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We write a lot of articles here at PCMag, from breaking technology news and commentary to in-depth features and service stories, but in close to 44 years of publishing, it’s our hands-on, lab-tested reviews that matter most. Our team of experts is dedicated to testing, rating, and smartly comparing a wide variety of products and services to help you find the right technology to fit your life. It’s at the heart of what we do.

Since November 2024, we’ve put nearly 1,500 products and services through our rigorous hands-on lab testing. Only about 25% earned the coveted PCMag Editors’ Choice award—our highest honour, reserved exclusively for true top performers. From that elite group, our editorial team distilled the field even further to create this definitive list: 110 standout products across 18 key categories.

Every item here, covered in the past 12 months, has earned four stars or higher, and eight have achieved a perfect five-star rating. These are the best of the best—products we recommend without hesitation, backed by decades of collective testing expertise. Read on to see what the best tech journalists in the business liked most this year.

Did your favourites make our list? Let us—and your fellow PCMag readers—know in the comments below.

Ultraportable Laptop

Apple MacBook Air 13-Inch (2025, M4)

  4.0 Excellent

The M4-powered Apple MacBook Air 13-inch is our top pick for the best ultraportable for most people, delivering exceptional value. The starting configuration of this 2025 model saw a price cut, and it features a major boost to 16GB of base memory and the faster M4 chip, showing significant performance margins over the M3 in all tests. The fanless design runs silent and maintains Apple’s thinnest chassis, while the improved Neural Engine provides best-in-class AI performance for on-device tasks. With superb performance in benchmark tests and an outstanding 20-hour battery life, this ultraportable is unbeatable for mainstream buyers, students, and mobile creative professionals.

Apple MacBook Air 13-Inch (2025, M4) review

Desktop Replacement Laptop

Dell 16 Plus (DB16250)

  4.0 Excellent

Dell’s streamlined PC rebrand did nothing to hinder this fantastic big-screen laptop, whose frequently discounted price should entice a wide range of home users. The appeal lies in its lengthy battery life for its size, a sharp and fast screen, and a sturdy aluminium frame that feels plush for the price. Everyone wants a taste of the good life without paying too much, and Dell’s midrange, big-screen 16 Plus laptop delivers on the dream.

Dell 16 Plus (DB16250) review

Apple Laptop

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (2025, M5) Z1KK3LL/A

  4.5 Outstanding

The 2025 14-inch MacBook Pro isn’t just the newest MacBook; it’s also the best Apple laptop of the year, transforming a minor refresh into a massive performance leap thanks to the new M5 chip. The monster CPU and GPU upgrade brings vastly enhanced AI muscle and new Neural Accelerators integrated into the GPU cores, while maintaining the same starting price. It retains the superb ProMotion XDR display, now with a brightness adjustment for improved performance in ambient light, and the highly portable 3.4-pound chassis resembles the previous year’s model, down to the port selection. Positioned as the floor-level pro-grade Mac, it’s the ideal choice for power users, creative professionals, and even gamers.

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (2025, M5) Z1KK3LL/A review

Budget Laptop

Asus Chromebook Plus CX34 (Intel Core i5 13th Gen, 128GB UFS, 8GB RAM)

  4.0 Excellent

The top budget model of the year is easily the Asus Chromebook Plus CX34, which offers an unmatched mix of features and power for its price. At around $499, the CX34 offers seriously competitive performance, featuring an upgraded Intel Core i5 processor that feels fast and smooth, and easily meets the high standards of the Chromebook Plus program. Its attractive, friendly design and comfortable keyboard and touchpad make it an excellent choice for students and budget-conscious shoppers.

Asus Chromebook Plus CX34 (Intel Core i5 13th Gen, 128GB UFS, 8GB RAM) review

Chromebook

Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus

  4.5 Outstanding

The Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus sets a new benchmark for top-shelf clamshell-style Chromebooks. It features a stunning 15.6-inch AMOLED screen that elevates the visual experience, housed in an equally dazzling, ultra-premium metal chassis that is both slim and lightweight. Its snappy performance is complemented by new productivity keys and class-leading battery life. (It lasts all day off the plug.) If you’ve never considered a Chromebook, this machine is worth looking at. It’s ideal for buyers of premium laptops, mobile professionals, and everyday shoppers who consume lots of visual content.

Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus review

Gaming Laptop

Razer Blade 14 (2025) [Review]

  4.5 Outstanding

Razer’s latest Blade 14 gaming laptop is tops among compact gaming laptops. It’s tough to beat Razer’s materials and design, and this test model houses sizzling AMD Ryzen AI 9 and Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 silicon. (It’s not too hot, however, thanks to an updated cooling system.) The Blade line has always been pricey, but that’s to be expected with this level of craftsmanship and attention to detail. Larger laptops can drive more power for less, but no one does it at 14 inches like the Razer Blade.

Razer Blade 14 (2025) [Review] review

Business Laptop

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition

  5.0 Exemplary

The ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition is the world’s best laptop for business professionals. At just 2.17 pounds and featuring exceptional build quality, it’s a remarkable feat of engineering, making it the best Windows-based travel companion. This laptop glows with a gorgeous 2.8K OLED display, complemented by the fine keyboard and connectivity that the ThinkPad line is renowned for. Plus, it’s competitively priced against lesser-equipped competitors, making it the definitive choice for executives and constant travellers.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition review

Workstation Laptop

HP ZBook Power 16 G11 A

  4.0 Excellent

The HP ZBook Power 16 G11 A is the cream of the crop for laptop workstations, delivering core professional capabilities without the top-end price tag. It maintains the premium metal design and build quality of HP’s higher-end ZBooks on a spacious 16-inch display, perfect for creative and design work. Crucially for mobile professionals, it achieves best-in-class battery life for a workstation. This is the ideal solution for budget-conscious creators, designers, and startup workers who need solid performance and enterprise management features at a reasonable cost.

HP ZBook Power 16 G11 A review

Content Creation Laptop

Asus ProArt PX13 (HN7306)

  4.5 Outstanding

If professional content creation is your jam, you know it’s tough finding a laptop that meets your needs and makes the IT department happy. The Asus ProArt PX13 2-in-1, one of our top 2025 picks among high-end convertibles, specifically targets demanding creative professionals. It’s screaming-fast for Adobe software and other demanding applications. The flip-and-fold design is convenient for presenters and is complemented by a superb OLED touch screen and the innovative, creator-specific DialPad touchpad. The PX13 is the best premium convertible for designers and power users who need outstanding raw speed and features that directly boost productivity.

Asus ProArt PX13 (HN7306) review

2-in-1 Laptop

LG Gram Pro 2-in-1 16

  4.0 Excellent

Slim, powerful, and astonishingly light, the LG Gram Pro 2-in-1 16 is our favourite big-screen 2-in-1 laptop. Why? First and foremost, the super-slim magnesium chassis makes this 16-inch convertible feel like an ultraportable. Plus, the laptop features a dazzling OLED touch screen, comes with a stylus, and achieved a stellar near-18-hour battery running time in testing. And its Intel Core H-class processor delivered superior raw CPU performance and high numbers in productivity benchmarks, making the Gram Pro the best choice for multitaskers who need maximum power and longevity in a giant, yet featherweight, convertible.

LG Gram Pro 2-in-1 16 review

Apple Tablet

Apple iPad (2025)

  4.0 Excellent

The entry-level iPad managed a rare feat in 2025: It got a spec update without a price increase. The new version features an Apple A16 chip, representing a significant upgrade from its predecessor, which uses an A14. It’s powerful enough to run all apps, stream movies and TV shows, and browse online. The base iPad might lack Apple Intelligence, but it’s still the most versatile tablet available at such an affordable price.

Apple iPad (2025) review

Android Tablet

Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra

  4.0 Excellent

The Samsung Galaxy S11 Ultra provides everything you need to elevate your productivity to the next level. Huge 14.6-inch display? Check. Powerful MediaTek Dimensity 9400+ processor with at least 12GB of RAM? Yes. Included S-Pen for taking handwritten notes? You betcha. Combine this with Samsung’s One UI software, Galaxy AI capabilities, and its impressive DeX multitasking functions, and you have a workhorse tablet capable of knocking out even your most difficult tasks—provided you can handle the price.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra review

iOS Phone

Apple iPhone 17

  4.5 Outstanding

The iPhone 17 is the best entry-level iPhone that Apple has ever made. Its combination of refined hardware, performance, and value makes it easy to recommend. It features the same 6.3-inch ProMotion display as the more expensive iPhone 17 Pro, offering silky smooth animations and an always-on display for less money. The device is a leader in photography, featuring a new front-facing camera that allows for taking wide or tall photos without rotating the device. Plus, it’s powered by Apple’s new A19 processor, which makes short work of demanding apps while offering near-Pro-level power for complex tasks, such as generating AI images and video editing.

Apple iPhone 17 review

Android Phone

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

  4.5 Outstanding

The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, powered by premium hardware, delivers the most powerful and versatile Android experience available. Inside is the top Qualcomm mobile processor (customized for the platform), plenty of RAM, and ultra-capable cameras. Galaxy AI, Samsung’s suite of AI tools, features both utilitarian functions (organizing notes) and amusing capabilities (turning a doodle into a work of art). The S25 Ultra’s included S Pen also gives you greater control to sketch or write things out. Overall, the phone offers a level of versatility not found on many other devices.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra review

Midrange Phone

Google Pixel 9a

  4.5 Outstanding

The Pixel 9a distils everything great about Google phones into a small, low-cost device that delivers features well beyond its price. It takes beautiful pictures and videos thanks to its combination of cameras and image processing. And its performance puts it on par with the more expensive Pixel 9 line, allowing it to handle AI-enhanced photo editing features like Add Me (add yourself to a group photo) or Best Take (swap facial expressions for a better group photo). Google will support the Pixel 9a with OS and security patches until 2032, making it a sound investment.

Google Pixel 9a review

Budget Phone

SAMSUNG Galaxy A16 5G A Series Cell Phone, Unlocked Android Smartphone, Large AMOLED Display, Durable Design, Super Fast

  4.0 Excellent

For just under $200, the Samsung Galaxy A16 5G brings a lot to the table. Its large, 6.7-inch display provides ample room to work and play, while the phone is powerful enough to handle day-to-day tasks, such as browsing the web, sending email, and playing media. Its cameras take pleasant-looking stills up to 50MP. It’s IP54-rated, meaning it can withstand dust and water splashes—a level of protection rare on devices at this price. To top it all off, Samsung backs the phone with six years of operating system upgrades and security updates.

SAMSUNG Galaxy A16 5G A Series Cell Phone, Unlocked Android Smartphone, Large AMOLED Display, Durable Design, Super Fast review

Apple Smartwatch

Apple Watch Series 11

  4.5 Outstanding

The Apple Watch Series 11 is the top smartwatch for most iPhone users. It offers all of Apple’s best wearable features, with the option of a stylish aluminium or titanium build. The display appears crisp, even at an angle, and both the physical controls and the touch screen offer pristine performance. Upgrades for this generation include a scratch-resistant cover, longer battery life, and optional 5G connectivity. Apple offers an unbeatable selection of wearable apps, and the new watchOS 26 software brings improvements like an AI-powered Workout Buddy, a holistic Sleep Score, hypertension notifications, and a useful wrist flick gesture.

Apple Watch Series 11 review

Android Smartwatch

Samsung Galaxy Watch 8

  4.0 Excellent

Combining Google’s Gemini with Samsung’s Galaxy AI, the Galaxy Watch 8 boasts the best AI capabilities of any wearable we’ve tested. Gemini is useful for day-to-day tasks; it can respond to voice commands and control your watch, and Galaxy AI offers detailed, personalized exercise and sleep coaching. While battery life isn’t one of its strengths, the Galaxy Watch 8 offers many other useful features, including the ability to measure your antioxidant levels, calculate your body fat percentage, and track your snoring when paired with a Samsung phone.

Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 review

Smart Glasses

XReal One Pro

  4.0 Excellent

If you want a personal workstation you can wear on your face, the XReal One Pro glasses are your best choice. These prism display smart glasses project a bright, colourful 1080p picture with a 57-degree field of view from any device that can output video over USB-C. Plus, they can work as an ultra-wide 3,840-by-1,080 screen when connected to a computer. Built-in motion tracking provides a more immersive experience than similar smart glasses. They even feature lenses that can darken, allowing you to block out distractions.

XReal One Pro review

Fitness Tracker

Samsung Galaxy Fit3

  4.0 Excellent

The Samsung Galaxy Fit3 offers simple yet capable health tracking at an affordable price. Its color AMOLED touch screen looks sharp, its heart rate monitoring proved accurate in our tests, and it lets you take blood oxygen saturation readings on demand. While it doesn’t offer access to third-party apps or have many connectivity features, the Fit3 tracks exercise and sleep as well as devices that cost multiple times the price, and its weeklong battery life eclipses that of most smartwatches.

