Optimove Connect 2026: Join us in London on March 11–12 to master Positionless Marketing
Read time 23 minutes
Forrester: Optimove’s Total Economic Impact
How Brands Are Scaling AI Without Losing the Human Edge
This week’s stories explore how leading brands are moving from AI experimentation to operational reality. One looks at how human judgment and creativity still shape effective marketing even as automation scales, while the other shows how AI is becoming the connective tissue that enables faster, more fluid omnichannel decision-making. Together, they surface a critical question for modern organizations: how do you use AI to move faster and personalize at scale without losing the human insight that makes brands resonate?
Amrit Virdi, Marketing Week, 1/30/2026
In an article published by Marketing Week, Lloyds Banking Group outlines how generative AI delivered £50m in value during 2025, with the bank forecasting more than £100m in additional value this year. The coverage details how Lloyds has rolled out more than 50 AI use cases across marketing, customer experience, and internal operations, improving in-app search, accelerating query resolution, and reducing information search times by 66% for more than 20,000 frontline colleagues.
The results speak directly to a question many practitioners are actively debating. As one Reddit user asked in a discussion on automation: “What’s the best way to balance automation with the human touch to ensure efficiency without losing personalization?” Lloyds’ own experimentation suggests that while AI excels at rapid analysis, structure, and momentum, it still falls short when it comes to translating insights into emotionally resonant, well-crafted ideas. The article reinforces that the future of marketing is not full automation, but human–AI collaboration, as Lloyds expands into agentic AI use cases, launches an AI Academy for its workforce, and embeds AI more deeply into both customer-facing assistants and brand storytelling.
Liz Dominguez, Consumer Goods Technology, 2/3/2026
Colgate-Palmolive’s latest push into AI is less about isolated use cases and more about rewiring how the organization drives demand. In coverage by Consumer Goods, the company outlines how its 2030 strategy is reshaping content, commerce, and decision-making into a single, omnichannel operating model, breaking down the traditional divide between e-commerce and brick-and-mortar teams.
At the center of the shift is a practical challenge facing many global brands: how do you stay fluid and consumer-centric when personalization, pricing, and promotion must adapt in real time? Colgate-Palmolive is leaning on AI-driven data, analytics, and automation to make faster decisions across supply chain, advertising, and revenue growth management. Speaking during the company’s recent earnings call, CEO Noel Wallace emphasized that success now depends on being “very fluid and dynamic” in how brands execute digitally and personalize messaging at the right moment. Rather than positioning AI as a single transformation lever, the article presents it as the connective layer enabling consistency, speed, and scale in a volatile consumer environment.
AI is no longer just accelerating marketing workflows, it is redefining how organizations are structured, how decisions are made, and where human value shows up. As companies scale automation across demand generation and customer experience, the real competitive edge will come from knowing when to let AI lead and when human judgment still makes the difference.
Check back next week for another roundup of Media That Matters.
For more insights on Optimove and our Positionless Marketing Platform, contact us.
When AI Becomes the Interface, How Do Brands Stay Visible and Trusted?
This week’s picks examine how brands are being forced to rethink discovery, visibility, and trust as AI agents reshape how people research and buy. From the rise of agentic commerce, where algorithms increasingly act on behalf of consumers, to the growing fragmentation of search across AI tools and traditional channels, both pieces point to the same underlying question: how do brands stay relevant, accurate, and trustworthy when answers are surfaced by machines, not humans?
Oguz A. Acar and David A. Schweidel, Harvard Business Review Magazine
In Preparing Your Brand for Agentic AI, Harvard Business Review explores how large language models and AI agents are fundamentally changing how consumers research and buy products. Drawing on global consumer research and brand case studies, the article argues that brands are entering a new environment where AI systems increasingly act as intermediaries, shaping recommendations, comparisons, and even purchases without direct human involvement.
That change is already surfacing as a real concern among practitioners. As one Reddit user asked in a discussion on r/AI_Agents, “Is ‘Agentic Commerce’ the end of the traditional storefront? How do we even optimize for a customer who isn’t a human?” The article suggests this question is no longer theoretical, noting that “companies will soon be managing their brands in an era when agentic AI, built on top of LLMs, works on behalf of customers, completing transactions without human assistance.” As AI agents move from research tools to autonomous decision-makers, brands must rethink how visibility, trust, and differentiation are created when algorithms, not people, increasingly control the buying journey.
