprise tools but scaled for smaller sites. The goal is to help non-technical site owners prepare their websites for AI discovery without hiring developers or paying hundreds of dollars per month.(Source: EIN Presswire)
Why this is important for your small business:
Ask any marketer, or any company that relies on Google to drive their online sales or get their website found and they’ll tell you that AI is starting to worry them. Clearly, big changes are happening and 2026 is going to see a measurable shift. For now, Google still dominates in search. But many publishers and other e-commerce sites I know are experiencing significant drop-offs in traffic because people are using AI assistants to do their searching and provide answers which means that click-throughs are much less. You can argue that if someone does click-through they are a more qualified lead. But regardless, traffic is trending down on sites and there’s a significant opportunity for both the platforms and savvy marketing tech people to figure out how to maximize SEO as these AI chatbots take over.
Small Business Technology News #2 – How ChatGPT could change the face of advertising, without you even knowing about it.
Rapidly advancing AI – especially ChatGPT – may transform digital advertising into something far more personalized, automated, and harder for consumers to recognize. With 800 million weekly users, OpenAI is exploring ways to integrate advertising directly into conversational experiences. For example, ChatGPT Atlas – introduced in 2025 – can automate purchases based on a user’s browsing history. The Agent Mode setting in Atlas will also offer suggestions based on past searches and lets users ask ChatGPT to find past items and add them to carts. OpenAI’s CFO has openly said the company is “weighing up an ads model” but early experiments have shown that users dislike feeling “sold to” and indicated that some degree of autonomy is essential to making a final decision. Based on that feedback, OpenAI is rethinking how ads should appear – likely in more subtle, blended ways. As the technology continues to advance, advertising will become more personalized and harder to distinguish from neutral advice. (Source: Tech Xplore)
Why this is important for your small business:
This is OpenAI’s potential strategy. It will change. And I expect its many competitors will also have their own ideas. It’s going to be the wild west for a lot of advertisers over the next few years as our AI geniuses try to figure out how to monetize ad spend. The good news is that this will take away from Google monopoly on online ads and, which will give more affordable choices to small businesses.
Small Business Technology News #3 – How marketers rank this year’s generative AI, video tools.
Generative AI tools advanced rapidly this year, and Digiday’s report card highlights which tools delivered and which fell short. Google’s Nano Banana image generator is considered the “golden standard” for its precision, hyper‑realistic output, and reduced “AI sheen” – a too perfect quality that’s noticeable in images. Google’s VEO – text-to-video generative AI model – also received high marks as the most robust video model that produces strong character consistency, cinematic interpretation, and prompt execution. AI tools that received a “B” grade include OpenAI’s text-to-video tool Sora for its cinematic quality, lighting, and consistent environments. Though Sora was a major breakthrough marketers found Google’s VEO easier to integrate across creative workflows. Marketers also said they use these tools in tandem with one another and their proliferation and as one exec put it, “Consistency is probably the number one thing you’ll need to give people.” (Source: Digiday)
Why this is important for your small business:
As I’ve previously written, the AI image creators offered by the major platforms are still not business ready. They’re amazing. They’re light years ahead of where they were just a short time ago. They’re fun. But for the typical business owner they’re not worth using professionally. I do believe – in a very short time – they will become even better, more responsive, more accurate, more reliable. I also think that they will become even easier to use and not require teams of tech people to manipulate.
Small Business Technology News #4 – Inbox zero for 2026: Free up 15GB of Gmail storage without deleting a thing.
Jason Chun of CNET explained a clever way to free up your Gmail storage back to the full 15 GB limit without deleting your old emails – essentially getting to “inbox zero” without losing anything. (Source: CNET)
Why this is important for your small business:
“All I had to do was create a second Gmail account,” Chun said, avoiding the fees for extra storage. If account holders choose this method, Chun recommends backing up email messages via “Google Takeout” and then download them to a computer or external hard drive (then delete them once the transfer is completed). Transferring old emails to the newly created account usually involves enabling POP (Post Office Protocol) – the transfer setting where old messages get pulled into the new account while keeping them safe. Chun gives his readers a step-by-step guide to transfer old emails and says depending on how many messages are moved, it doesn’t take long.
