By Christianna Silva

YouTube sparked a digital revolution, but what comes next in an age dominated by AI and short-form content?

Did you go to the zoo 20 years ago? Over 364 million people did.

On April 23, 2005, YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim stood in front of the elephants at the San Diego Zoo, recorded some light commentary, and posted it to YouTube. It was the first ever video uploaded to the platform. Originally conceived as a dating site, YouTube instead ushered in a new digital world: one of abundant content, influencers and creators, algorithmic obsession, the viral spread of disinformation, and a society increasingly shaped by metrics — likes, shares, and views.

Its impact is so vast that it’s difficult to measure. Last year alone, the video-sharing platform brought in $36.15 billion in ad revenue, according to Variety. At VidCon 2025, YouTube’s VP of Creator Products, Amjad Hanif, shared that roughly 20 million videos are uploaded to the platform every day.

YouTube wasn’t the first social media site. Platforms like GeoCities, Classmates.com, SixDegrees.com, Friendster, and MySpace all predate it. But those sites functioned like static digital places for users to present personal information or to find people they already knew in real life. There was no algorithm, and certainly no “content” in the way we understand it today. YouTube, in its early days, was similar. Yet somehow it not only endured but flourished, shifted the fabric of our communication, and democratized the ability for documentary filmmakers, comedians, and artists to make their work. What was once a place designed for dating has become a mass of monetization and the home of the $250 billion creator economy.

How did we get here? And, 20 years later, what comes next?

The first creator economy

YouTube didn’t just host videos; it created the first true creator economy, giving rise to a generation of influencers who could actually make a living from their work. Yes, people were making videos before YouTube, but traditional media had high walls. Hollywood gatekeepers controlled who got to be seen, heard, and paid. YouTube blew that model wide open.

“The reason YouTube has outlasted almost every other platform, or stayed the distance, is that when it comes to longform video, it’s very simple — it’s not just a content platform, it’s a creator economy backbone,” Matt Navarra, a social media expert, told Mashable. “While other platforms were following trends, YouTube built infrastructure.”

Google acquired YouTube in 2006, and, once YouTube became part of the largest and most powerful search engine in the world, it had a pretty spectacular amount of resources, traffic, and money at its disposal — and it gave some of those resources, traffic, and money to its users.

In 2007, YouTube launched the YouTube Partner Program, introducing creator pay outs, which Mark Bergen, a journalist and author of Like, Comment, Subscribe: How YouTube Drives Google’s Dominance and Controls Our Culture, argues effectively invented the idea of the content creator as a profession. Users began relying on the platform to make an income, and that financial incentive made creators loyal; few were eager to abandon a platform that paid them, especially when rivals couldn’t offer the same. More than that, new creators began flooding the YouTube system, hoping to experience the same freedom and fame available to them only on the platform.

But long before the pay checks and polished production came the passion. Early creators like John and Hank Green weren’t chasing clout or a pay check — because neither really existed yet. “When we started, there was no way to make money and there was also no status tied to it,” Hank Green later recalled during VidCon 2025’s “YouTube Legends” panel. That was part of the appeal. “Nobody [was] getting paid well, but everybody’s together, loving it, and community, it turns out, is more important for happiness than money. I miss those days when I was making $20,000 a year with a bunch of nerds who didn’t expect that it would ever become a cultural force or phenomenon,” he said. “But I’m also very happy that there is an opportunity for really talented people who would never be able to have creative careers, to have those careers now.”

YouTube has “figured out the creator economy and has had a lock on that for nearly 20 years. Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Snapchat, everyone’s tried and failed to come anywhere close to that,” Bergen told Mashable. He said none of the other platforms “have built out just this size and scale of an actual digital economy and a workforce.”

Navarra pointed out that the early YouTubers — creators like John and Hank Green, Rhett & Link, Grace Helbig, and Tyler Oakley, many of whom were inducted into the inaugural VidCon Hall of Fame this year — didn’t only create content, but they built empires, aided by YouTube’s global reach and monetization tools. Navarra said it set the “gold standard” for creator sustainability.

 Videos don’t just trend, they rank — and that’s a superpower that no one else has quite matched in the same way.

A big part of this success is due to discoverability, which didn’t happen independently.

“That’s a major reason why you have all these incentives for people to keep posting, to keep upping the production value, to keep trying to become an influencer and creator, because you can make a living or aspire to make a living. And you can’t discount the fact that it’s been part of Google,” Bergen said.

That integration gave YouTube a unique edge. As Navarra put it, “Videos don’t just trend, they rank — and that’s a superpower that no one else has quite matched in the same way.”

Of course, being the first had its drawbacks. YouTube had to confront the growing pains of content creation before anyone else, especially when it came to moderation. Its policies evolved over time, and other platforms often followed its lead, though not without controversy.

“YouTube has been the canary in the coal mine for content moderation at scale because it faced existential threats earlier than most platforms,” Navarra said. And it’s true. In the early days, YouTube focused on removing videos that violated its guidelines related to nudity, graphic violence, and hate speech. But as the platform matured, so did its approach. It had to make room for content with educational, documentary, or artistic value, and later, make calls on videos in the public interest, like campaign content from electoral candidates that violated its own policies.

“YouTube has become one of the most brand-safe video or social platforms, which is why advertisers still spend big there despite their size and complexity,” Navarra said, adding that while they “haven’t been without their failures,” they have still fared “better than most platforms across the longer time frame.”