Samsung Galaxy Fit3 review

Smart Strength Training Machine

Tonal 2

  4.0 Excellent

If you’re looking to build muscle at home, the Tonal 2 offers the best and safest AI personal training experience. Upgrades for this generation include a 50-pound increase in maximum resistance (up to 250 pounds) and a built-in movement-tracking camera for helpful form feedback. Like the original, this version takes the guesswork out of lifting, setting the weight for you and increasing it as you become stronger, so you’re always challenged. The Tonal 2 gives you access to a wide range of classes, including heart-pumping Aero (aerobic) workouts that combine cardio and strength training, plus recovery modalities for your rest days.

Tonal 2 review

Security System

SimpliSafe Home Security System

  4.5 Outstanding

The SimpliSafe Home Security System makes it easy to safeguard your home without ongoing fees. SimpliSafe offers an ideal balance of performance, high-quality service, ease of use, and value, consistently ranking among the top home security brands in our Readers’ Choice surveys. The brand offers numerous preconfigured kits, while components can be purchased separately to create your own package or expand on one. You can opt for professional monitoring or use the system as a local alarm without incurring any monthly fees.

SimpliSafe Home Security System review

Indoor Security Camera

Arlo Essential Pan Tilt Indoor (2025)

  4.5 Outstanding

Arlo’s Essential Pan Tilt Indoor builds on the foundation laid by the Essential Indoor Camera, adding several notable upgrades, including the company’s first mechanical pan-and-tilt system, a 2K-resolution sensor, and AI-driven features such as event captions, fire detection, and facial recognition. As is typical with Arlo products, a subscription is required for video recordings and certain advanced capabilities. Even so, at its low price point, the Essential Pan Tilt Indoor delivers an outstanding blend of value, performance, and functionality.

Arlo Essential Pan Tilt Indoor (2025) review

Outdoor Security Camera

Aqara Camera Hub G5 Pro

  4.5 Outstanding

The Aqara Camera Hub G5 Pro goes beyond the basics of smart home surveillance, offering 2K video, colour night vision, local storage for video clips, and AI-powered smart alerts. It can detect people, animals, packages, and even certain sounds, like a baby crying, and stands out from competing models by doubling as a smart home hub. With built-in Thread and Zigbee antennas, you can use it to connect compatible devices to the cloud. If you’re building an interoperable smart home, the G5 Pro can act as a cornerstone.

Aqara Camera Hub G5 Pro review

Smart Lock

Eufy FamiLock S3 Max

  4.0 Excellent

The Eufy FamiLock S3 Max is a combination smart lock and video doorbell that excels at both roles. As a smart lock, it’s responsive and allows for flexible entry via a palm scanner, touch screen keypad, mobile app, voice control, or a physical key. As a doorbell, it shoots crisp 2K video and offers intelligent motion alerts, internal video storage, and a battery backup system. It also features a neat interior display that acts like a digital peephole, showing you who’s on your porch.

Video Doorbell

Tapo D225 Video Doorbell

  4.0 Excellent

A simple and affordable way to monitor your front porch, the TP-Link Tapo D225 Video Doorbell Camera offers the convenience of either battery or hardwired power, depending on your installation needs. It delivers sharp 2K video with a 180-degree, head-to-toe view and supports local or cloud storage for recorded footage. The Tapo D225 is compatible with several third-party smart home devices and supports Alexa, Google Assistant, and IFTTT. In testing, it consistently delivered quick and accurate notifications.

Tapo D225 Video Doorbell review

Smart Lighting

Lorex 2K Wi-Fi Smart Lightbulb Camera (Cloud-Enabled)

  4.0 Excellent

The Lorex 2K Smart Wi-Fi Lightbulb Camera is a 2K outdoor surveillance camera that fits a standard E27/E26 screw-in base lighting fixture, making installation simple. The camera delivers sharp video, responsive motion detection, and colour night vision, plus it supports voice control via Alexa and Google Assistant. The dimmable LED lamp produces 400 lumens at a 6,500K white colour temperature, and the enclosure has an IP65 weatherproof rating, making this camera light perfect for porch fixtures. Thanks to mechanical pan and tilt, this device ensures your entryway doesn’t have any blind spots.

Lorex 2K Wi-Fi Smart Lightbulb Camera (Cloud-Enabled) review

Smart Thermostat

Ecobee Smart Thermostat Essential

  4.0 Excellent

The Ecobee Smart Thermostat Essential brings expandable smarts to your HVAC system for an affordable price. It installs quickly and offers helpful energy-saving options to improve the efficiency of your heating and cooling schedule. You can buy compatible room sensors separately to tailor your settings for each location and ensure consistent temperatures throughout your house. It may not offer all the features you get with more expensive smart thermostats, but it works with all major smart home platforms for seamless integration with third-party devices, offering tremendous value.

Ecobee Smart Thermostat Essential review

Digital Picture Frame

Aura Aspen

  4.0 Excellent

Any screen can display photos, but few make them actually look like printed images. The 12-inch Aura Aspen’s anti-glare finish gives images the impression of being well-lit prints as opposed to LCD pixels. It’s simple to use, automatically adjusts the screen brightness based on the room’s ambient light, comes with unlimited cloud storage, and can be preloaded with photos—which is great if you’re giving it as a gift.

Aura Aspen review

Robot Vacuum

Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni

  4.5 Outstanding

The best robot vacuum that you can buy right now, the Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni does it all. It vacuums thoroughly with good pickup scores across a variety of surfaces. It mops vigorously with a unique roller design that refreshes itself as it works to limit cross-contamination while increasing scrubbing power compared with traditional pads. An advanced AI-enabled navigation system helps the robot manoeuvre efficiently while deftly avoiding obstacles. Even better, its base station washes and dries the mop and empties the dustbin between runs.

Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni review

Budget Robot Vacuum

TP-Link Tapo RV30 Max Plus

  4.0 Excellent

The TP-Link Tapo RV30 Max Plus offers the best value for your money of any robot vacuum we’ve tested. It has premium features like a self-emptying dustbin and LiDAR-powered navigation, both rarities for a budget-priced model. While its suction power doesn’t match that of more expensive vacuums, it performed admirably in our tests on both carpet and hardwood floors and did a fine job of mopping. The surprisingly versatile Tapo RV30 Max Plus will take care of your spot cleaning at an affordable price.

TP-Link Tapo RV30 Max Plus review

Smart Air Conditioner

GE 11,000 BTU Smart Heat/Cool With Heat Pump Electronic Window Air Conditioner (AWGP12)

  4.5 Outstanding

Most window air conditioners have to be removed and stored for the winter, but not this one. The GE 11,000 BTU Heat/Cool Air Conditioner doubles as a heater, making it ideal for year-round use. It supports Alexa and Google Assistant, works with third-party devices through IFTTT integration, and even offers usage reports, making it easier to harness its automation abilities to reduce energy consumption. Perhaps most importantly, it heats and cools quickly, so you don’t need to leave it running constantly. However, if you need to turn it off (or on) remotely, you can do so from your phone.

GE 11,000 BTU Smart Heat/Cool With Heat Pump Electronic Window Air Conditioner (AWGP12) review

Smart Ceiling Fan

Dreo CLF712S Ceiling Fan

  4.5 Outstanding

A smart ceiling fan is a convenient way to keep a room cool, and this model also functions as an adjustable, app-enabled light. It can emit not only cool and warm white hues, but also colors to help you set the mood. Its five 52-inch blades and 12-speed DC motor deliver maximum airflow of up to 6,040 cubic feet per minute. Meanwhile, built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth make it easy to connect to the Dreo mobile app or to control it with Alexa, Google voice commands, or Siri Shortcuts. There’s even a bedtime light feature that allows you to set a fade-out time for the white lamp. It’s reliable, feature-packed, and reasonably priced.

Dreo CLF712S Ceiling Fan review

Smart Air Purifier

Dyson Hot+Cool Formaldehyde HP09

  4.0 Excellent

The Dyson Hot+Cool Formaldehyde HP09 is more than a highly capable air purifier that delivers detailed pollution readings. It’s also a fan and a space heater with 350 degrees of oscillation. The HP09 is full of thoughtful design touches, like the built-in LED that dims at night and a small gold remote that magnetically attaches to the top of the purifier. It also works with Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and supports Siri shortcuts. It’s feature-laden and versatile, setting the bar for smart air purifiers.

Dyson Hot+Cool Formaldehyde HP09 review

Robot Lawn Mower

Segway Navimow X390

  4.5 Outstanding

Mowing the lawn can feel like a Sisyphean task, but it doesn’t have to with the Segway Navimow X390. This deluxe robot lawn mower can cover up to 2.5 acres in a day, thanks to its large battery and speedy navigation of up to 3.3 feet per second. It can also achieve incredible accuracy thanks to the inclusion of 4G cellular connectivity and a centimeter-level accurate RTK antenna for GPS. It self-docks when it’s time to recharge, it’s extremely quiet compared with traditional push mowers, and its software is as polished as its hardware, making it the best robot lawn mower for large yards.

Segway Navimow X390 review

Robot Pool Cleaner

Dreame Z1 Pro Robotic Pool Cleaner

  4.5 Outstanding

The Dreame Z1 Pro is a cordless robot cleaner that uses multiple sensors to precisely map and navigate your pool. It delivers outstanding cleaning performance and parks at the side of your pool for easy retrieval from the water when its basket needs to be emptied. Two pump motors provide 8,000 gallons per hour of suction, making it one of the most powerful cleaners we’ve come across. Additionally, it features a light-activated underwater remote control, a rare feature among cordless models that makes spot cleaning easy.

Dreame Z1 Pro Robotic Pool Cleaner review

Smart Bird Feeder

Bird Buddy Smart Feeder Pro

  4.5 Outstanding

Smart bird feeders transitioned from an emerging product category to a commodity item relatively quickly. There are dozens of cheap feeder cams on Amazon, all of which qualify as “meh” when it comes to picture quality. The Bird Buddy Smart Feeder Pro costs more, but justifies its price with a camera that snaps sharp 5MP photos and 1440p video, allowing you to capture the colourful plumage of your backyard flock with rich texture in a social-friendly vertical aspect. Its app is cool too; it identifies visitors by species and sends them to your phone as virtual postcards, saving your favourites in a digital bird book.

Bird Buddy Smart Feeder Pro review

Earphones

Apple AirPods Pro 3

  5.0 Exemplary

Apple’s latest earphones are quite simply the best we’ve reviewed this year. The company redesigned the buds to better fit in your ears and added a new silicone-and-foam eartip to create a strong seal, ensuring they stay in place comfortably while blocking sound more effectively. Apple also improved the audio, enhanced noise cancellation, extended battery life, and added advanced features like heart rate detection and in-call language translation—all while maintaining the same $249 price as the previous model.

Apple AirPods Pro 3 review

Budget Earphones

Anker Soundcore Liberty 5

  4.0 Excellent

With the Soundcore Liberty 5, Anker has brought solid active noise cancellation (ANC) to one of its most affordable true wireless earphones. These low-cost buds have crisp sound, long battery life, and surprisingly good ANC for the price. They are comfortable to wear, resistant to sweat and rain, include easy controls, and have a powerful companion app for managing the sound and features. All this, plus support for high-quality Bluetooth codecs, makes for a winning combination at a great price.

Anker Soundcore Liberty 5 review

Headphones

Sony WH-1000XM6

  4.5 Outstanding

Sony didn’t reinvent the wheel with its WH-1000XM6 noise-cancelling headphones, but it made nearly everything about them better. Most importantly, Sony beats Bose at reducing unwanted noise while offering a more natural sound profile with support for high-resolution audio. Battery life is slightly longer, the controls are intuitive, and the companion app features a 10-band EQ for fine-tuning. Sony also reintroduced several fan-requested features, including a folding design for improved portability, additional padding on the headband, and a more compact travel case. Simply put, these are the best noise-cancelling headphones on the market.

Sony WH-1000XM6 review

Speaker

Marshall Middleton II

  4.0 Excellent

The Marshall Middleton II takes a step forward by combining improved stereo audio, longer battery life, and additional features into a speaker that strikes a pleasing balance between presence and portability. It bears Marshall’s signature design language in a water-resistant package that’s small enough to toss in a bag but large enough to push great sound across your backyard. The speaker features simple and versatile joystick control, easy-to-use bass and treble knobs, and a 3.5mm aux input. Additionally, it works in conjunction with a powerful companion app to further refine your music. It’s on the pricey side, but totally worth it.

