AI Vendors Would Rather You Not Ask Questions, CX Teams Hit 90% Adoption With No Real Plan, TikTok's Feed Is Mostly AI Slop, and IBM Is Using Wimbledon as a Trojan Horse

In today’s brief: Everyone says they're doing AI. Fewer people can tell you what that actually means once you look closer.

Today's stories:

1. The questions you should be asking before you buy any AI tool

2. AI adoption in CX just hit 90%, but deployment tells a different story

3. Nearly 60% of what TikTok shows new users is AI slop

4. IBM is using Wimbledon and Formula One as a Trojan horse for enterprise AI

The Questions You Should Be Asking Before You Buy Any AI Tool

AI vendors are having a moment, which means so is the sales pitch that comes with it. Laura Schiele at Search Engine Land put together a list of questions worth asking before you sign anything, and honestly, they're just basic due diligence that somehow keeps getting skipped the second "AI" shows up in the pitch deck.

Start with the question nobody says out loud. What business problem does this actually solve, and what does ROI look like in real numbers, not vague productivity promises? From there, ask how your data gets used and stored, and push for actual customer proof instead of a logo slide. Implementation matters too, since a tool that eats six months of engineering time isn't the quick win the demo made it look like.

None of this is exotic advice. It's just the stuff that's easy to forget to ask when a sales rep says the magic word, and the whole room stops thinking like buyers.

Read more: https://searchengineland.com/ai-vendor-questions-481765

AI Adoption in CX Hit 90%, and Deployment Is a Different Story

AI adoption in customer service just crossed 90%, according to Five9's 2026 Business Leaders CX Report, which sounds like a done deal until you see how differently everyone's actually doing it. Respondents are nearly evenly split between end-to-end platforms, hybrid environments, and best-of-breed tools, meaning nobody's converged on a standard playbook yet. Infrastructure tells the same story, with 84% of organizations still migrating from on-premises systems to the cloud and most settling into hybrid setups instead of rushing to finish the move.

Data security is the top concern at 31%, and reliability, scalability, and customer consent each worry 27% of respondents, with only 4% saying they haven't hit a significant implementation snag. That caution shows up in where AI actually gets deployed, with internal, operational use cases like self-service automation and quality management leading the way while customer-facing applications like personalization sit closer to a quarter of respondents.

The ROI argument is already settled. Nine in 10 respondents report positive returns across every AI use case measured, so the conversation has shifted from whether AI is worth it to how carefully you deploy it. Organizations are proving the technology works quietly on the back end before they trust it in front of a customer, which is a pretty reasonable way to build confidence.

Read more: https://martech.org/ai-adoption-hits-90-as-cx-deployment-paths-diverge/

Nearly 60% of What TikTok Shows New Users Is AI Slop

Nearly 60% of the videos TikTok shows brand-new users are AI slop, according to a new Kapwing report covered in MarketingProfs. Kapwing built a fresh TikTok account and tracked the first 500 videos in the For You feed. 59% were AI-generated junk, roughly three times the rate Kapwing found running the same test on YouTube Shorts.

Kids' content gets it worst. Kapwing manually reviewed 10,742 TikTok videos across 20 categories and found the Kids category topped the list at 57.4% AI slop, with the hashtag #cartoonkids hitting a jaw-dropping 97%. Science and Education, Health, and History weren't far behind, all sitting around one-third AI slop.

Fashion, Music, and Fitness stayed almost entirely human-made, all under 2%. If you're a B2B marketer wondering why "authentic content" keeps showing up as a buzzword in every strategy deck, this is why.

Read more: https://www.marketingprofs.com/chirp/2026/55193/how-prevalent-is-ai-slop-on-tiktok-infographic

IBM Is Using Wimbledon as a Trojan Horse for Enterprise AI

IBM's chief communications and brand officer, Sarah Bruning Meron, has a phrase for how the company demos its AI and quantum technology these days. She calls it the most obvious Trojan horse strategy ever. Instead of leading with spec sheets, IBM leans on sponsorships like Wimbledon and Formula One to get people talking about the brand first and the technology second.

"When you go to a cocktail party, many of the technologies we're talking about aren't necessarily what people want to discuss," she told Marketing Week. "They want to talk about Wimbledon or Formula One. So we use those sports properties as a way to demo the technology."

Her bigger point is that B2B buyers are just people who happen to sit on a buying committee, not a different species that responds to different rules. She's also blunt about AI's role in content. "AI has made it very easy for brands to scale content," she said, "but it hasn't necessarily made it easy to scale the content people actually want."

Read more: https://www.marketingweek.com/ibm-b2b-trojan-marketing/

That's it for today.

Follow me on LinkedIn and BlueSky, and X

FAQs

How high is AI adoption in customer experience?

AI adoption in customer service has crossed 90%, according to Five9's 2026 Business Leaders CX Report. However, organizations remain divided on deployment architecture, with respondents nearly evenly split between end-to-end platforms, hybrid environments, and best-of-breed tools.