What’s next? Short-form vs. long-form, AI, and TV

YouTube was a pioneer in online video, but it seemed caught off guard when TikTok made short-form vertical video the dominant format. TikTok entered the U.S. market in 2018, prompting YouTube to respond with Shorts in 2019. Instagram quickly followed with Reels in 2020.

YouTube Shorts now averages over 200 billion daily views, Hanif said during a YouTube Keynote at VidCon 2025, intended to celebrate its 20th anniversary. That’s a huge number, but it isn’t necessarily representative culturally. It’s more of a “functional tool that hasn’t found its soul or character or purpose as much as other platforms have in terms of short-form video,” Navarra said.

“It works on paper: the views are huge, the monetization has improved, but culturally, TikTok owns the vibe. The issue is more perception… YouTube’s DNA is in storytelling and depth… If YouTube can crack cultural relevance with Shorts and not just scale, then it becomes fairly unbeatable,” Navarra said.

And while plenty of people watch YouTube Shorts, viewers are leaning more towards long-form video on YouTube — and they’re watching it on their TVs.

“More and more when people say they’re watching TV, they’re watching YouTube,” Hanif said at VidCon.

Gwen Miller, the senior director of growth at Mythical Entertainment, noted during a VidCon panel that this trend bodes well for creators. Longer watch times on TVs mean viewers are more likely to sit through ads, which leads to greater earnings for creators.

Content isn’t the only thing changing on YouTube, and AI is quickly becoming a driving force behind where the platform is headed next.

“In terms of AI and YouTube’s future, if you look where YouTube is heading, AI is central,” Navarra said. “It’s not a gimmick but as a growth engine. The platform’s big advantage isn’t just the size and age, it’s the way it quietly builds the most advanced tools for creators anywhere else on the internet.”

And YouTube CEO Neal Mohan announced last week at the Cannes Lions 2025 Festival of Creativity that Veo 3, the latest model of Google DeepMind’s video generation model, which allows you to create AI-generated backgrounds and video clips, is coming to YouTube Shorts later this summer.

Autodubbing, an AI tool that allows creators to dub their videos in other languages, is currently available in nine languages and will soon be available in 20 languages, Hanif said. Kevin Allocca, YouTube’s global director of culture and trends, said at VidCon that 52 percent of 14 to 24-year-olds in the U.S. have watched content or creators that have been translated from another language. For instance, MrBeast dubs his videos in 16 different languages, including Japanese, French, Hindi, and Spanish, which have garnered him massive followings internationally.

The idea that AI is central to the future of creation isn’t something YouTube is alone in predicting. In 2023, Ollie Forsyth, the founder of New Economies, found that 33 percent of creators used AI. That number has jumped to 80 percent in 2025, in large part due to the importance of language dubbing. During Forsyth’s talk “Mapping the Modern Creator Economy: Trends, Tensions, and What Comes Next” at VidCon this year, he argued that every creator is going to have to be AI-focused because AI agents will be able to allow creators to be truly flexible and more efficient. It’ll help them free up the time they spend on admin, finances, brand partnerships, marketing, and more as startups use AI to solve these problems.

If history is any indication of the future, it might be more helpful to look at this from a different perspective — it isn’t necessarily guessing what the future of YouTube will look like, but more knowing that whatever future is chosen will be mirrored across every other social media platform.

 By Christianna Silva

Christianna Silva is a senior culture reporter covering social platforms and the creator economy, with a focus on the intersection of social media, politics, and the economic systems that govern us. Since joining Mashable in 2021, they have reported extensively on meme creators, content moderation, and the nature of online creation under capitalism.

Before joining Mashable, they worked as an editor at NPR and MTV News, a reporter at Teen Vogue and VICE News, and as a stablehand at a mini-horse farm. You can follow her on Bluesky @christiannaj.bsky.social and Instagram @christianna_j.

Sourced from Mashable

By Khamosh Pathak

AI audio podcasts, right in Google Search.

For Google, AI-generated podcasts are turning into quite a key feature. You can now generate a two-person AI podcast from a Deep Research report, or get a Daily Listen podcast that’s generated from your Discover feed. Now, Google is planning to expand this feature to Google Search as well.

Available as an experimental feature from Google Labs, this new option will help generate a short, 5-minute AI podcast based on your Google Search results.

How to turn on Audio Overviews in Google Search

Credit: Jake Peterson

To access the new feature, head over to your Google Labs page using this link and find the Audio Overviews section. There, you can either enable this feature or join a waitlist, depending on where you’re located. Unfortunately, while this is a global rollout, it’s not happening all at once, as is the case with many new Google AI features.

How Audio Overviews in Google Search work

This new search feature is lifted almost straight from Gemini, which itself got it from NotebookLM. Called Audio Overviews, the original incarnation of this feature let you generate a 10-minute AI podcast episode on any topic, although the new version has a few additional limitations.

When the feature is enabled in Google Search, you’ll see a little prompt to “Generate Audio Overview” while you scroll through compatible search results. Which results are compatible is a bit vague at this point—that’s one of the limitations. You won’t see it for simple questions like “what are some nearby cafés?” but it also won’t work for overly complex topics, like researching investment trends across Asia (where you might be better off using Deep Research tools).