Marshall Middleton II review

Smart Speaker

Amazon Echo Dot Max

  4.5 Outstanding

The standard Amazon Echo is no longer available, but the Echo Dot Max is a worthy replacement for the role of the Goldilocks Alexa smart speaker. It’s much more powerful than the Echo Dot and less than half the price of the Echo Studio, with big, balanced sound for its small size. It’s also packed with smarts, including Wi-Fi 6E, three home hub standards (Matter, Thread, and Zigbee), and immediate access to the new AI-enhanced Alexa+ voice assistant, making it the best value in the Echo lineup.

Amazon Echo Dot Max review

TV

LG Evo C5 65-Inch OLED TV (OLED65C5PUA)

  4.5 Outstanding

LG’s C-series has long been one of the best choices in OLED TVs, offering a fantastic picture at a great value. The C5 lives up to that legacy, boasting a bright panel that offers wide, accurate colours. It’s also thin, sleek, and loaded with features, including Apple AirPlay, Google Cast, and hands-free Amazon Alexa support. Don’t be intimidated by the official retail price, either; we’ve consistently seen the 65-inch C5 available for at least $1,000 less since July.

LG Evo C5 65-Inch OLED TV (OLED65C5PUA) review

Budget TV

Hisense 65U65QF

  4.5 Outstanding

When shopping for a budget-friendly TV, you should usually be prepared for a dimmer-than-ideal panel. But not with the Hisense U65QF. It’s the first TV in this price range we’ve seen that can output more than 1,000 nits of light, an important benchmark that does justice to high dynamic range content. Its colour performance is similarly excellent, and its 144Hz refresh rate and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro make it great for gaming. It also supports Apple AirPlay, which isn’t common on the Fire TV platform it uses. Although it doesn’t offer hands-free voice control, you can still interact with Alexa through the remote.

Hisense 65U65QF review

Media Hub

onn 4K Pro 32GB Google TV Streaming Device

  4.5 Outstanding

Google left a big hole in the media hub market when it discontinued the Chromecast. Its replacement, the Google TV Streamer, is twice as expensive and offers little additional value. Fortunately, Walmart’s Onn brand has filled that niche nicely with the Onn 4K Pro. It’s by far the best-equipped $50 media hub we’ve tested, with 4K output supporting Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. Other features include Wi-Fi 6, an Ethernet port, a handy remote finder, and hands-free Google Assistant with Gemini AI support.

onn 4K Pro 32GB Google TV Streaming Device review

Projector

Hisense C2 Ultra

  4.5 Outstanding

The Hisense C2 Ultra is an excellent projector for all-around home entertainment, brimming with high-brightness output, top-tier image quality, and a Designed for Xbox certification. The C2 Ultra’s picture shines by supporting every current variation of HDR, as well as Filmmaker and IMAX Enhanced modes, and handling each one effectively. It’s our top pick for a high-end room-to-room portable projector, and it should please movie watchers just as well as it will thrill gamers.

Hisense C2 Ultra review

Full-Frame Camera

Nikon Z5II

  4.5 Outstanding

Pros and shutterbugs love full-frame cameras, which have image sensors as large as an old-school 35mm film frame, and the Z5II is just about the best value in this arena. It boasts an impressive spec list, highlighted by in-body stabilization, 24MP snapshots, and 4K N-RAW video, and is complemented by a robust set of lenses and accessories. If you want to get started with full-frame photography today, the Z5II is the way to go.

Nikon Z5II review

Crop-Sensor Camera

Nikon Z50II

  4.0 Excellent

The Nikon Z50II brings upmarket features like weather sealing, autofocus with intelligent subject tracking, and 10-bit 4K video to an entry-level APS-C sensor model. It’s surprisingly small and remains affordable at a time when costs are rising across the photo industry. We’re especially pleased with the Nikon Z lens library, which includes basic options like the DX 16-50mm F3.5-5.6 (available in a kit with the camera) and high-end glass like the recent DX 16-50mm F2.8 VR. The Z50II is a camera that will please both beginners and experienced photographers.

Nikon Z50II review

Compact Camera

Camp Snap Screen Free Digital Camera

  4.0 Excellent

The Camp Snap Digital is proof that you don’t have to spend a lot to get a fun digital camera. The $70 snapshot maker was initially marketed to summer camp kids who aren’t allowed to use devices with LCD screens (hence the name), but artistic photographers who appreciate lo-fi images should pick one up, too. It’s as simple as a digital camera gets—there’s just one button, an optical viewfinder, and a fixed focus lens. Picture quality isn’t professional, but it is enhanced by the option to create and load your own filters, adding a personal touch.

Camp Snap Screen Free Digital Camera review

Lens

Sigma 135mm F1.4 DG Art

  4.5 Outstanding

This has been a great year for lenses, with a few standout contenders in the category. The Sigma 135mm F1.4 DG Art emerges as a sublime choice for photographers seeking to capture portraits with backgrounds that blur into the distance. You simply won’t find a better medium telephoto prime. Lightning-fast focus, sturdy construction, and excellent flare resistance seal the deal. The only problem? The 135mm F1.4 Art is only available for Sony and L-Mount cameras, so Canon and Nikon owners are out of luck.

Sigma 135mm F1.4 DG Art review

Instant Camera

Polaroid Flip

  4.0 Excellent

If you want to experience what it was like to take instant pictures in the ’70s and ’80s, then you’ll want a Polaroid camera. The Flip captures large 3.1-inch square photos on colour or black-and-white film, the same size as SX-70 and 600 cameras of yesteryear. Film is expensive ($2.50 per frame) and requires special handling, so Polaroid isn’t for the faint of heart (or tight of wallet). However, the Flip’s sonar autofocus system and four-zone lens help curb the number of bad photos you’ll take. Go with Fuji Instax models if ease of use is a priority, but photographers can create magic with Polaroid film on the Flip if they’re willing to accept a bit of a learning curve.

Polaroid Flip review

Action Camera

Insta360 X5

  4.5 Outstanding

The Insta360 X5 comes out on top of new 360-degree action cameras this year, boasting great video quality and durability. It surpasses the GoPro Max2 and DJI Osmo 360 as a camera for videographers and adventure seekers, as it makes it incredibly easy to creatively reframe its spherical video. The footage is crisp too, with 8K resolution and HDR colour. You can take the X5 anywhere—even underwater—and easily replace its lens guards if you destroy them in your pursuit of the perfect shot.

Insta360 X5 review

Drone

DJI Flip

  4.5 Outstanding

DJI makes the best camera drones, and the Flip is the top entry-level model it’s ever made. Its 249g weight means you can fly it without having to register with the FAA, which is convenient. It can be purchased with either the RC-N3 remote, which works with your phone, or the RC-2, which features a built-in touch display. Built-in propeller guards and forward obstacle sensors help you avoid accidents, and the camera records smooth 4K60 video with HDR colour. This may be the last year we see a DJI drone in our winner’s list, as the China-based company skipped the US market for its last couple of drone releases; it faces a potential legislative ban by the end of the year.

DJI Flip review

Mainstream Desktop

Lenovo Yoga AIO (27-Inch)

  4.0 Excellent

The best have-it-all desktop for most people this year is Lenovo’s premier all-in-one PC, one of its premium Yoga products with a sharp screen and a stand that incorporates wireless phone charging. Lenovo also includes a wireless keyboard and mouse in the box, making the Yoga AIO 27 a truly complete computing package. The speedy performance, simple port access, and sharp webcam round out this whole-home PC hub. It’s the mainstream desktop of the year.

Lenovo Yoga AIO (27-Inch) review

Budget Desktop

GEEKOM A6 Mini PC, AMD Ryzen 7 6800H(8C/16T, up to 4.7GHz), 32GB DDR5 1TB SSD, Radeon 680M, Compact Aluminium Design Win

  4.0 Excellent

Geekom’s excellent, affordable mini desktop does a top-notch Mac mini impression for a little less cash, bringing more ports, memory, and storage (but a little less when it comes to top speed). Any computer with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD would be a steal at this price, but Geekom makes good on the deal with decently competitive performance from a midrange AMD mobile processor. The whole package amounts to a top-notch cheap computer and one of the best deals in desktop PCs today.

GEEKOM A6 Mini PC, AMD Ryzen 7 6800H(8C/16T, up to 4.7GHz), 32GB DDR5 1TB SSD, Radeon 680M, Compact Aluminium Design Win review

Compact Desktop

Falcon Northwest FragBox (2025)

  4.5 Outstanding

Small PCs are generally expected to be short on power, but Falcon Northwest pushes and arguably breaks the limits of that concept with its FragBox line of built-to-order desktops. This year’s model manages to cram in a full Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 with a top-end AMD Ryzen X3D processor, producing some of the fastest frame rates we’ve seen this year in games testing. Naturally, this level of performance at this size requires extreme craftsmanship. In our minds, it’s well worth paying for.

Falcon Northwest FragBox (2025) review

All-in-One Desktop

HP OmniStudio X 31.5 AIO

  4.0 Excellent

HP’s top-end all-in-one PC delivers a premium experience unlike any other AIO we’ve tested this year, and proved itself competitive in performance with Apple’s iMac. The desktop’s large and super-sharp 4K display, coupled with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 laptop GPU inside, makes for slick media editing, as well as workable mainstream PC gaming if you dial things down to 1080p. Topped off with conveniences like ports within the display stand and a hide-away webcam, the OmniStudio is the AIO to beat.

HP OmniStudio X 31.5 AIO review

Gaming Desktop

Velocity Micro Raptor Z55a

  4.5 Outstanding

Velocity Micro is a boutique system builder, but it somehow beats many big-box retail PC vendors on price for the same parts. The Raptor Z55a is what we like to call a “stealth” gaming PC: It looks like a buttoned-up office workstation, yet it hides a mega-powerful 4K-ready GPU paired with other top-end components. While some might enjoy the bombast of modern glass-enclosed gaming PCs with oodles of RGB lights, the Z55a delivers the best gaming performance for the price, all in a sleek custom case that saves space.

Velocity Micro Raptor Z55a review

Business Desktop

Lenovo ThinkCentre M90a Gen 5

  4.0 Excellent

Some offices require more out of their all-in-ones, and this ThinkCentre rises to the occasion with full desktop-grade processing inside. It’s a 24-inch system with a no-nonsense 1080p screen. This PC is an all-in-one work-crunching system for offices with moderate computing needs, potent enough for all general professional tasks and even some media production or other intense projects. The desktop can even function as a standalone monitor via the HDMI 1.4-in/HDMI 2.1-out combo port, allowing the AIO to live on when the PC portion is obsolete.

Lenovo ThinkCentre M90a Gen 5 review

Desktop Workstation

Apple Mac Studio (2025, M4 Max)

  4.5 Outstanding

The Mac Studio’s M4 Max processor offers ceiling-shattering performance in reverse proportion to this whisper-quiet desktop’s size. (Indeed, the Mac Studio’s testing results challenge what we’ve seen from many much larger desktops.) This edition of the Mac Studio introduces cutting-edge Thunderbolt 5 connectivity for ever-faster data transfers. For AI-assisted data crunching and multi-core graphics rendering in a small box, the Mac Studio simply can’t be beat this year.

Apple Mac Studio (2025, M4 Max) review

High-End Graphics Card

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 Founders Edition

  4.5 Outstanding

Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 5080 is among the most powerful graphics cards available today, and the one we’d recommend most among the high-end options. Both the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 4090 offer better performance, but those are priced at $1,999 and $1,599, respectively. The RTX 5080 will be more than enough to satisfy gamers, anyway, as it’s easily able to run modern games at 4K with topped-out settings. Plus, you can always flip on DLSS 4 for an extra boost if needed.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 Founders Edition review

Mainstream Graphics Card

PNY GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB Overclocked Dual Fan

  4.0 Excellent

One of the most potent midrange graphics cards of this generation is the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti. Featuring 16GB of GDDR7 memory, it delivers a substantial performance upgrade over its predecessor and dominates the graphics card market in its price range. While not ideal for gaming at 4K, the RTX 5060 Ti is highly capable of gaming at 1080p and 2K. A lesser model with 8GB of RAM is also available if you want to save a few bucks, but opt for the 16GB so you’re assured enough graphics memory.

PNY GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB Overclocked Dual Fan review

Budget Graphics Card

Intel Arc B580 Limited Edition

  4.5 Outstanding

The Intel Arc B580 displays a truly impressive leap in performance over Intel’s previous generation of graphics cards. Though you can get more performance by opting for something like the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 for a bit more cash, you won’t find anything quite as capable as the Arc B580 at this price. It remains the fastest graphics cardin its range. It’s arguably best suited for gaming at 1080p, but depending on the settings you use and the age of the game, playing at resolutions up to 4K is also possible. Just don’t expect that while running the latest titles.