Francesca Roche, CX Today, 1/21/2026
In an article published by CX Today, new research from Gartner shows that marketers are facing rising expectations as search behavior fragments across traditional engines, AI-powered answers, and emerging agentic tools. While only about one-third of consumers believe generative AI can fully replace classic search, the findings suggest that AI summaries and conversational queries are already reshaping how people research products, compare options, and build trust, forcing brands to support multiple discovery paths at once.
The article highlights a growing strategic challenge for marketing teams: how do you stay visible, credible, and consistent when customers expect answers to align across search engines, AI tools, and autonomous agents? Gartner cautions against treating AI as a replacement for search, emphasizing instead the need to optimize for both environments simultaneously. As Emma Mathison, Senior Principal in Gartner’s Marketing practice, explains, “Winning visibility now means optimizing for both AI-driven answers and classic search results, with content that is specific, conversational, and trustworthy.” As agentic AI becomes more embedded in martech stacks, the coverage notes that data governance, transparency, and ongoing oversight will become foundational requirements for marketing performance.
AI is no longer just influencing how customers discover brands; it is becoming the interface itself. As agentic systems and AI-driven search raise expectations for consistency, accuracy, and transparency, marketing teams must evolve from channel optimization to system-level orchestration, where governance, data quality, and trust determine whether a brand is chosen or ignored.
Check back next week for another roundup of Media That Matters.
For more insights on Optimove and our Positionless Marketing Platform, contact us.
How Much Autonomy Should AI Have in Marketing and Retail?
This week’s selections explore how artificial intelligence is shifting from promise to practice across marketing and retail, from long-term visions of AI-embedded martech stacks to the real-world rollout of autonomous shopping agents today. Together, they surface a critical question for the AI era: how far should companies go in handing decisions, execution, and customer interactions over to intelligent systems, and what must remain under human control?
Sean Nolan, CX Today, 1/18/2026
The CX Today piece looks ahead to a marketing world where AI is no longer experimental but embedded into daily execution. Rather than predicting a single dominant platform, the article outlines a 2030 martech toolkit built around interconnected AI capabilities spanning data, content, orchestration, and governance, positioning AI as core infrastructure across the marketing workflow.
This forward-looking view raises a practical question: how does AI move from producing insights to taking action inside real marketing systems? The article points to automation as the catalyst that turns intelligence into execution. As Heather Chevalley of Fluency notes in the piece, “automation is a force multiplier for AI. With automation, AI can go from insightful to fully actionable.” Together, these ideas frame a future where AI co-pilots, governed content, and real-time decisioning operate continuously in the background.
Kim Bhasin and Sophia June, New York Times, 1/17/2026
According to The New York Times, retailers are already pushing artificial intelligence into nearly every corner of their businesses, from shopping assistants and advertising to hiring, inventory, and product design. Reporting from the National Retail Federation conference shows an industry eager to avoid being caught off guard again, as tech giants and startups alike pitch AI as the foundation of the next era of commerce.
As AI becomes more autonomous, a defining question emerges: how much control should retailers give AI agents that guide discovery, recommendations, and checkout? While executives from Walmart and Google describe an AI-led future, many brands remain cautious about trust and accuracy. One retail leader told the Times, “Anything we do from an A.I. standpoint has to have that trust,” underscoring the tension between rapid adoption and the responsibility to protect the customer relationship.
AI is no longer a future capability; it is becoming operational infrastructure. As marketing and retail teams embed AI deeper into decision-making and execution, the real question is no longer whether to adopt AI, but how much autonomy to give it without losing control, trust, and accountability.
Check back next week for another roundup of Media That Matters.
For more insights on Optimove and our Positionless Marketing Platform, contact us.
Who Controls Shopping When AI Agents Buy for Us?
This week’s picks look at how Google is shaping the next phase of LLM-powered commerce, from the infrastructure that allows AI agents to transact across platforms to the tools retailers are using to deploy their own agents. Together, they surface a central question: how will AI agents reshape who controls discovery, purchasing, and the customer relationship in an AI-first buying experience?
Jennifer Elias, CNBC, 1/11/2026
How will AI agents complete purchases end to end across different retailers and platforms? Google is betting the answer lies in standardization. At the National Retail Federation’s annual show, the company unveiled its Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), an open-source framework designed to let AI shopping agents operate seamlessly across discovery, checkout, and post-purchase support. The goal is to remove fragmentation in AI-driven commerce by giving retailers a unified way to connect search, payments, and customer interactions, without having to build custom integrations at every step.