Instead, Audio Overviews will kick in for queries that are somewhere in the middle. Let’s say you want a quick refresher on a Lord of the Rings character, or to know which Japanese knives to get started with when upgrading your kitchen. Just make an appropriate Google search, click the Generate Audio Overview button, and search will kick into Gemini mode. After a wait of about 30-40 seconds, which is considerably less than Gemini’s 2–5 minute wait time, you’ll see your audio overview. It will be about five minutes, tops, so you’ll get less detail than Gemini would give you, but it might be enough for a bird’s-eye view on whatever you’re searching for.

The audio player for your AI podcast will stay put as you browse the results page, and it will show links to its sources as well. And if it’s gotten something really wrong, you can give it a Thumbs Down. As is the case with any AI tool, it’s important to point out that these are based on Large Language Models, which can sometimes hallucinate. So make sure to check the sources that the Audio Overviews feature provides you before repeating what it says elsewhere.

Feature Image Credit: Google

By Khamosh Pathak

Khamosh Pathak is freelancer tech journalist with over 13 years of experience writing online. Read Full Bio

Sourced from LifeHacker

By Steven Wolfe Pereira

Marc Andreessen’s 2011 prediction that “software is eating the world” has proven prophetic, but nowhere has the transformation been more complete than in marketing.

At this year’s Cannes Lions — advertising’s equivalent of the Oscars — the technology takeover that’s been building for years is now complete.

Walking down the Croisette, the traditional advertising agencies that once dominated have been replaced by tech giants: Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Netflix, Pinterest, Reddit, Spotify and Salesforce now command the iconic boulevard. But this shift represents just the beginning of a far more fundamental transformation.

We’re witnessing the death of marketing as we know it, replaced by an AI-driven paradigm that’s rewriting every rule in the playbook.

IDC predicts that by 2028, three out of five marketing functions will be handled by AI workers, while businesses will spend up to three times more on optimizing for AI systems than traditional search engines by 2029. This isn’t a gradual evolution but rather a complete reimagining of how brands and their marketing teams will connect with customers.

The Demise of the Search Paradigm

For two decades, search engine optimization anchored digital strategy. Companies invested billions in the $90 billion SEO industry, obsessing over Google rankings and keyword strategies. That playbook is becoming obsolete.

Search is rapidly migrating from traditional browsers to AI platforms. Apple’s integration of AI-powered tools like Perplexity directly into Safari represents just the beginning of Google’s declining monopoly on discovery. What’s emerging is what venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz calls generative engine optimization — optimizing for AI-driven answers instead of clickable links.

As AI use soars and companies shift from SEO to GEO, the implications are staggering. Instead of ranking high on search results pages, brands now need to be featured directly in AI responses. Traditional SEO tactics become worthless when AI models synthesize answers from multiple sources while maintaining context across conversations.

“How you’re encoded into the AI layer is the new competitive advantage,” explains Zach Cohen from a16z. Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch recently noted that ChatGPT was already referring 10% of his company’s new customers simply by mentioning it in AI responses. This organic referral power represents a glimpse of AI’s customer acquisition potential.

Success metrics are fundamentally changing. Page views matter less than “reference rates” — how often AI systems cite your brand when answering customer queries. Companies are already deploying specialized tools to track AI mentions and optimize content accordingly such as Brandrank.ai, Peec.ai and Quni.ai.

The Rise of AI-to-AI Commerce

The next wave is even more disruptive: autonomous AI agents that act on behalf of both consumers and businesses. Every major tech company is focused on bringing agents to life — from global giants like Google, Microsoft and Salesforce and frontier models like Anthropic, OpenAI and xAI to AI-native startups like Glean, Sierra and Writer. They are racing to deploy agents that can make decisions, execute transactions and interact with other agents with minimal human oversight.

A recent PwC survey reveals 35% of companies are broadly adopting AI agents, with another 17% implementing them across nearly all workflows. While still early days, this isn’t experimental technology — it’s becoming operational reality.

Consider the customer journey transformation: Your customer’s personal AI assistant might research products, negotiate prices and complete purchases without the customer ever visiting your website. Meanwhile, your company’s AI agent handles inquiries, provides recommendations and closes deals 24/7. The entire transaction could happen between two AI systems.

“Previously, marketers would target campaigns directly at customers, but now the shortlisting and decisions are made by the AI,” notes a recent IDC report. This represents a fundamental shift in where influence occurs — companies must now market to algorithms as much as humans.

The speed of this transition is remarkable. What took decades with previous technology shifts is happening in months with AI. Companies that don’t adapt risk becoming invisible in an AI-mediated marketplace.

The Convergence of Marketing, Sales and Customer Service

AI agents are erasing traditional boundaries between marketing, sales and customer service. When a customer’s AI communicates with your company’s AI, it doesn’t matter whether the inquiry is about product features, pricing or technical support — it’s all one continuous conversation.

This convergence creates unprecedented opportunities for customer experience optimization. A well-designed AI agent can greet customers by name, recall purchase history, answer technical questions, process returns and suggest upgrades within a single interaction. The result is more efficient operations and significantly improved customer satisfaction.

However, it also demands organizational restructuring. Companies can no longer operate with siloed departments when AI systems need unified customer data and consistent messaging across all touchpoints. Early adopters are already reorganizing around integrated AI platforms rather than functional divisions.

The Workforce Reality

The employment implications are substantial and immediate. A 2024 industry survey found 78% of marketers expect at least a quarter of their tasks to be automated within three years, with over one-third anticipating more than half their work becoming AI-automated.