Intel Arc B580 Limited Edition review

CPU

AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D

  4.5 Outstanding

We’ve been critical of AMD’s 3D V-Cache technology in the past, but with the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, it finally got the tech right. When it comes to gaming, this CPU offers a clear performance advantage over all other processors currently on the market. Meanwhile, it offers similar or slightly better performance than the Ryzen 9 9950X in terms of non-gaming tasks. Best of all, AMD doesn’t set a heavy premium on this technology. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D costs only slightly more than the 9950X, making it unquestionably the best high-end processor for gaming PCs in 2025.

AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D review

Motherboard

ASRock Z890 Taichi

  4.5 Outstanding

The ASRock Z890 Taichi motherboard is among the best we’ve reviewed to support Intel’s newest desktop processors, the “Arrow Lake” 200S family. The overclocking properties are excellent (anchored by a robust power-delivery system), and the ATX-format Z890 Taichi has top-tier connectivity bits that include built-in Wi-Fi 7, a 5GbE port, and two Thunderbolt 4/USB4 ports. A generous six M.2 slots and top-notch audio hardware complement this luxurious board.

ASRock Z890 Taichi review

PC Case

Corsair Air 5400 RS-R

  4.5 Outstanding

Corsair’s Air 5400 features an airflow design we’ve never seen before. PC cases are typically divided into two main compartments, with the power supply cordoned off from the motherboard and expansion cards. The Air 5400, in contrast, features a third compartment that’s specially designed to enhance the case’s thermal performance. This front-panel airflow chamber isolates the heat generated by the CPU’s liquid cooler, pushing it out of the system through a gap in the case’s right side and keeping that hot air from heating up other components. Beyond that, the Air 5400 is a well-crafted modern PC case featuring high-quality air intake fans, three USB-C ports on the top I/O panel, and hinged side panels that facilitate easy component access.

Corsair Air 5400 RS-R review

Internal SSD

WD Black SN8100

  5.0 Exemplary

With its WD Black SN8100, Sandisk shows that you can have great performance in a PCI Express 5 SSD. It blew away most of our benchmark records, including tallying the fastest raw (sequential read and write) speeds we’ve ever seen in an SSD—without requiring massive heat-dissipation gear. It ships barebones, but we do recommend a compact heatsink for it. Acronis True Image software and TCG/Opal serve to sweeten the deal when you purchase.

WD Black SN8100 review

Router

TP-Link Archer GE650 BE11000 Tri-Band Wi-Fi 7 Gaming Router

  4.0 Excellent

Gaming routers are typically more expensive than general-purpose Wi-Fi routers and mesh systems, but in return, you’re rewarded with premium performance. With the TP-Link Archer GE650, you get outstanding Wi-Fi 7 connections and robust features without having to spend a bundle. The GE650 offers several gamer-centric options, including optimized acceleration settings, a dedicated game control panel, and an edgy design. It also offers six multi-gig networking ports. At a price under $300, it’s an excellent value.

TP-Link Archer GE650 BE11000 Tri-Band Wi-Fi 7 Gaming Router review

Mesh Wi-Fi System

eero Pro 7

  4.0 Excellent

The eero 7 Pro is an excellent, reasonably priced Wi-Fi 7 mesh system that uses 5GbE jacks and 6GHz transmissions to deliver strong wireless performance to every corner of your home. The Pro 7 is also a solid performer, delivering a strong Wi-Fi signal to all corners of our test house. It’s easy to set up and offers robust home automation features, including support for Thread, Matter, and Zigbee. If you’re looking for a whole-home mesh solution that offers impressive Wi-Fi 7 performance, look no further than the eero Pro 7.

eero Pro 7 review

Network Attached Storage

Asustor AS6804T

  4.0 Excellent

Equipped with four multi-gig LAN ports, five high-speed USB ports, and a powerful AMD Ryzen CPU, the AS6804T delivers excellent performance. We appreciate that Asustor’s app store features more than 200 apps for backing up data, setting up the NAS as a cloud or media server, storing and organizing photos, and much more. At $1,299, it’s one of the most expensive four-bay NAS devices we’ve tested, but its performance and high-end, high-speed components make it easy to recommend if you need real NAS muscle.

Asustor AS6804T review

External Hard Drive or SSD

Crucial X10

  4.0 Excellent

Available in capacities up to 8TB, Micron’s Crucial X10 matches the highest capacity available in external SSDs sold through consumer retailers—and at a surprisingly affordable price. Although the X10’s lack of hardware-based encryption limits its corporate use, this voluminous, mildly ruggedized SSD is ideal for storing a media or game library, or serving as a scratch disk for videographers or photographers.

Crucial X10 review

Inkjet Printer

Epson EcoTank ET-3950

  4.0 Excellent

The Epson EcoTank ET-3950 stands out for its fast simplex (one-sided) printing and its automatic duplex scanning, making it the all-in-one inkjet printer to beat for micro or home offices. For scanning and copying, the printer offers both a letter-size flatbed and a 30-sheet page-reversing document feeder. It’s highly suitable for moderate to heavy-duty use by micro and home office standards. If you need to scan or copy double-sided, multipage documents, even just once in a while, this is the printer you need.

Epson EcoTank ET-3950 review

Laser Printer

Brother MFC-L2900DW XL

  4.0 Excellent

The Brother MFC-L2900DW XL mono laser all-in-one printer delivers every feature a small office needs, including the convenience of single-pass duplexing for copying, scanning, and faxing. It’s expensive compared with some older, larger models that offer similar capabilities. However, the MFC-L2900DW’s standout feature is its ability to scan in duplex while remaining a relatively compact printer. It’s ideal for use in micro to small offices, or as a personal desktop printer.

Brother MFC-L2900DW XL review

Photo Printer

Epson Expression Photo XP-8800 Wireless Colour All-in-One Printer

  4.0 Excellent

High-quality photo output, plus the ability to scan and copy, makes the Epson XP-8800 an excellent choice for home use. Built around a six-colour ink system that helps boost photo quality, it offers a flatbed for scanning and copying, supports mobile printing, and can even print directly on appropriately surfaced discs. We appreciate its well-thought-out convenience features, such as a 4.3-inch colour touch screen for commands and its ability to automatically extend the output tray from its closed position when you start a print job.

Epson Expression Photo XP-8800 Wireless Colour All-in-One Printer review

3D Printer

Bambu Lab P2S

  5.0 Exemplary

The Bambu Lab P2S delivers professional-level output in a desktop 3D printer that doesn’t require constant adjustments. For newcomers, the P2S offers a remarkably gentle learning curve thanks to automatic calibration, guided maintenance, and built-in error detection. For experienced users, the printer’s speed and reliability translate into faster iteration and less downtime. Plus, the P2S Combo we reviewed, which includes Bambu’s four-filament-spool material management system, is reasonably priced compared with similar 3D printing systems.

Bambu Lab P2S review

Scanner

Ricoh ScanSnap iX2500

  4.5 Outstanding

Ricoh’s top-of-the-line ScanSnap iX2500, available in white or black, combines fast scan speeds with a large paper capacity (100 sheets), an effective skew-detection system, and a receipt-scanning attachment. Given its jam-packed lineup of features, the iX2500 is fully competitive with models that cost considerably more. It’s a superior desktop document scanner for homes and small offices at a very reasonable price, and it’s also a bit smaller than much of its direct competition.

Ricoh ScanSnap iX2500 review

Mouse

Logitech MX Master 4

  5.0 Exemplary

Logitech has done the impossible, improving on a near-perfect mouse (the MX Master 3) with the MX Master 4. The newest MX Master is packed with new features, including haptic feedback and an Action Ring digital overlay, which streamlines workflows with app-specific shortcuts. It updates the mouse’s design with smart revisions and enhancements, but it doesn’t lose what made the previous mouse such a star. It feels good in your hands; it’s quiet, fast, and responsive; and it’s packed with productivity features via the Logi Options software. Trust us: It won’t take you long to see why the Master MX 4 is a cut above all other computer mice.

Logitech MX Master 4 review

Keyboard

Satechi SM3 Slim Mechanical Backlit Bluetooth Keyboard

  4.0 Excellent

The SM3 Slim Mechanical Backlit Bluetooth Keyboard is not the flashiest keyboard in the world, but it doesn’t have to be. It more than lives up to Satechi’s reputation for stylish, top-notch Mac keyboards. (And it works on Windows, too!) Under its handsome façade, the keyboard is a dependable daily driver, with plenty of wireless connectivity options and a quiet, low-profile design that’s perfect for shared office spaces. It’s an easy recommendation, especially for Mac users who don’t want to pay a premium for Apple’s Magic Keyboard.

Satechi SM3 Slim Mechanical Backlit Bluetooth Keyboard review

Monitor

HP Series 7 Pro 34 inch WQHD Conferencing Monitor (734pm)

  4.0 Excellent

HP’s ultrawide Series 7 Pro 34-inch WQHD Conferencing Monitor (734pm) packs a massive set of features, anchored by a super-sharp webcam for online meetings and a beautiful screen suitable for occasional creative visual work, such as photo or video editing. At a price that targets high-level employees, the 734pm is a good choice for managers whose schedules are packed with online meetings and who are involved in approving art concepts. Its relatively low pixel density makes it less than ideal as a dedicated creator-centric monitor, but it’s the best panel for relentless online collaborators we’ve seen all year.

HP Series 7 Pro 34 inch WQHD Conferencing Monitor (734pm) review

Gaming Monitor

Asus ROG Swift PG27UCDM

  4.5 Outstanding

The Asus ROG Swift PG27UCDM is equipped with the latest premium features, including a 4K resolution OLED screen, a 240Hz peak refresh rate, and DisplayPort 2.1 technology to fully leverage the capabilities of the latest GPUs. The QD-OLED screen delivers an exceptionally vivid color range and high brightness. The high pixel density of 166 pixels per inch contributes to clear text and enhanced detail. Add low input lag to the equation, and the PG27UCDM proves to be a supremely capable high-end gaming monitor.

Asus ROG Swift PG27UCDM review

Gaming Headset

Razer Blackshark V3 Pro

  4.5 Outstanding

The Razer Blackshark V3 Pro wireless gaming headset is $50 more than the already excellent Blackshark V2 Pro it replaces, but that higher price is justified by a big addition: active noise cancellation. The ANC can effectively block out any distractions while you’re playing, while providing clear and detailed sound with spatial audio for an immersive gaming experience. Its mic provides clear voice chat, and integrated Bluetooth means you can use the headset to listen to music on the go.

Gaming Chair

AndaSeat Novis

  4.0 Excellent

You don’t have to spend a lot for a well-made gaming chair. The AndaSeat Novis is comfortable and sturdy, stuffed with dense foam where cheap gaming chairs often leave hollow spaces. It also has a better-than-average three-year warranty (which you can increase to five years if you share a picture of your chair on social media). It’s otherwise a no-frills chair, but that doesn’t detract from it being the best thing gamers can sit in this year.

AndaSeat Novis review

Game Console

Nintendo Switch 2 Console [USA]

  4.0 Excellent

The original Nintendo Switch was an incredible gaming system that allowed you to play it at home on your TV or on the go in your hands. Nintendo simply made the Switch 2 even better. The new edition is significantly more powerful and can run games at 4K resolution on a TV. Its integrated 7.9-inch 1080p screen is larger and sharper, featuring a 120Hz refresh rate for smooth action. The new Joy-Con controllers feature a mouse mode, providing an additional control option for games that support it. Oh, and there’s a second USB-C port on the top, which is really useful. Simply put, we’ll be playing this console well into 2026 and beyond.

Nintendo Switch 2 Console [USA] review

PC Gaming Handheld

Asus ROG Xbox Ally X

  4.0 Excellent

The ROG Xbox Ally X is a significant partnership between Asus and Microsoft, and it largely succeeds. The Ally X reimagines the original Asus ROG Ally handheld’s design, now featuring controller grips that resemble those of an Xbox gamepad. (It’s easily one of the most comfortable handhelds we’ve reviewed to date.) The new Xbox full-screen experience is also a significant improvement, enabling you to download and play your games across multiple platforms. While we’d prefer that the Ally X not run the resource-intensive Windows 11, games nevertheless look good and perform extremely well on it.

Asus ROG Xbox Ally X review

Microsoft Xbox Game

South of Midnight

  4.0 Excellent

South of the Midnight is a testament to the power of specificity. As a game, it’s a pleasant throwback to an earlier era of action-adventure, with its blend of nimble platforming and straightforward combat. However, a stunning presentation and emotional storytelling elevate the experience, transporting us to a mythological version of the American Deep South that we rarely see in games. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll…fight a giant alligator.