The move places Google squarely in the race to define the infrastructure behind agentic commerce, alongside players like OpenAI, Perplexity, and Amazon. Developed with partners including Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, and Target, UCP will soon enable direct purchases inside Google’s AI experiences, signaling a broader shift toward LLM-powered shopping flows where intent, conversation, and transaction happen in one continuous interaction.
Belle Lin, Wall Street Journal, 1/11/2026
Google is expanding its push into AI-powered commerce with Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience, a new set of tools designed to help retailers deploy AI agents for shopping, ordering, and customer support. The launch marks Google’s first purpose-built move into agent-based retail AI, as brands look to meet shoppers who are increasingly turning to LLM-driven assistants to search, compare, and buy products.
So who will control AI-powered shopping: retailers themselves, or the platforms running the agents? Major chains including Lowe’s, Kroger, and Papa Johns are using Google’s technology to build or power their own agents, allowing them to personalize experiences, handle transactions, and retain control over product presentation, customer data, and loyalty. As players like OpenAI and Microsoft push in-chat checkout inside consumer AI tools, Google is positioning itself as the infrastructure layer that helps retailers participate in agentic commerce without surrendering the customer relationship.
AI-powered shopping is quickly moving from concept to infrastructure. With new protocols and retailer-focused AI agents, Google is positioning itself as the backbone of agentic commerce, while retailers face a clear choice: hand over the buying journey to third-party AI platforms or use these tools to retain control over how customers discover, decide, and purchase.
Check back next week for another roundup of Media That Matters.
For more insights on Optimove and our Positionless Marketing Platform, contact us.
The Next Chapter for Marketing and AI
This week’s stories highlight how AI is reshaping marketing from both a leadership and execution standpoint. One looks at how CMOs are rethinking brand presence, team structure, and discovery in a world mediated by AI tools. The other examines what it takes to train AI agents responsibly as they take on more of the customer journey. Together, they show how AI is moving from experimentation to infrastructure, changing how marketing teams operate, and how customer experiences are delivered.
Alyssa Meyers, Jasmine Sheena, Jennimai Nguyen, Katie Hicks, Kristina Monllos, Marketing Brew, 1/5/2026
CMOs are entering 2026 with the understanding that AI has fundamentally changed how marketing works and where brands need to be visible. After a year marked by rapid adoption of AI-generated creative, automation, and AI-influenced discovery, marketing leaders are focusing on how their brands appear inside AI-driven environments such as large language models, summaries, and AI-powered search experiences. As consumers increasingly rely on these tools to make decisions, brand discovery is expanding beyond traditional channels into AI-mediated touchpoints.
At the same time, CMOs are rethinking how their teams operate in an AI-first world. Upskilling has become a priority, with leaders encouraging experimentation, prompt literacy, and new ways of working that blend automation with human judgment. While execution is becoming more automated, skills like strategic thinking, creativity, and customer insight are gaining importance. Several leaders also point to brand trust, storytelling, and emotional relevance as key differentiators as AI becomes a new marketing channel alongside owned and paid platforms.
Rebekah Carter, CX Today, 1/4/2026
As AI agents take on a larger share of customer interactions, companies are increasingly focused on how these systems are trained. Many organizations are moving away from static scripts and FAQ-based models, which struggle to reflect how customers actually behave. Real customer journeys tend to be fragmented and unpredictable, with people switching channels, changing topics mid-conversation, and expressing emotion under stress. When AI systems are trained on full, multi-turn interactions instead of idealized flows, companies are seeing higher resolution rates and fewer abandoned conversations.
At the same time, using real customer journeys introduces new risks around privacy, compliance, and brand trust. Organizations are responding by relying on anonymized transcripts, behavioral signals, and journey-level data while excluding sensitive personal information. Guardrails, human oversight, and continuous monitoring are becoming standard practices to prevent policy violations, tone issues, or unsafe actions. As agentic AI becomes more deeply embedded across sales, marketing, and service workflows, safe, journey-based training is emerging as a prerequisite for scaling automation without compromising customer trust.
AI is no longer just influencing marketing strategy. It is reshaping how teams work, how brands are discovered, and how customer journeys are executed. As leaders rethink both visibility and infrastructure, the next phase of marketing will be defined by how effectively organizations combine AI-driven capabilities with strong foundations, clear governance, and human judgment.
Check back next week for another roundup of Media That Matters.
For more insights on Optimove and our Positionless Marketing Platform, contact us.