Meta’s public roadmap discusses fully automating advertising campaigns, where humans only set budgets and high-level objectives. Google, Amazon and Microsoft are developing systems that handle targeting, creative generation and optimization without human intervention.

But this disruption creates new opportunities for professionals who adapt. As AI handles routine tasks, human expertise shifts toward strategy, creativity, ethics and managing hybrid human-AI teams. Tomorrow’s marketing leaders will be part creative director, part technologist, part data scientist — orchestrating AI systems rather than managing manual processes.

What Assets Matter Now

In this AI-driven landscape, two assets become disproportionately valuable: brand strength and first-party data.

Strong brands gain significant advantages in AI-mediated interactions. When AI systems trained on billions of data points make recommendations, they naturally favour well-known, trusted brands. This creates a compounding effect where established brands become even more prominent in AI responses.

First-party customer data becomes the fuel for competitive AI systems. Companies with rich, consent-based customer information can train more sophisticated AI agents that deliver superior personalized experiences. In an era of privacy regulations and disappearing third-party cookies, this data represents a crucial competitive moat.

The Strategic Imperative

AI is growing exponentially, like a snowball gaining size and speed. In tasks like language and image generation, performance is doubling roughly every six months, driven by massive computing power, huge datasets and smarter algorithms. Companies that wait for certainty will find themselves permanently behind.

The strategic response requires three parallel efforts:

1. Experimenting with AI tools and agents
2. Retraining teams for hybrid human-AI collaboration
3. Rebuilding systems around unified customer data and experiences

Most importantly, leaders must recognize this isn’t about adopting new tools. It’s about reimagining customer relationships in an AI-mediated world. The companies that thrive will be those that ensure their AI agents deliver genuine value, maintain trust and enhance rather than replace human connection.

We’re entering a world where billions of people will have trillions of AI agents. The question isn’t whether AI will transform customer engagement — it’s whether your company will lead or follow in that transformation. The rules of marketing are being rewritten by AI. The winners will be those who write the new playbook.

Feature Image Credit: NurPhoto via Getty Images

By Steven Wolfe Pereira

Find Steven Wolfe Pereira on LinkedIn and X.

Sourced from Forbes

By Emmy Liederman

Key stat: US brands will spend $13.7 billion on influencer marketing by 2027, up from $10.5 billion this year, according to a March EMARKETER forecast.

Beyond the chart:

• 54.7% of US brand marketers and agencies say proven higher ROI compared with other channels would be the top factor that would warrant an increased creator marketing budget, per a February survey by EMARKETER and Spotter.
• Marketers use influencer marketing to support business goals throughout the funnel, including brand awareness (66%) and revenue growth (55%), per a January Sprout Social survey.

Use this chart: Marketers can use this chart to justify bigger budgets for influencer partnerships and tools, while holding firm on high measurement standards that prove their ROI.

Note: An influencer is an individual who can sway the brand preferences, buying decisions, and loyalty of a broader population, regardless of follower count. Creators are people or entities that develop original content primarily for digital properties with the purpose of building and monetizing their audience. Examples include celebrities, public figures, YouTube/Instagram/TikTok creators, and subject matter thought leaders/experts

Methodology: Estimates are based on the analysis of survey and tracking data from various research firms and industry-specific adoption trends of digital marketing tools.

By Emmy Liederman

Sourced from EMARKETER

By Angus Whitley

Australia’s world-first social media ban for under-16s moved closer to implementation after a key trial found that checking a user’s age is technologically possible and can be integrated into existing services.

The conclusions are a blow to Facebook-owner Meta Platforms Inc., TikTok and Snap Inc., which opposed the controversial legislation. Some platform operators had questioned whether a user’s age could be reliably established using current technology.

The results of the government-backed trial clear the way for the law to come into force by the end of the year. The findings also potentially allow other jurisdictions to follow Australia’s lead as countries around the world grapple with ways to protect children from harmful content online.

“Age assurance can be done in Australia and can be private, robust and effective,” the government-commissioned Age Assurance Technology Trial said in a statement Friday announcing its preliminary findings.

The trial’s project director, Tony Allen, said there were “no significant technological barriers” to stopping under-16s gaining social media accounts. “These solutions are technically feasible, can be integrated flexibly into existing services and can support the safety and rights of children online,” he said.

Under the new law, digital platforms including Snapchat, Meta-owned Instagram, and X will be responsible for enforcing the age limit, with penalties of as much as A$50 million ($32 million) for breaches.

The trial tested a range of methods and technologies, including facial scans, inferring a user’s age based on their behaviour, age verification, as well as parental controls. The tests also took into account the ways teenagers might try to circumvent age checks.

“We found a plethora of approaches that fit different use cases in different ways, but we didn’t find a single ubiquitous solution that would suit all use cases,” the trial said in its statement.

More than 50 companies participated in the trial, while Apple Inc. and Google, developers of the most popular mobile-phone operating systems, are also contributing, Allen said on a video conference call on Friday.

The trial didn’t assess public acceptance for any particular technology or the costs involved. The accuracy of the different methods, for example the margin of error for facial analysis, wasn’t made available.

By Angus Whitley

Sourced from Bloomberg

By Gizmodo Deals

Tired of ads and don’t want to subscribe to YouTube Premium? Here’s a foolproof way to never see a single ad again.