South of Midnight review

Nintendo Switch Game

Donkey Kong Bananza – Nintendo Switch 2

  4.5 Outstanding

Although the Nintendo Switch 2 launched with Mario Kart, the flagship single-player adventure for the new system’s debut is Donkey Kong Bananza. In dropping the cheery cheery plumber for the wild gorilla, the game is far more action-packed than your typical first-party Nintendo title. Gameplay mostly involves much smashing of enemies and the environment around you, but even amidst the carnage, Bananza features creative abilities, brilliant crafted levels, and sophisticated interlocking systems that encourage player experimentation. And don’t forget the bananas—so many bananas.

Donkey Kong Bananza – Nintendo Switch 2 review

Sony PlayStation Game

Silent Hill f PS5

  5.0 Exemplary

Last year’s Silent Hill 2 remake gave new life to the long-dormant series, but the release of Silent Hill f proved it doesn’t have to rely on nostalgia to stay relevant. This new, original entry shifts the setting from the US to 1960s Japan, introducing a young female protagonist and a new combat system. From its haunting soundtrack to its nerve-wracking story to its drop-dead gorgeous visuals, Silent Hill f reinvigorates the franchise into something fresh and original.

Silent Hill f PS5 review

PC Game

Doom: The Dark Ages (for PC)

  4.0 Excellent

We’ve been slaying demons in Doom games on every device imaginable since the early ’90s. So how do you keep this first-person franchise fresh? In Doom: The Dark Ages, the answer is to go back in time. This prequel sees the Doom Slayer in a vaguely medieval fantasy world where monsters still blast lasers, but you can bash them with a mace when not shooting them with guns. The setting inspires other novel mechanics, including piloting a giant mech, flying a dragon, and parrying with a shield. A more open, improvisational gameplay style makes this a terrific Doom for newcomers.

Doom: The Dark Ages (for PC) review

Video Streaming Service (On Demand)

Netflix

  4.5 Outstanding

When Netflix ditched mail-order DVDs for online video streaming, it kicked off a revolution in how we consume entertainment. Years later, Netflix is still a top choice for watching movies and TV shows. Its originals dominate the zeitgeist, with returning hits like Love Is Blind and Stranger Things making waves this year. It’s packed with innovative features, including a library of high-quality mobile games. Like its rivals, Netflix continues to raise prices, but at least the limited ad-based tier offers a more affordable way to get started.

Netflix review

Video Streaming Service (Live TV)

YouTube TV

  4.0 Excellent

With traditional streaming services creeping up in price every year, maybe you should just take the plunge with a full-fledged live TV streaming service that mimics what you get from cable. If you’re ready to cut the cord, our top pick is YouTube TV. It features an excellent lineup of familiar TV channels from across all genres, accompanied by a modern interface that you’d expect from an online-focused company. Its add-ons, including YouTube’s exclusive NFL Sunday games, let you create your own perfect entertainment streaming package.

YouTube TV review

Music Streaming Service

Spotify

  4.5 Outstanding

Spotify’s strength lies in its impressive personalization and broad availability. Its algorithm delivers fantastic, tailored recommendations through features like Discover Weekly and Daylist, making new music discovery easy and intuitive. Spotify’s AI-powered DJ also provides a fresh, curated musical selection based on your listening preferences, which you can further customize via requests. Moreover, Spotify Connect enables seamless streaming across numerous compatible devices, including game consoles and smart TVs, providing a robust and accessible listening ecosystem that solidifies it as our top choice for streaming music.

Spotify review

Desktop Operating System

macOS Tahoe

  4.5 Outstanding

Apple’s macOS Tahoe isn’t just about a shiny new Liquid Glass transparent design. The desktop OS supercharges Spotlight search with options for actions (such as “create an email”), applications, your clipboard history, and files. Although Apple Intelligence is still not as full-fledged as Copilot on Windows, it benefits from improved image creation, live translation, and shortcut integration features. Meanwhile, the new Phone app in Tahoe offers voice calling and call screening, and Mac gamers get the new Apple Games app. Plus, you can finally change the folder colour from that ghastly blue we’ve suffered with for years.

Mobile Operating System

Apple iOS 26

  4.0 Excellent

Apple’s iOS 26 is an outstanding mobile operating system that finally delivers some of that impressive AI tech teased over a year ago. Apple Intelligence powers compelling features like Live Translation and Hold Assist for phone calls. It also includes streamlined app designs, such as a more intuitive Photos app, and other intelligent additions, including call screening and depth-altering Spatial Scenes for photos, which provide an exceptional user experience. This dense OS update is gussied up with the sleek new Liquid Glass design, delivering a translucent and fluid interface that you can further customize on the Lock and Home screens.

Apple iOS 26 review

AI Chatbot

ChatGPT

  4.0 Excellent

ChatGPT is the premier AI chatbot, thanks to its peerless accuracy and detail in responses, along with its best-in-class deep research and media generation capabilities. Sourcing across both web search and research reports is the clearest and easiest to understand among all mainstream chatbots. From creative writing to file processing and everything in between, the quality of ChatGPT’s underlying 5-series of large language models shines. Luxury additions, including an AI agent, the Atlas AI web browser, and an AI shopping component, among others, round out its generous package.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, PCMag’s parent company, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April 2025, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

ChatGPT review

Graphic Design Software

Canva

  4.5 Outstanding

You have plenty of options for designing marketing and social media graphics, but Canva is both the easiest to use and offers the most powerful creative possibilities. Like most modern software, the graphic design app is also now replete with AI tools, which you can use to generate voiceovers for your video projects, turn a text prompt into a full-fledged presentation, and generate both images and videos. Not a great writer? Canva can even create on-brand copy for your marketing campaign. And, of course, real-time collaboration is seamless.

Canva review

Photo Editing Software

Adobe Photoshop

  5.0 Exemplary

Yes, you have to pay a hefty monthly fee to Adobe for the privilege of using the best photo editing software in the world, but it boasts the deepest and most advanced set of image correction, creation, and enhancement tools of any software available. Despite already having a massive set of tools for photography, drawing, and typography, Adobe continues to make them increasingly usable. If you want to automatically select and mask multiple objects in your photo, Photoshop is your best bet.

Adobe Photoshop review

Video Editing Software

Adobe Premiere Pro

  4.5 Outstanding

Although you can find other great options in the pro video editing software space, such as DaVinci Resolve and Final Cut Pro, Adobe’s Premiere Pro stands out for its continual adoption of whiz-bang AI features and focus on ease of use. We especially like its Generative Extend tool, which adds convincingly natural AI-generated frames to clips that are just a tad short for your project. With its Frame.io integration, Premiere Pro is also the best choice for teams of editors.

Adobe Premiere Pro review

Web Hosting Service

DreamHost Web Hosting

  4.0 Excellent

DreamHost delivers excellent performance across a wide range of feature-rich plans, making it one of the best web hosting services around. Its intuitive control panel and robust cloud hosting packages are ideal for beginners and businesses. For WordPress users, DreamHost has one-click installations and specialized, managed WordPress services to ensure smooth operation. 24/7 live chat and email support, a comprehensive knowledge base, and a generous 97-day money-back guarantee for new shared hosting customers round out this excellent service.

DreamHost Web Hosting review

Website Builder

Wix

  4.5 Outstanding

Wix reigns supreme among overall website builders. With hundreds of templates, you’re bound to find one perfect for your site’s theme. Wix’s robust yet intuitive editing tools, featuring powerful image editing and numerous widgets, allow you to customize your site even further. Thanks to its free tier, there’s no excuse not to at least check it out. And if you’re willing to invest, Wix’s commerce options can power your online business.

Wix review

CRM

Bigin by Zoho CRM

  4.0 Excellent

If you are new to customer relationship management (CRM), Bigin by Zoho is a fine place to start. It makes onboarding simple and prioritizes ease of use with a straightforward interface. The service doesn’t offer any AI features, but it does support numerous integrations, allowing you to easily build CRM into your existing workflows with minimal effort. Decent reporting capabilities and VoIP functionality enhance the overall experience. Finally, we appreciate that individuals can use Bigin by Zoho for free, with no ongoing costs; meanwhile, the price rates for teams are extremely reasonable.

Bigin by Zoho CRM review

Productivity App

Asana

  4.5 Outstanding

Asana is our favourite work management app, but it’s versatile enough to also handle task and project management (depending on the complexity of the job at hand). With an elegant interface and an incredibly robust free version, Asana is a good fit for anyone who wants to be more organized, regardless of their budget or technical skills. However, it also allows you to delve deep, thanks to comprehensive progress tracking features, numerous automations and integrations, and extensive AI functionality. Asana is the best all-around solution for work management we’ve tested, with clear applications for both your personal and professional lives.

Asana review

Project Management App

Zoho Projects

  4.5 Outstanding

Zoho Projects makes managing complex projects simple, and perhaps most importantly, affordable for SMBs. Thanks to its plethora of features, including an AI assistant and time-tracking tools, Zoho Projects is quite versatile and works effortlessly with other Zoho apps, such as Books and Meetings. Getting up and running won’t take too long, as many premade (and customizable) templates are available. For capabilities it doesn’t cover, such as billing and invoicing, you can connect third-party services. Whether you’re new to the scene or a seasoned project manager, Zoho Projects is a great first option.

Zoho Projects review

Video Conferencing App

Webex by Cisco

  4.5 Outstanding

Webex by Cisco is more than ready to handle your team’s video conferencing needs with AI-based summarization, asynchronous video recording, flexible captioning, and rich collaboration tools (breakout rooms, chat, screen-sharing, and whiteboards). Other cool features include Reactions (give a thumbs up to your camera, and it appears as an emoji on-screen), sign language interpretation, and Step Away From Meeting (informs team members that you will be briefly unavailable). Webex’s free tier is fairly generous, and its premium tiers unlock extras, such as live polling.

Webex by Cisco review

VoIP

Zoom Phone

  4.0 Excellent

Zoom Phone is a smart VoIP solution that keeps costs low. To unlock unlimited calling for Canada and the US, you need to upgrade beyond the starter plan. However, a subscription also includes basic faxing, messaging, and video conferencing features. Zoom Phone’s user experience is quite intuitive, and we appreciate the powerful AI assistant that extracts key information from calls and summarizes message threads. The service performed reliably in testing as well. You can bundle Zoom Phone with Workplace Pro if you need advanced video conferencing capabilities.

Zoom Phone review

Security Suite

Norton 360 Deluxe

  4.5 Outstanding

Norton’s antivirus technology routinely earns maximum scores from independent testing labs, and the standalone antivirus boasts many suite-level features, including a firewall, online backup, and a vulnerability scan. Norton 360 Deluxe builds on that impressive foundation and adds a full-powered VPN, dark web monitoring, a parental control system, and even a small-scale personal data removal service. With Norton 360 Deluxe, you get just about everything anyone could want in a security suite.

Norton 360 Deluxe review

Antivirus

Bitdefender Antivirus Plus

  4.5 Outstanding

There’s a reason for the Plus in this app’s name. Yes, it consistently achieves top scores in our tests and third-party antivirus tests, but it goes far beyond basic antivirus protection. Bitdefender adds multiple layers of protection against ransomware attacks, to start. Its Safepay system isolates the browser to protect financial transactions, it can find and apply missing security patches, it includes a secure deletion file shredder, and more. In Autopilot mode, it operates in the background with minimal interaction. However, if you want to take control, you can do so remotely through Bitdefender Central.

Bitdefender Antivirus Plus review

VPN

Proton VPN (Windows)

  5.0 Exemplary

Proton VPN is proof that privacy doesn’t need to be paywalled. Its free service is the best in the industry, offering unlimited data and connections to servers in five countries. Upgrading to the premium version unlocks access to a leading-class server network, advanced VPN features such as SecureCore, and a stellar ad blocker. Proton’s privacy-first focus, consistent year-over-year quality, and competitive pricing make it an easy pick for anyone looking to strengthen their online security.

Proton VPN (Windows) review

Password Manager

NordPass

  4.5 Outstanding

If you’re looking for customizable security settings, email aliases, emergency access, or the ability to quickly share files, passwords, photos, and more with family and friends, NordPass is our top recommendation. The app’s new storage options upgrade it from a mere password manager to an “everything manager” that you can access on any device. NordPass is reasonably priced at $2.99 per month, but be sure to take advantage of the 30-day NordPass Premium trial.