From Discovery to Checkout: AI’s Expanding Role in Retail
This week’s stories offer a look at how AI is reshaping shopping from two angles. One examines how industry leaders expect AI to redefine discovery, personalization, and decision-making in the year ahead. The other shows how shoppers are already using AI in everyday ways to research, compare prices, and find better deals, often without realizing it. Together, they capture both where retail is heading and how quickly consumer behavior is changing in real time.
eMarketer, Chris Wood, 12/16/2025
As consumers grow more comfortable using AI, retail leaders see 2026 as a turning point in how people discover, evaluate, and purchase products. According to eMarketer, generative AI is becoming a common part of the consideration phase, with shoppers increasingly turning to tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and retailer-embedded assistants to research products and get recommendations. Nearly half of consumers say they have already used or plan to use AI for holiday shopping, while usage among younger audiences continues to rise. Industry executives note that agentic AI is beginning to reshape the front end of shopping, particularly in discovery and decision-making, as consumers move away from keyword searches toward more contextual, conversational prompts.
The article also highlights how AI is deepening personalization across ecommerce and social platforms. Companies like Amazon and Pinterest are expanding assistants that help shoppers navigate more specific, taste-driven queries, while retailers explore branded tools designed to streamline the entire journey from discovery to checkout. New features such as Amazon’s “Auto Buy” and Pinterest’s conversational search are opening more of the customer journey to AI-driven interactions. Industry leaders predict these experiences will become increasingly seamless and automated, with security and consent playing a critical role as AI takes on a more active role in shopping workflows.
Betty Lin-Fisher, USA TODAY, 12/16/2025
More shoppers are relying on AI this holiday season, often without actively seeking it out. USA Today reports that AI tools are increasingly embedded into how consumers search for gifts, compare prices, and find deals, functioning as an invisible layer across the shopping journey. Survey data shows that a majority of shoppers have used or plan to use AI this season, with many finding it more helpful than traditional methods like flyers or promotional emails. Rather than replacing retailers, AI is acting as a referral channel, directing shoppers straight to purchase links and accelerating decision-making.
The article highlights deal-seeking as one of AI’s fastest-growing use cases. Consumers are using AI agents to test coupon codes, monitor price changes, and surface relevant offers without manually jumping between tabs. Similarweb data shows sharp growth in traffic to generative AI platforms and a surge in AI-driven referrals to major retailers during peak shopping days. While privacy concerns persist, experts note that many shoppers are prioritizing convenience and savings. As AI becomes more embedded across digital tools, its influence is expanding from tech-savvy early adopters to everyday, price-conscious consumers.
AI is no longer a future concept in retail. As consumers adopt it in practical ways and brands expand its role across the shopping journey, the line between experimentation and everyday use is fading. The retailers that win will be the ones that understand how AI is influencing decisions today and prepare for how it will shape shopping tomorrow.
Check back next week for another roundup of Media That Matters.
For more insights on Optimove and our Positionless Marketing Platform, contact us.
Why 2026 Will Be the Year AI Meets Its Limits — and Its Potential
This week’s stories reveal how rapidly AI is reshaping the core mechanics of marketing and customer experience. New martech trends point to a 2026 defined by real-time systems, more adaptive workflows, and rising expectations for AI to play a strategic role in daily execution. At the same time, industry leaders warn that progress will stall unless organizations address the data foundations that AI depends on. Taken together, these signals show a market shifting from AI experimentation to the deeper operational work needed to make it truly effective.
Scott Clark, CMSWire, 12/2/2025
Marketing leaders are entering 2026 with a martech landscape that is rapidly reshaping itself around AI. According to CMSWire, the year ahead will be defined by tools that enable faster experimentation, more responsive customer journeys, and a shift from batch processing to real-time decision-making. The article notes that organizations are beginning to operate in two modes at once: a Laboratory where teams test new ideas quickly and a Factory where proven tactics can scale with consistency. AI agents are becoming more capable in both settings, prompting new conversations about governance, reliability, and how human oversight should evolve.
The story also highlights the growing importance of Marketing Ops as the connective tissue across data, AI, and execution. As martech stacks modernize, legacy systems are being replaced with pipelines that support instant activation and more automated workflows. These changes reflect a broader push for agility as marketers prepare for more complex customer expectations and faster competitive cycles. The result is a marketing environment where adaptability is becoming a core requirement and AI is taking on a more foundational role in how teams plan, build, and deliver campaigns.
Francesca Roche, CX Today, 12/8/2025
Experts interviewed for CX Today’s 2025 Trends series agree that 2026 will force organizations to confront a problem they have long overlooked: AI is only as strong as the data beneath it. Leaders from Amperity, Constellation Research, Zoho, TechTelligence, and Actionary describe a landscape where enthusiasm for AI has collided with years of fragmented systems, scattered customer information, and cultural resistance to operational change. Customer data platforms are expected to evolve from passive storage systems into active engines of intelligence, while companies grapple with a growing data drought created by AI’s enormous appetite. Analysts warn that most organizations have not prepared their infrastructure, governance processes, or internal workflows for what modern AI requires.