Without YouTube Premium, you’re doomed to watch ads every few minutes, sometimes more often. If you’re exhausted by head-spinning ads, consider purchasing a YouTube Premium subscription. Sensible, right?

Well, not for everyone.

YouTube Premium’s recent price increases made it unaffordable for many. People online have found a simpler way to block YouTube ads. You wouldn’t believe it, but these two VPNs make YouTube ads vanish in seconds!

Ditch YouTube Ads With These VPNs

NordVPN and Surfshark are renowned for their reliability. They provide exceptional privacy, streaming prowess, and compatibility with all devices.

While both VPNs include ad blockers, they’ve become ineffective in blocking YouTube ads. Well, that’s what most people thought.

Namely, when you use NordVPN or Surfshark and connect to a server in Albania, YouTube ads suddenly disappear. Having tested the trick, we realised it’s true. You may be wondering how this works.

Avoid YouTube Ads With NordVPN

As many people there have reported, YouTube doesn’t display ads in Albania. Simultaneously, NordVPN and Surfshark work like all other VPNs. They allow you to connect to a remote server and use its IP address.

Given these VPNs’ strong presence in Albania, connecting to an associated server is a breeze. With the Albanian IP address, users can overcome YouTube ads and enjoy an experience similar to what YouTube Premium provides.

Things like adding videos to the queue and playing videos with the screen off aren’t there. At least, you won’t notice any ads, allowing for uninterrupted entertainment on all devices.

Other Reasons to Use a VPN

While YouTube is a big part of our lives, splurging on a VPN gives you much more. Watching YouTube without ads is just a speck in the universe of possibilities. One of them is very popular, and it’s bypassing geo-blocks.

NordVPN and Surfshark are particularly effective at streaming and unblocking many websites. They offer over 100 locations globally, with modern 10 Gbps servers and fast protocols to enable industry-leading speeds.

Many people latch onto torrenting as a perk. Both VPNs are equipped with optimised servers for P2P. In addition, they provide MultiHop (Double VPN) capabilities for double the encryption and more security and privacy.

All-around VPNs like these are fantastic for gaming, and you can even enable them on public WiFi networks for added protection. If you’re an avid traveller, more privacy and ad-free YouTube enjoyment sounds exciting.

No bandwidth limits mean endless possibilities, but more importantly, you don’t need wealth to get them. NordVPN and Surfshark cost pennies these days, so you don’t have to ditch your summer vacation for their subscriptions.

By Gizmodo Deals

Sourced from GIZMODO

By Kate O’Flaherty,

“No ads, no games, no gimmicks.” This was the ethos of WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum. Yet 11 years after its acquisition by Meta, WhatsApp is finally doing what it said it’d never do — adverts inside the app.

The new move by WhatsApp’s owner Meta has been criticised by NOYB – European Centre for Digital Rights, a non-profit organization based in Vienna.

“This further integrates WhatsApp into other Meta services — an originally independent app, which initially was available for just $1 per year without ads or data usage,” the organization said.

WhatsApp has already been under fire for its blue circle AI, something users did not want or ask for.

So what’s going on with ads in WhatsApp, what does it mean for your privacy and should you switch to Signal instead?

I Thought WhatsApp Promised No Ads?

WhatsApp did promise no ads, but the Meta-owned app offers its services for free, which is why it has decided to start showing some limited advertising in certain sections.

And the ads in WhatsApp won’t appear in your messages or chats. Instead of appearing in the Chats tab, they will appear in a section at the bottom of the messaging app in a new section called “Updates.”

Businesses can promote ads in this space in a bid to gain followers for their channels or subscriber content. They can also advertise via a status update that looks similar to an Instagram story, according to the BBC.

WhatsApp Owner Meta Speaks Out

WhatsApp owner Meta has been advertising the privacy credentials of its messaging platform, and it reiterates this on a page explaining its ads decision. Using Meta ad preferences to show ads on WhatsApp is completely optional and off by default, it says. If users don’t add their WhatsApp account to Account Centre, Meta is using limited information to show ads on the Updates tab.

That includes info like your country or city, language, the Channels you’re following, and how you interact with the ads you see — which all comes from WhatsApp.

However, if you link your WhatsApp account to facebook or Instagram, the ads are personalized using your data.

WhatsApp owner Meta says it doesn’t use the content of your personal messages, calls, and status, location shared in chats, your device contacts or your membership in groups with friends and family to show you ads. It does not sell or share your phone number with advertisers.

Meanwhile, it stresses that it does not keep logs of who everyone is messaging, and your personal messages, calls and status remain end-to-end encrypted, the gold standard of security that ensures no one can see your messages, including WhatsApp.

WhatsApp says it has “no plans” to put ads in people’s personal chats.

What Do WhatsApp Ads Mean For Privacy?

Meta is not known for its privacy credentials. After all, it runs Facebook, which is free but involves you sharing a lot of data.

“If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product,” says Alan Jones, CEO, YEO Messaging, which is a competitor of WhatsApp. He says the new WhatsApp advertising model will “use behaviour, language, location and channel-following data to deliver targeted ads.”

Meta claims personal chats will remain ad-free, but that’s a “red herring,” Jones says. “The real value lies in the metadata — what users read, follow, or click.”

Jake Moore, global cybersecurity advisor at ESET, says WhatsApp’s new move looks fine on the surface, but users should be cautious all the same. “The ads look set to be neatly confined and encrypted chats will stay untouched, plus user experience looks set to remain unaffected for most.”