Small Business Technology News #5 – 10 ecommerce trends that will shape online retail in 2026.
Brian Warmoth of Digital Commerce 360 listed 10 ecommerce trends to expect in 2026 based on the factors that were at play in 2025 (tariffs, consumer behaviour). (Source: Digital Commerce 360)
Why this is important for your small business:
Among the trends that caught my eye was the advancement of agentic commerce. Warmoth says that AI assistants aren’t just replying to prompts anymore; they’re automating tasks like checkout, research, and curated shopping lists, and 2026 could see them interoperate with external tools and platforms. For those catering to the younger crowd, Warmoth says that Gen Z will be more accepting of virtual shopping assistants, with younger shoppers leading in adopting AI helpers for discovery and buying, while retailers learn where different age groups diverge in behaviour.
Each week I round up five small business technology news stories and explain why they’re important for your business. If you have any interesting stories, please post to my X account @genemarks
Feature image credit: Photo Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
The definition of celebrity has fundamentally changed. Fame is no longer dictated by movie deals, television appearances, or tabloid visibility. Today, it’s built through direct audience relationships, creative ownership, and the ability to convert attention into measurable business value — a shift most clearly visible across digital platforms.
Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube have evolved into full-scale media ecosystems, functioning simultaneously as production studios, distribution channels, and monetization engines. In many cases, they now rival traditional entertainment and advertising infrastructures. As a result, social media creators represent the first generation of celebrities built entirely on platforms — measured not by studio backing or legacy exposure, but by engagement, trust, and originality. In this environment, no category of celebrity is out of reach.
Enter Anastasia Tupitsyna
Known to millions as Anastasile, Anastasia Tupitsyna exemplifies this transformation. Rising to prominence through makeup transition videos, she built a global audience entirely online, demonstrating how creators can achieve both celebrity status and commercial power once reserved for traditional media stars.
Anastasia’s recognition is rooted squarely in social platforms. Her influence derives from sustained audience engagement, original storytelling, and creative discipline — not early television exposure or magazine coverage, which increasingly follows digital success rather than leading it.
She has collaborated with brands including Dior, Guerlain, Morphe, and e.l.f. Cosmetics, producing campaigns that go beyond standard influencer placements. These partnerships reflect a broader shift in the creator economy: monetization is increasingly tied to creative ownership, production quality, and audience trust, rather than raw follower counts. For brands, social-first creators offer an integrated content-and-commerce model that traditional advertising struggles to replicate.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – MARCH 18: Anastasile attends the VIP Preview of the medicube Glowland Pop Up on March 18, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Robin L Marshall/Getty Images) Getty Images
The economics of influence have evolved alongside the platforms. Success is now measured through audience retention, engagement depth, and the ability to generate reusable, platform-agnostic content. In an oversaturated market, high-quality production and storytelling have become critical differentiators—allowing creators like Anastasia to command premium pricing while remaining selective about partnerships.
Technical Skill and Creative Control
Unlike many creators who outsource production, Anastasia controls every stage of her content, from scripting and filming to makeup, styling, and editing. With a degree in 3D and visual effects, she applies technical expertise to produce polished, cinematic visuals that stand out in crowded feeds.
“Brands aren’t paying for eyeballs alone,” she notes. “They’re investing in vision, in trust, and in a creative process that feels irreplicable.”
That combination of technical proficiency and creative direction enables consistent, high-level output—an increasingly valuable asset in a market driven by rapid trend cycles.
Audience Metrics and Selectivity
By the numbers, Anastasia commands significant scale, with approximately 4.3 million followers on Instagram and more than 8.8 million on TikTok, where her videos routinely reach millions of views. Yet she limits brand collaborations to roughly four campaigns per month, prioritizing quality over volume. This disciplined approach helps preserve audience trust, deepen brand relationships, and support sustainable long-term monetization.
TV-Ready and Cross-Platform Influence
Social-first creators are increasingly crossing into traditional media. Beauty entrepreneurs such as Huda Kattan, Michelle Phan, and Rachel Zoe have leveraged digital followings into television visibility, while Bobbi Brown and Tyra Banks have expanded their influence through hosting and commentary roles. Charli D’Amelio, meanwhile, offers one of the most prominent examples of this evolution.