NordPass review

Proxy

Oxylabs

  4.5 Outstanding

Oxylabs can scale to fit any business need with pay-as-you-go pricing and an impressive suite of proxy options. They include dedicated and shared data centre proxies, ISP proxies, mobile proxies, and ethically sourced residential proxies. New users can get a one-time free trial for any of Oxylab’s proxies, making it easy to try the service out before you purchase a premium plan. With a transparent privacy policy and reliable spoofing capabilities, Oxylab’s proxies are an excellent option for businesses of all sizes.

Oxylabs review

Smart Display

Amazon Echo Show 8 (2025)

  4.5 Outstanding

The fourth-generation Amazon Echo Show 8 has a fresh look, improved audio hardware, and—most importantly—a faster chip designed to take advantage of Alexa+. Amazon’s upgraded AI assistant comes built in and responds in a smooth, natural-sounding way. The display itself is bright, crisp, and responsive, while the speakers produce sufficient volume and depth to comfortably fill a room. For anyone purchasing their first smart display, the Echo Show 8 offers an ideal mix of cost, size, and performance.

Amazon Echo Show 8 (2025) review

Feature image credit: Zain bin Awais/PCMag Composite

Sourced from PC Mag

While marketing industry buzz tells us to expect more automation, so far, the rate of adoption has not reflected expectations. Is this because Machine has not yet reached the perfection that we demand (despite our ample room for human error)? What is it that we fear when we read about the newest automation tech on the block? Realistically, you’re not going to be replaced. Truthfully, all to be feared is that we’ll have more time on our hands to do what we’d prefer to be doing. And yet, the reluctance to automate is strong.

Looking back over the last decade, it’s clear that the introduction of new technology has created greater possibilities and more roles for marketers. It’s inevitable automation and technologies will be playing an even more integral role in the future of marketing. The good news is that it’s OK to take baby steps with automation at first. All automation technologies exist to simplify work processes, however, they come on a scale of complexity. Smaller-scale marketing technologies are designed to relieve you of the more repetitive, mundane tasks. These are the technologies we can hopefully agree are best to start with and therefore more realistic to adopt first. You’re not going to buy a Ferrari when you just passed your test.

Feed automation

You may or may not already be using data feeds in your daily work. If you’re not, a data feed is merely a file that contains information such as inventory. The possibilities a data feed can unlock in marketing have steadily grown. They are mostly used when a marketing channel (e.g. Google, Facebook, AWIN, Amazon) requests your inventory in order to create ads or listings. Relying on the IT department to adapt the data can cause a huge delay and friction in making dynamic and responsive ad campaigns online. This is where a feed automation tool, such as Channable’s feed manager, simplifies the work process. A feed automation tool can automate the creation of feeds for retargeting, social ads, display and many more. Look out for a technology with a good UI and UX because you’re hoping to steer clear from overcomplicating processes.

Online ad automation

If you’ve ever had to write or implement ad copy for PPC ads, you can probably agree it’s fairly cumbersome. There are automation systems on the web that can help you generate hundreds of highly relevant copy for ads, sitelinks and keywords. You do this by building a template using dynamic fields. The system will be directly liked to your ads account, so after you’ve built the ad structure, it’ll only take a click of a button and potentially hundreds of ads are in your account. This then frees up time to focus on optimizing campaigns or bidding. Bidding is also something that you can now automate. AI technology will analyse the optimal time and budget for your keywords. Channable’s PPC tool is an automation tool that can generate the ad copy straight to your account, but there are others that include bidding and advanced targeting possibilities.

Social media automation

Social media has become the best online place to reach your target market. Posting regularly allows you to communicate directly with your audience, helps build a brand image as well as many other things. Social media automation tools allow you to schedule posts so you can prep them in advance and get on with other tasks in the meantime. Tools include Hootsuite and Buffer for scheduling social media posts. There are also tools that can provide you with insights for social media content based on influencers and your competition, such as BuzzSumo. If you’re interested in automating product ads for social media channels, you would actually need a feed manager because the channel will require your inventory in their specific feed format.

Marketplace listing automation

If you or your client is a retailer that sells via the giant online marketplaces, such as eBay or Amazon, marketplace automation can help list products, add new listings, and make easy modifications to existing listings. This is really a plug and play technology as once the connection is made everything is real-time. Check out Channable’s marketplaces integrator to upload to multiple marketplaces from one place or see the possibilities offered by each marketplace.

Email marketing automation

Sending emails to existing clients, reminding old ones that they can still use you, or reaching out to prospective customers are all activities that can be automated. Low-level email automation purely enables you to send a group a certain email at a scheduled time. Mailchimp and Dotmailer are popular choices for email automation. But you can do so much more such as creating different segments, which will allow for specifying the message of the email to the audience you want to read it. Or setting up a sequence, so that a reader will receive follow up emails that you only had to set up once. This is easily created if you’re using a CRM such as Hubspot.

If you’ve gotten to the end of this list and realised you’ve either implemented some or all of the above levels of automation, give yourself a clap on the back. You’re already more adapted to the technological future than you thought. It’s not something to fear and is easier to implement than it appears. If you haven’t implemented them all, remember how much better your life is with one of them and the possibilities the others could open up for you. Automation technologies will be more commonplace in our future and it’s best to start now. It’s all about enabling you to spend your time more wisely. Read Channable’s guide on how to choose a feed manager for the next step in adopting marketing technologies.

By Senni Whitaker

Senni Whitaker is head of marketing (UK) at Channable

Sourced from The Drum

By Peter Hoskins

TikTok’s efforts to stop children using the app and protect their personal data have been inadequate, a Canadian investigation has found.

Hundreds of thousands of children in the country use TikTok each year despite the firm saying it is not intended for people under the age of 13, according to the findings.

The investigation also found TikTok had collected sensitive personal information from “a large number” of Canadian children and used it for online marketing and content targeting.

TikTok told the BBC that it will introduce a number of measures to “strengthen our platform for Canadians” although it disputes some of the findings.

Feature image credit: LightRocket via Getty Images

By Peter Hoskins

Sourced from BBC

By Sissi Cao

A summer job Michael Dell had when he was 16 gave him a “an early lesson in direct marketing.”

Dell (DELL), one of the world’s largest manufacturers of personal computers, is known for inventing and pioneering the “Dell Direct Model,” which fueled its astronomical growth from a dorm-room startup to a global tech powerhouse in the 1990s and early 2000s. Dell didn’t begin pursuing its famous direct sales model until the mid 90’s, but the idea was deeply rooted in the mind of the company’s founder and CEO Michael Dell, who first experimented with it when he was just 16.

Like many well-known tech founders of his generation, Dell started his company in college (and later dropped out), but his entrepreneurial journey started even earlier. “When I turned 16, the employment opportunities expanded quite a bit because I had a car—my parents handed me down an old station wagon—and I could drive to different places,” Dell, now 59, spoke about his formative years at SXSW yesterday (March 14) in Austin, Texas during an onstage interview with the tech analyst Patrick Moorhead.

That summer, Dell got a job in Houston making cold calls to sell subscriptions to the Houston Post, a now defunct local newspaper. “What I learned from talking to these people was that, oftentimes when people bought the newspaper, they were either moving into a new house or they were getting married,” Dell said. “That sparked the thought of how to find more people who were moving into new houses or getting married.” 

After some research, Dell learned that there were public records of people who had applied for mortgages and who had applied for marriage licenses, a requirement in Texas, and these records contain the applicants’ addresses.

“I figured, let’s send them all a direct-mail offer to subscribe to the Houston Post. That worked really well,” Dell said. “It was an early lesson in direct marketing, for sure.” Dell then hired a few friends from high school and expanded the newspaper sales effort from Harris county, where Houston is, to 16 more counties surrounding the area.

Dell started what would later become the Dell Computer Corporation in 1983 when he was a freshman at the University of Texas at Austin. The 19-year-old had been upgrading IBM PCs in his spare time and realized he could just buy components and assemble PCs and then sell them at a lower price than established brands. He soon started advertising in trade magazines and business boomed. Within a year, Dell had to drop out of college to attend to his business full time.

At the time, all PC manufacturers were selling computers to customers, primarily corporate clients, through distributors, who would customize the computers by installing additional components or software. Dell initially operated by this model, too. Though sales were growing, the company wasn’t making money. So in 1994, Dell ditched distributors to sell computers directly over the phone.

The direct model not only eliminated middleman fees, but it also reduced Dell’s inventory cost and allowed it to build direct relationships with its customers. Between 1994 and 1999, Dell saw its sales grow from $3.5 billion to $25 billion and profit surging more than 60 percent annually.

Dell changed his company’s name from Dell Computer Corporation to Dell Inc. in 2003. In 2016, a new parent entity called Dell Technologies was created after Dell Inc. acquired EMC Corporation. Dell has served as the parent company’s chairman and CEO ever since. The entrepreneur’s net worth is estimated at about $95 billion, making him among the 20 wealthiest people on Earth.

Feature Image Credit: Kike Rincon/Europa Press via Getty Images

By Sissi Cao

Sourced from OBSERVER

 

By Webb Wright 

If you’re considering launching a new AI-centered brand or product, you may want to go beyond simply adding ‘AI’ to the end of the name.

The AI Gold Rush is in full swing and brands of all stripes are rushing to establish their particular niches in this hugely profitable and increasingly crowded industry. New AI-centered brands, departments and products are cropping up by the day, each requiring a name that is, ideally, both memorable and unique.

“Every single company, whether a candy bar manufacturer or a software company, seemingly has to show that it is doing something to leverage AI,” says Jonathan Bell, founder and CEO of Want Branding. “And that often requires some kind of adjacent brand, which, of course, then needs a name.”

Several brands, as you may have noticed, have simply taken to adding ‘AI’ (or ‘.AI’) to the ends of their names. Think Stability AI, Spot AI, Mistral AI, Shield AI, People.ai, Otter.ai, Arize AI, Crowd AI, Toggle AI and so on. And, of course, there’s OpenAI, the company that has become something of a flagship for the entire wave of AI innovation that’s currently underway following its hugely successful launch of ChatGPT in late 2022 and that has probably helped to establish the ‘AI‘ suffix as the name du jour for up-and-coming brands looking to make a name for themselves in the industry.

Adding ‘AI‘ to the end of a brand or product name “is an easy but often perhaps a cheap way of doing it without much thought,” says Bell.

A parallel can be drawn between this naming phenomenon and a similar one that followed in the wake of the dawn of the internet in the late 90s when scores of new brands with ‘.com‘ at the ends of their names began to emerge. In those early days of the world wide web, it made practical sense for companies to make unambiguously clear that they were technologically savvy enough to have an online presence. (Remember, this was back when ‘online‘ was itself a new, hip word.)

Over the slow process of many years, however, the internet became so deeply embedded into most of our day-to-day lives, into the very fabric of popular culture and commerce, that it became more or less superfluous to add ‘.com‘ to the end of a brand name. Most people these days automatically assume that any given brand – unless it‘s incompetent beyond belief or run by a group of Luddites – has a website and probably some degree of social media presence.

The ‘.com‘ naming trend, in other words, began as a worthwhile marketing tactic, but “at a certain point that was eroded and it became meaningless,” says David Placek, founder and CEO of Lexicon Branding. There are still, of course, some brands (Hotels.com, for example) that have chosen to use their domain names as their official names, but such a strategy is far less common today than it was when the internet had the shiny-new-toy factor.

AI could follow a similar trajectory of cultural adoption as that of the internet: today, it’s all anyone can talk about; tomorrow, it’s basically taken for granted. Just as people today assume that brands today have an online presence – even when they don’t have ‘.com‘ in their names – we could soon reach a point as a society in which AI is so ubiquitous, so deeply integrated into our devices and our modes of working and communicating with one another, that adding ‘AI‘ to a brand or product name becomes passé. Placek says he’s “absolutely positive” that we’ll cross that threshold sometime within the next two years, after which point “everybody will assume that there’s something AI-related” built into most brands and products.

Given that forecast, adding ‘AI‘ to the end of a name “can be a disservice for building brand strength over time, because [the market] becomes crowded,” says marketing agency Tenet Partners CEO Hampton Bridwell. “There are a lot of names with a similar sound or styling and that creates a situation where you don’t have differentiation or memorability within the name.”

Anthropomorphic names and the sad tale of Clippy

There have, of course, been other naming trends that have recently emerged around AI. For example, many AI-centered products have been given human-sounding names, apparently in an effort to make the underlying technology – which could potentially come across as a bit threatening to a culture that’s been weaned on films like 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Matrix – feel a bit less alien and intimidating.

Consider IBM’s Watson, an AI model originally designed to answer questions that gained global fame when it won Jeopardy! in 2011. There are also more recent examples, including Siri (Apple), Alexa (Amazon) and Einstein (Salesforce).