However, he questions: “How exactly will the limited data targeting look like in practice? “And could we see gradual expansion of those data sources?” Moore asks. “We know that micro targeted advertising is where the money really is.”

With this in mind, Moore advises WhatsApp users to “keep an eye on consent settings and as they change or update in the future.”

While WhatsApp claims the new ads will be minimal and focused on just one tab, it raises several privacy concerns, according to ad blocking app AdGuard. “Specifically, the potential for increased data collection and tracking, combined with the lack of any opt-out option, could significantly impact user privacy.”

While WhatsApp assures users that it won’t target ads based on private messages, calls, or group activity, if you’ve integrated WhatsApp with Meta’s Accounts Centre (e.g., by linking it to Facebook or Instagram), the company can use your ad preferences and behaviour across its entire ecosystem to deliver more targeted ads, Adguard warns.

WhatsApp Ads — Should You Switch To Signal?

Meta’s move to add ads in WhatsApp is certainly a concern for privacy-conscious users, mainly because of the precedent it could set for the future. WhatsApp says it won’t ever use your chats for adverts, but remember, it is owned by a firm whose business model is based on advertising.

Privacy-focused messaging app Signal is a viable alternative — it is also end-to-end encrypted, just not owned by Meta. However, it doesn’t have WhatsApp’s 1.5 billion user share.

I use Signal as much as possible, but many of my contacts aren’t signed up. If you’re in a similar position, then for now, it might make sense to use it for your most private chats and for general messaging, stick to WhatsApp.

Feature Image Credit: dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images

By Kate O’Flaherty,

Cybersecurity and privacy journalist. Find Kate O’Flaherty on LinkedIn and X.

Sourced from Forbes

By David Crowther

WPP’s CEO is stepping down as artificial intelligence threatens some of the core functions of the agency model.

The world of advertising feels like one that we all know intimately, with each of us faced with an almost overwhelming bombardment of logos, promos, and ads every single day.

But how many advertising firms can you actually name? If the answer is “not many,” you’re not alone.

That’s because there are thousands of advertising agencies, each bursting with creative individuals looking to nudge our collective consciousness to be a little bit more sympathetic to the brands they’re tasked with representing on billboards, screens, and in print. Many of those agencies are owned by one of six major players that dominate the landscape — each one is having a tough 2025.

The “big six,” the parent companies of dozens of smaller outlets, have all seen shares drop this year, but the largest — UK-based WPP — is hurting the most, with CEO Mark Read announcing his departure this morning, as the company’s stock has slumped by more than one-third so far this year.

Winter is coming

In the competitive world of advertising, industry execs are comfortable campaigning against each other for mandates to run all things advertising for major brands like Coca-Cola, Starbucks, and Nike. With the advent and popularization of AI, however, a new threat has emerged.

Just last week, Meta rocked the big six after The Wall Street Journal reported that the social media giant was planning to launch tools that would completely automate ad creation and targeting. That could mean the same product being shown in completely different settings to different users. For instance, an ad for a watch might show one user the timepiece on the wrist of a climber ascending to great heights, while someone else might see the same model on someone stepping out of a beautiful car, at a concert, playing a sport, or reading a newsletter on their phone.

With many other parts of the agency-brand relationship, like project management and media planning, already susceptible to AI tools, the creative part of the job was perhaps seen as one aspect that might be harder to replace. I’m not sure I’m ready for the ads on my Instagram to get any worse, but here we are.

Feature Image Credit: Jeff Spicer/Getty Images

By David Crowther

Sourced from Sherwood

By Tim Frankcom

Programmatic failed to live up to its promise to be faster, smarter, and better, says Tim Frankcom of Epsilon. Retail media must take note if it’s to meet its full potential.

Programmatic’s promise to simplify processes, minimize ad-spend waste, offer transparency into the locations where ads run, and bring benefits for all parties is still not being delivered. So, if we want retail media to capitalize on its full potential, we must learn from programmatic’s development.

Complexity, a lack of standards, measurement challenges, and platform interoperability all affected programmatic’s development and adoption. Now, as retail media emerges as the new engine of digital advertising, powering performance well beyond retailer ecosystems, we must address these issues early to avoid repeating past mistakes and build something better.

So, what lessons can we take from the rise of programmatic?

First-party gold

While arguing the value of learning from the past to avoid future mistakes, it’s ironic that Google’s decision to abandon its phasing out of third-party cookies seems to fly in the face of this. Precision has always been a fundamental part of programmatic, but its mainstay – cookies – were never built for today’s reality and fail to reflect the complexities of digital advertising. That’s why retail media must focus on adopting alternative future-facing solutions that have been tested and introduced over recent years, rather than fall back on a reliance on third-party cookies.

With their wealth of first-party data, retailers have the gold standard for accuracy and personalization. And while they must develop their retail media offering around this, they must also ensure they remain in charge of their own destinies. With programmatic, this loss of control saw publishers fail to benefit fully from the technology’s arrival.

With all the challenges around reach, match rates, data interoperability, transparency, measurement, and privacy, embracing universal identifiers is essential. Yes, retailers have the crucial first-party data, but adopting IDs allows them to introduce identity-based off-site retail media. While onsite may be the initial focus for retail media, networks are quickly realizing that to deliver more personalization, scale, and ROI, they must reach the right audiences off-site.