The article also highlights a shift in what will determine AI success. Data readiness and organizational culture are projected to matter more than new features as enterprises try to untangle complex tech stacks and build smoother data layers for decision-making. AI governance is expected to become a top buying criterion, with vendors asked to provide explainable decisions and full accountability for automated actions. Analysts further caution that without a clear orchestration strategy, organizations risk deploying competing AI agents that work at cross purposes and create more chaos than value. The consensus is clear: 2026 will be a pivotal year in which companies stop chasing the newest AI tools and focus instead on the foundational work needed to make those tools effective.
AI is becoming more capable, but its real impact now depends on the foundations supporting it. Marketing and CX teams are entering a phase where progress relies as much on clean data and streamlined systems as on new ideas. As organizations simplify their operations and build for consistency, the ones that stand out will be those that pair AI-driven innovation with the clarity and discipline needed to make it work.
Check back next week for another roundup of Media That Matters.
For more insights on Optimove and our Positionless Marketing Platform, contact us.
This week’s stories reveal how quickly AI is embedding itself into the heartbeat of the holiday shopping season. New tools launched by major retailers promise more intuitive discovery and faster checkout, while early Black Friday data shows that shoppers are actively seeking AI-guided help. Viewed together, these signals point to a moment when AI is no longer an add-on, but a meaningful driver of how consumers navigate crowded product landscapes.
Anne D’Innocenzio, Associated Press, 11/30/2025
Major retailers and tech companies are entering the holiday season with a new wave of AI shopping tools that signal a shift in how consumers discover and buy gifts. Walmart, Amazon, Google, and OpenAI have all upgraded their assistants to move beyond basic search and into true guided shopping, offering personalized suggestions, tracking prices, and even completing purchases through natural conversations. Google’s agent can now call local stores to check inventory, while ChatGPT’s instant checkout feature enables users to buy products directly within the app. Together, these tools are positioning AI as a first stop for holiday shoppers rather than a novelty add-on.
The season is also introducing early signs of autonomous shopping. Amazon’s Rufus can remember preferences and automatically purchase items when prices drop. Google’s AI Mode compiles side-by-side product comparisons and offers a “buy for me” option using Google Pay. Target and Walmart are testing AI-powered gift finders designed to match recipients with the right products based on age, hobbies, or occasions. While adoption is still in its initial stages, the direction is clear: AI is becoming an active participant in the shopping journey, reshaping how people make decisions and how retailers compete for visibility in an increasingly algorithm-driven marketplace.
Sarah Perez, TechCrunch, 12/1/2025
New data shows that Amazon’s AI assistant, Rufus, became an important companion for Black Friday shoppers. Sensor Tower reports that sessions using Rufus were far more likely to lead to a purchase than typical Amazon visits. Conversions in Rufus-assisted sessions doubled compared with the previous month, and day-over-day buying activity rose sharply. Engagement with the chatbot also grew faster than Amazon’s overall site traffic, suggesting that many shoppers preferred guided help while navigating holiday deals.
The trend echoes a growing reliance on AI-driven tools during the season. Adobe Analytics found a substantial increase in visitors arriving at retail sites through AI services, and those users were significantly more likely to complete a purchase. Even as overall visit and download growth lagged behind previous years, interactions with AI tools accelerated. The data confirms that consumers are increasingly turning to conversational assistance to parse options, compare products, and make decisions during high-volume shopping moments.
AI is moving from experiment to everyday utility during the year’s busiest shopping moments. With retailers expanding their capabilities and shoppers embracing them, AI-guided discovery is gaining momentum. The brands that thrive will be those that understand and optimize for these emerging, AI-led pathways.
Check back next week for another roundup of Media That Matters.
For more insights on Optimove and our Positionless Marketing Platform, contact us.
Forrester: Optimove’s Total Economic Impact
The Forrester Total Economic Impact™ Study shows that Optimove’s Positionless Marketing Platform drives an 88% boost in campaign efficiency.
Rob Wyse is Senior Director of Communications at Optimove. As a communications consultant, he has been influential in changing public opinion and policy to drive market opportunity. Example issues he has worked on include climate change, healthcare reform, homeland security, cloud transformation, AI, and other timely issues.