As the journalist Charles Duhigg points out in a recent article in The New Yorker, Microsoft (which became a leader in the burgeoning AI industry following its recent multi-billion-dollar investments in OpenAI) has had to learn the hard way about the risks involved with trying to anthropomorphize AI. In 1996, the company introduced Clippy, a smiling virtual assistant with big eyes and a paperclip for a body, who could answer simple user questions on Microsoft Office platforms. The character became widely loathed by users. The Smithsonian called Clippy “one of the worst software design blunders in the annals of computing,” as Duhigg quotes in his article. Microsoft killed Clippy off in 2001.

The company once again tried its hand at anthropomorphizing algorithms in 2016 with the launch of Tay, an AI-powered chatbot whose conversational style reflected that of a typical teenage girl. Tay rather quickly descended into a fit of hate speech and was deactivated less than 24 hours after its launch.

Apparently wiser after the Clippy and Tay debacles, Microsoft is now naming its AI products in a manner that suggests utility and even a touch of fallibility. Copilot, the name of the company’s recently launched suite of AI-powered productivity tools, insinuates something that can be reasonably relied upon to provide a measure of assistance, not something into which one should invest one’s whole trust.

The curious case of ChatGPT

Perhaps the biggest irony in the realm of AI names is the fact that ChatGPT, the product that, more than any other, catalyzed the burgeoning AI Revolution, has such a widely disliked name.

For one thing, says Bridwell, the word ‘chat‘ in a brand name “is pretty limiting – it really doesn’t embody what the whole thing is about in terms of [how] it delivers value. It’s a terrible name. Over time, [OpenAI] should really think about rebranding it.”

Even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman agrees that it’s not an ideal name. During a recent podcast hosted by comedian Trevor Noah, Altman said that ChatGPT is “a horrible name, but it may be too ubiquitous to ever change.”

ChatGPT’s suboptimal name could stem in part from the fact that the OpenAI team that built it did not initially have high hopes for its prospects as an uber popular app. It was referred to internally as a “low-key research preview” in the period leading up to its launch and it was intended as a means through which the public could begin to interact with OpenAI’s GPT large language model more broadly so that the company could then collect feedback and fine-tune the technology accordingly.

Many within the OpenAI team were surprised when ChatGPT attracted its first million users in just five days, becoming the fastest-growing app in history.

Advice for marketers

According to Want Branding’s Jonathan Bell, brands that are looking to promote their use of AI through an optimized name should take their time. “It needs to be well thought-out,” he says. “It shouldn’t be something that’s done casually over a quick meeting, where you just simply add ‘AI’ to [the name]. Companies need to think about: What are they specifically doing? Can they deploy AI in a way that is really effective, or is this something that’s been done that could come across as bandwagon-jumping?”

Placek, who’s prone to referencing cognitive science and linguistics when discussing the psychology of brand- and product-naming, highlights the importance of sound symbolism – that is, the associations between particular sounds and the concepts that they evoke in the mind of the hearer. “You don’t want something too soft and you don’t want something too clever,” he says. “[You want something that’s] a little bit on the more serious side that [suggests] intelligence … sound symbolism should play a role in selecting and developing your names.”

When prompted to describe the qualities of a great name for an AI brand or product in fewer than 10 words, ChatGPT wrote: “Memorable, clear, unique, relevant, easy to pronounce, globally appealing, scalable.”

Feature Image Credit: Adobe Stock

By Webb Wright 

Sourced from The Drum

By Goran Paun

Technology is advancing, changing how users navigate websites, digital products, apps and interfaces. The user experience has become more enjoyable and much more efficient than it used to be.

Although these changes have become widely accepted by users and the teams that design them, there are still hurdles that can impact your website. There are design elements that have the power to enhance user experience, but if overused or not used correctly, they can cause your users to feel cognitive strain in order to get what they are seeking. Cognitive strain occurs when users have to go through hurdles when they are navigating complicated interfaces, leading to difficulty enjoying an experience or making decisions. Cognitive strain becomes distracting and can cause your users to leave your website.

Let’s explore a few digital design advancements, and how to use them just right.

Use Your Animations Purposefully

Interactive web animations are one of the many common ways designers create visually appealing web experiences that feel immersive. Web animations add a delightful extra layer to a design. However, it is key to ensure that they are not overused, as then they can lose their appeal and overstimulate your users. The best way to incorporate animation in a meaningful way is by analysing how to use them. Is the animation propelling the user forward in their journey in any way through a transition to another webpage? Is the loading time of the animation interrupting the flow of the overall experience—potentially causing increased bounce rates? These are elements to consider when incorporating animations into your website.

Subtle but powerful ways to include animations can be hover animations that grow or pulse, scroll animations that offer a dynamic transition to the next part of a website without too much motion, or even a moving graphical element that offers visual interest without getting in the way of any content. Fast-moving animations or animations that overtake the page can overstimulate your audience if overused; therefore, minimal movement is usually the better choice.

Consider Your Chatbot

Chatbots have been around for a while. They are used mainly to help with the automation of customer support, answering questions and more. Chatbots are integrated into e-commerce websites for product recommendations or streamlining questions for customer support, while service websites often use them for tasks such as scheduling appointments. Although they are handy when it comes to enabling businesses to handle larger quantities of user interactions, do you really need them on your website if it extends beyond e-commerce purposes?

Depending on your target audience and demographic, chatbots can be hit or miss. According to a study that surveyed different generations on their thoughts about chatbots, 20% of Gen Zers prefer to start customer service interactions with a chatbot, compared to only 4% of baby boomers. The latter are particularly unaccepting of chatbots that pop up on websites automatically: “53% of Boomer respondents indicated that uninitiated chatbots ‘annoyed’ them, compared to only 28% of millennials and 24% of Gen Z consumers.”

To create an overall enjoyable user experience for all, make sure that all of your users can easily and painlessly use your website to do the things they need to do. If your brand caters more to older generations, consider alternative communication and calls-to-actions that lead to fillable contact forms or email and phone number options. If your audience is a mixed bag, including chatbots can be helpful, as long as they don’t completely overtake the screen or are presented as a pop-up. Therefore, consider whether your website benefits from having a chatbot, or whether you can opt out with alternative options.

Optimize Your Assets

Grabbing your users’ attention is one of the main goals for robust web design; your visuals can impact that. Regarding the photography and other visual assets across your website, ensure that they are optimized for the web. Images that are too large can impact the loading time it takes for users to see them—furthering the chance of users experiencing cognitive strain and ultimately leaving your website. Forty percent of people will leave a website if it takes more than three seconds to load. To decrease the loading time of your photo assets, make sure they are no more than around 150 kilobytes, and that you resize original photos down closer to that resolution.

Images that have not been properly optimized also might not fit well within the design of your site. They might be too large or too small, or their resolution might not match the display capabilities of the device users are on. These inconsistencies can be distracting, making it harder for users to concentrate on the main content.

Optimizing your assets can also mean what kinds of images you’re using and how you’re using them. Using stock imagery, for example, can be a great way to incorporate elements that help tell the visual story of a website, but including photos of your actual company or brand can help elevate your user-centric approach and carry out your brand ethos further. Users are more likely to trust and feel the authenticity of your brand if you include photos that are company-related versus stock photography.

Using photos in the right context is also important. If a stock image isn’t directly related to the content it’s paired with, it can confuse users. They might exert unnecessary mental effort trying to connect the image with the content, causing cognitive strain.

As you navigate the ever-evolving landscape of digital design, it is imperative to make thoughtful and purposeful design decisions to avoid causing unnecessary cognitive acrobatics for your users. By fostering an environment of simplicity, user-centricity and contextual relevance, you can ensure that your website not only captivates and engages users but also that it facilitates a seamless and intuitive journey.

Feature Image Credit: getty

By Goran Paun

Creative Director of ArtVersion, a Chicago design consultancy. We craft ideal user experiences for the world’s most innovative companies. Read Goran Paun’s full executive profile here.

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website.

Sourced from Forbes

By Webb Wright 

Until recently, many prominent brands including Disney, H&M and Coca-Cola were all-in on the metaverse. Now, times have changed and so have the business models within (some of) those companies.

Remember the metaverse?

Not so long ago, many brands were thoroughly fixated on this vague virtual world, a space that comprised both online gaming and virtual reality (VR) and that was typically conflated with blockchain-based web3 technologies such as NFTs and cryptocurrency. Though the concept of the metaverse has been around for decades, it was catapulted into the public psyche after Facebook changed its name to Meta – thereby signaling its pivot from being a social media-first company to being a metaverse-first company – in October 2021. Mark Zuckerberg, the metaverse’s most devoted proselytizer, painted his vision for the future of the virtual world as being one in which the humanity of the not-so-distant future would work, play, date and do just about everything else.

Many brands, captivated by the notion that there could soon be a virtual realm populated by throngs of (mostly young) consumers, were quick to drink the metaverse Kool-Aid. Wendy’s opened up a ‘Wendyverse’ in Meta’s Horizon Worlds; Miller Lite hosted a virtual bar in Decentraland; Playboy built a ‘MetaMansion’ in The Sandbox and so on. Every other day, it seemed, some new brand was eagerly staking its claim in what seemed to be a virtual gold rush.

Then, almost as quickly as it had materialized, the bubble popped.

Following a sharp decline in the crypto market, a general lack of popular enthusiasm for virtual reality-based ‘experiences’ such as Meta’s Horizon Worlds and a surge of popular interest around artificial intelligence, some brands that had previously seemed so enthusiastic about the metaverse dropped it like a bad habit. Others appear to be tentatively treating it as a phenomenon that, like a child’s forlorn toy, has been temporarily abandoned by the culture but might one day be embraced again.

“Many brands were excited about the metaverse … [and] their shift in attention makes sense with the current acceleration and adoption of generative AI,” says author and futurist Cathy Hackl, who has come to be known as the “godmother of the metaverse.”

Hackl believes that although the term ’metaverse’ has fallen into disfavour, it still points to some very real and ongoing technological trends. “It comes down to evolutionary and revolutionary technologies,” she says. “Generative AI went from evolutionary to revolutionary in the last year, and other technology sectors like spatial computing are still in their evolutionary phase. There’s [going to be] a future after the smartphone and a new version of the web will replace the current mobile internet; whether or not we’ll choose to call it ’the metaverse’ remains to be seen. The headlines have moved on from the term but the future has yet to be determined.”

Formerly the chief metaverse officer of Journey, a company that she founded, Hackl’s current job title is chief futurist. “The chief metaverse officer [title] was starting to limit me in some ways and was putting me in a box,” she says. “I felt the need to branch out further since my work encompasses so much more.”

Hackl changing her job title is also perhaps a reflection of a broader trend of tech and marketing experts who are shying away from the terms ’metaverse’ and ’web3.’ To explore this trend a bit further, let’s take a look at the recent career arcs of (in some cases former) metaverse leads within some prominent companies.

Mike White (Disney)

In February 2022, when metaverse fever was starting to heat up across the marketing landscape, Disney tapped Mike White to lead its in-house metaverse initiatives as the company’s executive vice-president of next-generation storytelling and consumer experiences. White had been with Disney by that point for more than 10 years.

The company’s metaverse division was dissolved under the newly reinstated Bob Iger in March and White was let go from the company earlier this month. Disney now seems to be shifting its technological focus to AI.

Pratik Thakar (Coca-Cola)

During his time as the Coca-Cola Company’s head of global creative strategy and content – a position he was first appointed to in January 2021– Pratik Thakar was, like so many marketers, excited about the metaverse. The brand moved quickly in its efforts to establish itself as a pioneer in the web3 space; it launched an NFT campaign way back in July 2021 and a little under a year later released a soda aimed at the gaming community, which it alleged to contain “the flavor of pixels.”

Today, Thakar is still with Coca-Cola as the company’s global head of generative AI.

Robert Triefus (Gucci)

Fashion industry veteran Robert Triefus, who first joined Gucci back in 2008, was appointed as the company’s chief executive of Vault (the company’s online concept store) and metaverse ventures last September. He parted ways with the company about six months later to “pursue another career opportunity,” according to a statement that Gucci provided to multiple outlets at the time. He’s now the CEO of the Moncler-owned fashion brand Stone Island.

Max Heirbaut (H&M)

Sparked by what seemed to be a surge in the market for digital fashion, H&M was another big-name brand that was quick to capitalize on the metaverse. In January, the fashion brand launched Loooptopia, a branded virtual experience hosted on Roblox that emphasized educating users about circularity, or the recycling and reuse of clothing.