Smarter media

Identity-based off-site strategies enable brands to connect with real people wherever they are online. By leveraging first-party data, marketers can match ads to individuals with a high degree of accuracy, ensuring that campaigns reach the intended audience across social, display, and video. This one-to-one approach results in more relevant ads, higher engagement, and improved conversion rates.

For so long, programmatic delivered what was best for the technology rather than the advertiser’s best interests. Now the tide is turning, with granular, product-level insights unlocking more ways for brands to assess ROI and optimize spend. We’re seeing retail media networks increasingly reporting on incrementality to prove sales uplift, showing how campaigns are creating business value and that marketing is having an impact.

However, measurement can’t be one-dimensional; it must reflect all elements an advertiser needs. In the retail environment, there can be an array of objectives that programmatic has not traditionally catered for. For example, a campaign may focus on driving in-store footfall or encouraging people to try a new range, and metrics must be built around these goals.

And when it comes to effective measurement, this calls for standards.

Unlock potential

A major lesson from programmatic’s development is that without standards, you have inefficiency, inconsistency, and complexity. All this creates an environment that’s difficult to navigate and stifles potential.

With each retail media network developing its own processes and approaches, this has implications for adoption and investment. While the channel is undoubtedly seeing tremendous growth, a lack of standards and the fragmentation this brings is deterring nearly 60% of buyers from moving budgets into this area.

That’s why the industry must come together to promote and support new standards that offer the consistency and scale needed for growth, while continuing to enable breadth and complexity.

Developing standards also encourages collaboration, which helps overcome friction associated with new technologies coming to market. Yes, partnership choice is essential, but siloed and fragmented approaches hinder evolution and adoption. Ensuring new platforms and channels can connect and drive the interoperability critical in today’s omnichannel environment is a must. Delivering this will instill confidence in retail media, allowing it to flourish.

Ask questions

When programmatic first exploded onto the scene, there were no rules or guidelines, and few experts. Indeed, in the early stages, there was real ignorance. However, not wanting to come across as uninformed or perhaps blinded by the technology and jargon meant not enough questions were asked, and due diligence was not thoroughly carried out. This was often to the detriment of businesses that invested in technologies that failed to deliver what they needed or soon became redundant.

Now there should be no excuse. People should be confident enough to ask the key questions, so they are informed. Can they deliver the metrics you want? Can they marry online and offline sales? Is their view of identity truly deterministic, or are they just stitching together loose digital IDs? How is attribution defined? Can you understand what’s happening at a SKU level? Can they show you how transparent reporting is?

With over 200 global retail media networks, each with its own usage frameworks, it’s critical to get what you need. And that can only be achieved by asking questions and clarifying.

While faster, smarter, and better may have been the mantra for programmatic, the challenges of implementing it must be recognized and addressed at the outset for retail media. Every emerging approach in digital advertising has its intricacies. However, learning the lessons from programmatic’s past will help minimize issues, speed up adoption, and allow it to reach its full potential quicker.

Feature Image Credit: Li Lin via Unsplash

By Tim Frankcom

President, global and mid-market expansion Epsilon

Sourced from The Drum

By Sarah Scire 

Business Insider will lay off one in five employees and go “all-in on AI,” CEO Barbara Peng told staff on Thursday.

In a memo first reported by New York Times media reporter Ben Mullin, Peng announced that 21% of staff will lose their jobs as Business Insider moves to reduce its reliance on “traffic-sensitive” parts of the business. While some news publishers haven’t seen a drop in referral traffic amid the rise of Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT queries, others — including many small- and medium-sized sites — report their traffic has fallen off considerably.

“The media industry is at a crossroads. Business models are under pressure, distribution is unstable, and competition for attention is fiercer than ever,” Peng wrote. “At the same time, there’s a huge opportunity for companies who harness AI first. Our strategy is strong, but we don’t have the luxury of time. The pace of change combined with the opportunity ahead demands bold, focused action — and it’s our chance to lead the pack.”

The layoffs will touch “every department” of the media company, Peng said. In response, the Insider Union, which represents more than 250 editorial staffers, released a statement calling the layoffs a “brazen pivot away from journalism toward greed.”

“Our position as a union is that no AI tool or technology should – or can – take the place of human beings,” Insider Union said in the statement.

In its news coverage, Business Insider will scale back on “categories that once performed well on other platforms but no longer drive meaningful readership or aren’t areas where we can lead,” Peng said. That includes scrapping the majority of its e-commerce business “given its reliance on search.” The news organization, which was purchased by Axel Springer in 2015, will launch a new “live journalism” events business called BI Live.

“We’re at the start of a major shift in how people find and consume information, which is driving ongoing volatility in traffic and distribution for all publishers,” Peng wrote in the memo. “The impact on our industry has been profound, with many publications shuttering in recent years.”

Though each visit to Business Insider generates twice as much revenue as it did two years ago, 70% of the news site’s business “has some degree of traffic sensitivity,” according to Peng.

“We must be structured to endure extreme traffic drops outside of our control,” she wrote, “so we’re reducing our overall company to a size where we can absorb that volatility.”

Business Insider averages 100 million global monthly uniques and has 1.5 million newsletter subscribers, according to its media kit. The site has an AI-powered paywall and sells subscriptions for $13/month or $150/year but has not made recent subscription numbers public. It reported 330,000 paid subscribers in November 2023.