After rising to fame on TikTok, Charli competed on — and won — ABC’s Dancing with the Stars, demonstrating that platform-native stars can bring built-in audiences, cultural relevance, and credibility to legacy television. Her success reinforced a growing industry realization: digital creators are no longer novelty casting choices, but viable stars capable of anchoring major entertainment projects.
DANCING WITH THE STARS – “Finale – 3211” In a series first, the finale episode will have five couples competing for a chance at winning the coveted “Len Goodman Mirrorball Trophy.” The finalists will perform a redemption dance and an unforgettable freestyle routine. The season 32 finale of “Dancing with the Stars” airs TUESDAY, DEC. 5 (8:00-11:00 p.m. EST/PST) on ABC. (Eric McCandless/DISNEY via Getty Images)CHARLI D’AMELIO, MARK BALLAS. ABC via Getty Images
Anastasia’s trajectory reflects this same crossover potential within beauty. While her content centres on visual storytelling rather than performance, her command of narrative, creative control, and on-camera presence align with what networks increasingly seek in digital-native talent. Platform-first fame is becoming a pathway to broader media opportunities without sacrificing authenticity.
Broader Implications for the Creator Economy
Anastasia’s career underscores the maturation of the creator economy. High-concept, narrative-driven content can simultaneously drive engagement, loyalty, and revenue. Creators today operate as producers, business partners, and cultural contributors—reshaping traditional notions of celebrity.
Her success also highlights a structural shift in how influence is built. Social-first stars achieve relevance through originality, consistency, and trust rather than studio contracts or institutional gatekeepers. Daily engagement converts directly into measurable business outcomes, creating a model designed for longevity.
Social-first stars like Anastasile achieve relevance through originality, consistency, and trust rather than studio contracts or institutional gatekeepers. Anastasia Tupitsyna
Looking Ahead
For creators like Anastasia, the next phase lies in longer-form storytelling — branded short films, digital series, and cross-platform projects—while maintaining a careful balance between creative autonomy and commercial alignment.
Her trajectory illustrates a defining truth of modern fame: visibility alone no longer creates celebrity. Creativity, technical skill, audience trust, and business acumen now matter just as much. Social media influencers are not simply the next generation of stars— they are redefining what celebrity means in a digital-first world. And both audiences and the industry are paying attention.
We all love a good advertising fail, and no more so than on LinkedIn, where piling on to deride the latest from adland is quite the sport.
The latest advert to get people talk comes from drinks brand Courvoisier. The advert shows band Ezra Collective sitting around in what I suspect is meant to be a cosy scene. For some reason only one of them has an instrument and that instrument is a drum kit.
Text says ‘Toast the year with Ezra Collective’ and then there’s a second tagline that says ‘To the moments that make us’. The logo also appears twice, as well as on the bottle and there’s a random mention of ginger ale in there that’s very easy to miss. I doubt that this offering will make it on to our best billboards list.
The ignorable and ignored “serving suggestion” line???
The mandatory bottle AND glass inclusion?
The second headline that means even less than the first?
The third feature of logo and brand just in case you didn’t notice it the first two times, on the left or bottle?
The pointless lower case/script in French to suggest sophistication? (😂😂😂)
Note to self: why are the words in the meaningless headline underlined.”
He went on to say he is assuming it was done by AI, and he’d give it a zero out of ten.
The commenters then piled on, with most agreeing with Kevin.
“Such a generic looking ad” said one person. “It’s also just a BAD photo” said another, who went on to talk about the eye lines – who/what are they looking at?
“This is actually disorientingly bad” said another commenter, while someone else called it “an absolute shocker”.
Rosie Hilder is Creative Bloq’s Deputy Editor. After beginning her career in journalism in Argentina – where she worked as Deputy Editor of Time Out Buenos Aires – she moved back to the UK and joined Future Plc in 2016. Since then, she’s worked as Operations Editor on magazines including Computer Arts, 3D World and Paint & Draw and Mac|Life. In 2018, she joined Creative Bloq, where she now assists with the daily management of the site, including growing the site’s reach, getting involved in events, such as judging the Brand Impact Awards, and helping make sure our content serves the reader as best it can.