Back in May 2022, H&M hired Max Heirbaut to spearhead the brand’s web3 and metaverse efforts as global head of brand experience. Heirbaut still occupies that role, according to his LinkedIn page, and the company as a whole still appears to be committed to building its presence in the metaverse. (“The metaverse offers a new way to look at personal style and the potential of ever-evolving, limitless wardrobes,” the brand wrote on its website earlier this month.)

However, it isn’t the only brand that’s still moving forward with its metaverse and web3 plans. And Heirbaut isn’t the only metaverse lead within a well-known brand who has retained their role, despite the broader cultural shunning of the metaverse; LVMH’s Nelly Mensah, for example, who was named as the company’s global head of web3 and metaverse in January 2022, still appears to be occupying that role, as does L’Oréal’s Camille Kroelly (chief metaverse and web3 officer) and Nike’s Eric Redmond (head of Metaverse Studio).

Feature Image Credit: Adobe Stock

By Webb Wright 

Sourced from The Drum

If you’re not already using artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance your digital strategy, fear not. Tug’s Elliot Gray has you covered.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the media industry. It’s opened up a huge range of new possibilities for digital marketers, helping them gain competitive advantages and engage with customers in new and exciting ways.

Here, we cover seven things digital marketers can do with AI to speed up workflows, boost ROI on ad campaigns, and more.

1. Automate repetitive tasks

While the role of the digital marketer is forever changing, there are some repetitive admin tasks we haven’t been able to shake – until now. Sending emails, posting on social media, conducting research. AI can automate all of these, freeing up time for marketers to focus on higher-value work.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) software like Zapier can integrate with 5,000 apps and platforms to create automated workflows, automating the process of lead-generation campaigns, for example.

2. Create personalized content

AI can also be used to create more personalized content. Businesses have utilized this for many years. In 2016, Starbucks used predictive analytics to create customized emails by leveraging loyalty card and mobile app data. By analyzing data about consumer behavior, AI can help marketers better understand what kinds of content are most likely to resonate with the audience they’re trying to reach.

3. Conduct audience research

Conducting audience research can be tedious, but AI can speed it up by collecting and analyzing data about potential customers. It can also support marketers in identifying new audience segments they might not have considered before.

At Tug, we use ChatGPT to help identify new audience interests to target on Meta when planning a campaign by feeding the platform as much relevant information about the company and its products or services as possible, then asking it to provide around 50 options. Admittedly, it can spit out a lot of nonsense, but by asking for a large list of options, you have a better chance of finding hidden gems.

4. Improve customer service

Digital marketers can’t be on standby for their clients all hours of the day. By using chatbots, businesses can provide their customers with 24/7 assistance, even outside regular business hours.

Chatbots can answer FAQs or give product recommendations. Implementing a chatbot can help reduce the time employees spend answering simple questions. When something more complex comes up that the chatbot can’t answer, it can escalate the issue to an actual human.

5. Analyze data

AI can assist digital marketers with collecting and organizing data from various sources, reducing the time spent on obtaining and arranging the data, as well as making the process more streamlined overall.

If we take something like ‘sentiment analysis’ as an example, a company might use AI tools to gauge customer attitudes toward a specific brand, product, or ad campaign. This can be done by reviewing social media posts, reviews, and other online feedback in order to help understand public perception and adjust accordingly.

6. Analyze performance

Even better, AI can be adopted to analyze the performance of campaigns across multiple channels. By analyzing data from multiple sources, marketers can better understand how each channel contributes to overall success and adjust their strategies accordingly.

7. Predictive analytics

AI can predict future trends and consumer behavior more accurately than manual analysis. Predictive analytics uses machine learning algorithms to analyze large customer datasets and identify patterns that indicate future trends. For example, AI can determine which products or services are likely to soon become more prevalent, or which customers could be more likely to remain loyal customers.

8. Automate media buying processes

Through automation, AI can make the media buying process more efficient. By sifting through consumer behavior and market trends data, AI can help businesses find the best deals for their media campaigns, preventing them from overspending on ad buys. For example, AI can identify the best times and channels to run ads in order to maximize their reach while saving on costs.

Feature Image Credit: Levi Loot

By Elliot Gray

Sourced from The Drum

By Chris Sutcliffe 

At the Google Marketing Live event, the search giant announced further plans for its AI tools, promising that it will ‘continue to shape the future of marketing’. Here are the five most important insights for marketers.

AI ads are launching in Search results

For marketers, the most interesting development is likely to be the integration of AI-generated ads into search results across Google’s properties, under the title of ‘Search Generative Experience (SGE)’. The ads, which take the user’s prompt or query and build out a few paragraphs of information with associated and relevant products, are set to be deployed across the US initially.

The ads will be distinguished from other search results and labelled as ‘sponsored’ in bold text.

It has been suggested by multiple marketers and analysts that search is set to be among the most thoroughly disrupted areas of marketing due to AI tools, explaining why Google is so keen to prove its existing search-based marketing options are compatible with the tech.

Human interaction is a must

Following that process, Google’s AI tech will generate a list of suggested keywords, images from both the company’s site or a stock library, and headlines for the ad. The advertiser will be able to provide feedback and fine-tune the ad before it is deployed into search. Ultimately, despite the hype around AI, it is being marketed as a tool that requires human sign-off before the ads are deployed.

Cheaper and faster

Despite the allure of the tech, the big selling point to marketers is around bringing the cost of advertising down. Maximizing marketing efficiencies are seen as a big priority for advertisers this year, so a large part of the selling point is around bringing costs down.

Google has stated that early adopters have reported 2% more conversions at a similar cost per conversion. Because the tool is integrated into the existing Search and Performance Max campaigns, there are no pricing differences for its use.

Generative AI images

In addition to the in-search ads, Google also announced that marketers in the US will be among the first to use its generative AI tool for product images. Noting that multiple images have an impact on the success of ads – generating up to 76% increase in impressions and a 32% increase in clickthrough – Google’s team also pointed out that it is costly to manually create those ads.

As a result, the new tool is designed to streamline that process, by using generative AI to create multiple iterations of an image on the fly with different backgrounds, colour tones, increased resolution and more.

Ahead of the curve

Microsoft founder Bill Gates has recently stated that AI-powered personal assistants will severely impact the business models of Google and Amazon in particular. Speaking at the AI Forward 2023, he said: “Whoever wins the personal agent, that’s the big thing, because you will never go to a search site again, you will never go to a productivity site, you’ll never go to Amazon again”.

Google, like most of the major tech companies, has been working on AI tools for years, and it already powers many marketing transactions behind the scenes. With the advent of consumer-facing tools like ChatGPT, however, the pressure has been on large tech firms to prove they are keeping pace with generative AI. An early demonstration of Google’s AI tool Bard was met with a negative reception due to a perceived error in one of its answers, and has in part led to concerns of safety and misinformation across the AI ecosystem.

For Google, then, the opportunity related to AI-generated ads with its search results is to demonstrate to marketers that it is still at the head of the pack with the new tech. By providing figures that demonstrate the cost- and time-saving nature of the tool it will be hoping to prove Bill Gates wrong and ensure that marketers continue spending on its owned and operated platforms.

By Chris Sutcliffe 

Sourced from The Drum

By Sam Anderson 

Era-defining publishers (first Buzzfeed, then Vice) on the rocks; social giants sweating over TikTok; rapid cultural changes. The 00s version of the internet finally feels like it’s slipping away. But is it – and what comes next? We asked leaders from The Drum Network.

Alistair Robertson, creative partner, Nucco: “Search will change more in the next 18 months than it has since the noughties began. That will affect the broader digital ecosystem.

“AI-delivered information will soon take centre-stage on search pages, meaning far less real estate for anything other than a very small (and valuable) brand and product set. For consumers, this could be positive, for smaller brands, probably less so.

“These search changes will materially affect the amount of marketing content created. Branded content will no longer be needed at such high volume to channel consumers through a sales journey. Those changes will affect digital advertising’s opportunity to do a job. AI could yet be the killer of the humble banner.

“There’s much changing, and consumers will be the big winners. For brands, perhaps the latter 2020s will be about sponsorships and, dare I say it, quality creative ideas that people want to watch and share!”

Charlie Wade, global executive director of growth and innovation, VMLY&R Commerce: “The internet is constantly evolving. It started as a broadcast ‘message board’, before moving to content sharing, from music to photos. Now, web3 and AI have ushered in an age of decentralization, giving people the power to reimagine worlds, songs, and even the Pope.

“The internet is lauded for the disruption it has fostered: critics have receded in the face of consumer reviews; mass media usurped by social. While this initially brought immediacy and a widening aperture of information, the downside has been an erosion of authenticity, which the decline of legitimate publishers could compound. From fake sneakers to fake news, the ubiquity and the relative ease with which nefarious actors can spread misinformation is real. Those who control platforms (Musk or the masses) must imbue protocols around what is being positioned as authentic.

“Reader habits have morphed, placing stress on revenue models: sponsored editorials and mass advertising wilted, so companies needed new income sources, such as e-commerce integration. Marketers should think about the internet as episodic, with each stage impacted by user needs and technological developments. The 00s era is over. Its replacement offers both opportunities and challenges for brands.”

Matt Belanger, vice-president, director, digital communications strategy, Momentum Worldwide: “The (current) digital revolution comes amid a heightened desire for authenticity and realness. With technological advancement comes knowledge and experience as more people become seasoned social media users. The skill of spotting clickbait, ads, and content that doesn’t add value to our lives has sharpened to the point of skipping right past without a thought.

“As we see media companies who focused traditionally on selling advertising as their source of revenue start to fall, it signifies an opportunity for marketers to guide these shifts. Content creators stand out because they are the voice of authentic human beings, gaining trust (and sometimes financial support) from their communities. Providing authentic value is key to standing out, whether that’s an opinion, education, or just entertainment.

“We’re hopeful for the future. If we take great care to create quality, relevant content, consumers will flock to it.”

Nina Goli, digital strategy director, Radley Yeldar: “The internet of the 00s is not dead. It defined the era of the profile and laid the foundation for future developments. Societal dependence on the internet became more evident in the 2010s, bringing forth toxic aspects of web addiction.

“As we progress further into the 2020s, we’re witnessing a resurgence of omni-web experiences with a nostalgic twist. Challenges arising from regulators and a ‘big brother’ mentality present organic opportunities for marketers and publishers to redefine authenticity and credibility in online relationships with audiences.

“In addition to emerging technologies like influencer marketing, user-generated content, AR, and AI, publishers should tap into the gap that exists: a need to reintroduce the human aspect of digital communication. This human touch was instrumental in forging strong bonds with millennials during the early 00s and is now being reclaimed by Gen Z. While challenges persist, there is hope that innovation and adaptation will lead to an improved digital landscape, but we should prepare for further disruptions and adjust our strategies accordingly.”

Danielle Dullaghan, social strategist, Social Chain: “We have to learn from the mistakes of social publishers. Relying on platform functionality for your business model is not possible in an ever-changing landscape. Today, there’s power in TikTok; tomorrow it could be something completely different. Social publishers built their business off Facebook link clicks and video formats, and when Meta pivoted their algorithm, publishers were left in the dust.

“00s internet is not dead, but used in different ways. Facebook favors meaningful engagement; groups and marketplace are absolutely thriving. But social publishers are struggling to organically monetize on a platform that has changed their business model so drastically.”

Dan Bermingham-Shaw, senior digital PR consultant, BuiltVisible: “The new internet age requires fluid, transformative change. Big institutions like the NYT and BBC have kept up by adapting and creating diversified digital businesses, while smaller, punchier companies have done important, valuable work but failed to retain momentum and adjust to new demands.

“Those lessons in failure help push others to improve and create platforms suited to our needs; the successful publishers of tomorrow will be able to incorporate audience convenience in as flexible a way as possible, making use of tools like AI to capture audience minds and interests. The internet is always moving and there will be many more crumbling publishers in the future, but they will fall in order to build something better and more suited to what audiences demand. We loved Vine, but TikTok took the concept and doubled it with huge success. It’s a pattern we’ll continue to see.”

James Crooke, chief technology officer, Rawnet: “Web 2.0 (The 00s version) is far from dead. It remains highly relevant for brands in today’s digital landscape. It has revolutionized brand engagement through interactive and collaborative user experiences, along with social networking and user-generated content.

“Despite challenges faced by publishers such as cookie consent, ad-blocking, and the shift towards closed ecosystems (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Netflix, Twitch, YouTube, etc.), web 2.0 technologies continue to evolve, offering new opportunities for personalized experiences and improved customer interactions. To thrive in the uncertain future of the internet, brands must remain agile and adaptable, aligning themselves with evolving audience needs and expectations, allowing them to connect with customers and build strong relationships.”

Feature Image Credit: Alexander Andrews via Unsplash

By Sam Anderson 

Sourced from The Drum