Nieman Lab staff writer Andrew Deck recently reported that Business Insider is tracking and incentivizing employee AI usage. In her memo today, Peng reiterated to staff that Business Insider is going “all-in on AI.” Peng also underlined the goal to have every employee using Enterprise ChatGPT regularly.

Here’s the full note:

Team, 

Today we’re making significant organizational changes that are part of the strategy we set in motion a year and a half ago: to be the essential source of business, tech, and innovation journalism for an audience determined to succeed and unafraid to challenge convention to do it.

Since returning to our roots as Business Insider, we’ve been building toward something new. This kind of transformation takes time — and it requires tough decisions along the way.

What happens today

We are reducing the size of our organization, a move that will impact about 21% of our colleagues and touch every department.

This will be a difficult day, and our first priority is to provide clarity and support to those colleagues whose roles are being eliminated.

If your role is impacted, you will receive an email from the People & Culture team in the next 15 minutes. The email will include details for a meeting today in which a member of our P&C team will walk you through next steps and answer any questions. You will only receive an email if your role is affected.

We’re also proposing changes that impact our UK team, but the process is a bit different there; separate communication will follow from Claire Shelton.

While today’s changes are what we must do to build the most enduring Business Insider, it doesn’t make them any easier. We are fortunate to have built a company filled with thoughtful, kind, and creative people around the world, and we deeply appreciate the positive impact they have made within the company and on our readers, clients, and partners.

The changes we’re making today and why

Eighteen months ago we announced our new strategy: We went back to Business Insider and focused on delivering best-in-class business, tech, and innovation journalism to a smart, specific audience. That kicked off the beginning of our transformation from Insider — with its broad approach and appeal — to a more focused Business Insider.

Since Jamie Heller joined as EIC at the end of last year, we’ve made great progress — we’ve sharpened our standards and are shifting towards more reporting that is authoritative and matters deeply to the people who read it. We’ve doubled the amount of original reporting we publish and have substantially increased engagement in the past months.

This is a new Business Insider. It’s more focused. It’s intentional. And it’s working.

More broadly though, the media industry is at a crossroads. Business models are under pressure, distribution is unstable, and competition for attention is fiercer than ever. At the same time, there’s a huge opportunity for companies who harness AI first. Our strategy is strong, but we don’t have the luxury of time. The pace of change combined with the opportunity ahead demands bold, focused action — and it’s our chance to lead the pack.

Here’s what’s changing today:

1. We’re aligning our coverage to match our strategic focus.

We’re focusing where we can deliver unique, lasting value and serve our audience in ways only Business Insider can.

As Insider, we cast a wide net, covering a broad range of topics. Some of those still align with our strategy — stories that spotlight the smart moves (and mistakes!) people make as they actually experience the world.

At the same time, we’re scaling back on categories that once performed well on other platforms but no longer drive meaningful readership or aren’t areas where we can lead.

Our most loyal readers subscribe, engage, and consistently return for specific coverage — and we’re doubling down on those areas with expanded reporting and key hires.

2. We’re launching events and reducing our reliance on traffic-sensitive businesses.

We’re at the start of a major shift in how people find and consume information, which is driving ongoing volatility in traffic and distribution for all publishers. The impact on our industry has been profound, with many publications shuttering in recent years.

Our business is diversified, which has helped insulate us. We’ve also significantly improved how we monetize traffic — each visit to our site now generates twice as much revenue as it did just two years ago.

Still, 70% of our business has some degree of traffic sensitivity. We must be structured to endure extreme traffic drops outside of our control, so we’re reducing our overall company to a size where we can absorb that volatility.

We’re also exiting the majority of our Commerce business, given its reliance on search, and maintaining a few high performing verticals.

We’re launching and investing in BI Live, our new live journalism events business. It’s a space where we can showcase our journalism, connect directly with our audience, and build a strong portfolio of experiences. We’ve already seen demand, brought on key leaders, and will continue to build the team.

3. Finally, we are fully embracing AI.

As we shared during our April All-Hands, we are going all-in on AI — and we’re off to a strong start.

Over 70% of Business Insider employees are already using Enterprise ChatGPT regularly (our goal is 100%), and we’re building prompt libraries and sharing everyday use cases that help us work faster, smarter, and better.

In the past year, we’ve launched multiple AI-driven products to better serve our audience — from gen-AI onsite search to our AI-powered paywall — with new products set to launch in the coming months. We’re also exploring how AI can boost operations across shared services, helping us scale and operate more efficiently.

Change like this isn’t easy. But Business Insider was born in a time of disruption — when the smartphone was reshaping how people consumed news. We thrived by taking risks and building something new.

We’re at that moment again. It calls for bold experimentation, openness to change, and a willingness to lead.

Among all publications, we are uniquely positioned to do just that.

What’s next

I know this is a lot to absorb and it will take time to process. We’ll come together during the All-Hands today at 11:30AM ET and leaders will be hosting team meetings to answer your questions.

To those affected today, we are grateful to you for helping build Business Insider and for being wonderful colleagues. Your work has made an impact and we appreciate you.

Please support each other today and as we move through the coming days and weeks. While this change is extraordinarily difficult and will test us in many ways, it is a moment I know we’ll be able to meet. Thank you all for your resilience, as ever.

Barbara

By Sarah Scire 

Sourced from NiemanLab