How much AI-generated content is on TikTok?

A Kapwing study found 59% of the first 500 videos shown to a new TikTok account were AI slop, about three times the rate Kapwing found on YouTube Shorts. Kids' content had the highest concentration at 57.4%, with the hashtag #cartoonkids reaching 97%.

What is IBM's Trojan horse marketing strategy?

IBM uses high-profile sponsorships like Wimbledon and Formula One to demonstrate its AI and quantum technology in contexts customers already care about, rather than leading with product specifications. IBM's brand chief Sarah Bruning Meron describes the approach as a way to build interest in the technology through experiences people already want to engage with.

The Brief: AI Trusts Earned Media, A $20 Tool Wants Your Agency's Job, Meta Wants In On the Cloud Business, and Challenger Brands Are Winning With Less

In today’s brief: Four stories this week that matter if you're thinking seriously about B2B marketing in the AI era.

Today's stories:

1.  AI visibility depends on who writes about your brand, not just where you rank

2. Can a $20 AI tool actually replace your marketing agency

3. Meta is reportedly building a cloud business to compete with AWS and Google Cloud

4. How challenger brands like Emerald Nuts win with fewer, bigger marketing bets

Rankings Get You Traffic, Earned Media Gets You Cited

Quick gut check for you. BrightEdge tracked a year of data and found that only about 17% of sources cited in AI Overviews also rank in Google's organic top 10 for that same query. Moz ran its own analysis of 40,000 AI Mode queries and came back with an even starker number, with 88% of citations pulled from pages that never cracked the top 10 at all. So yes, you can hold the number two spot on Google and still be invisible to anyone asking an AI for a recommendation.

So what actually gets you cited then? Earned media, and it's not particularly close. Muck Rack's Generative Pulse team dug through more than 25 million links cited across ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini and found earned media accounts for 84% of all AI citations, while paid and ad content barely register at 0.3%. Journalism alone makes up 27% of cited sources, a share that's held steady since July 2025. Named, credentialed authors help too. 

This is one of the lanes I work in for brands and executives who want to land in that 84%. I offer is executive and personal branding services, which includes pitching expert commentary on a brand's behalf to trade publications and industry outlets so their name becomes one of the sources AI systems are actually citing. If nobody's quoting a named expert from your brand anywhere, you're simply not part of the conversation these systems are having about your category.

Read more: https://martech.org/ai-visibility-depends-on-who-writes-about-your-brand/

Can a $20 AI Tool Actually Replace Your Agency?

You've probably scrolled past the LinkedIn post already. Someone cancelled a $5,000-a-month agency, spent $20 on an AI tool instead, and now claims a robot handles their SEO while they sleep, complete with a screenshot of a suspiciously tidy score out of 100. Joanna Lambadjieva, who writes The AI Search Optimization Newsletter, decided to actually dig into whether that's true. Her answer lands somewhere in the middle of that argument, and it's worth hearing out.

According to Joanna, the tools are genuinely good at the boring, mechanical stuff. Site speed problems, pages accidentally hidden from Google, technical issues quietly costing you sales, an AI tool will catch all of that faster than any human and never get bored doing it. She also points out they're useful for tracking whether your brand shows up when someone asks ChatGPT for a recommendation, which used to mean manually testing dozens of prompts a week and now just runs quietly in the background.

But maybe Joanna's main argument points to judgment. These tools tend to flag twenty problems as equally urgent because they can't tell what actually matters, and most only glance at a handful of pages before scoring your entire site, missing exactly where the real problems live if you're running hundreds of similar product pages. 

They're also nearly silent on backlinks and reputation, which happen to be some of the biggest factors in whether you rank at all. Her take, and I'd agree, is that the tools are a legitimately good deal for the mechanical work, but the judgment calls that actually grow a business are still a human job.

Read more: https://aisearchoptimization.beehiiv.com/p/can-a-20-ai-tool-replace-your-agency

Meta Wants In on the Cloud Business Too

Meta wants a slice of the cloud business as much as I want the Bills to win the Super Bowl (a lot). According to a Bloomberg report, the company is quietly building an infrastructure business that would sell AI computing power and model access to outside customers, which would put it in direct competition with AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. 

One version of the plan looks like AWS Bedrock, letting developers tap into AI models hosted on Meta's own servers. The other looks more like neocloud players such as CoreWeave, just selling raw computing capacity outright.

Zuckerberg has actually been hinting at this for a while. On Meta's May earnings call, he said companies ask to buy Meta's spare compute almost every week, at a premium, and Meta just hasn't said yes yet because it's still using that capacity itself. If Meta ever decides it's overbuilt, monetizing the leftovers becomes an easy call. It fits the pattern we're seeing across Meta's AI bets lately, testing every possible way to make money off this buildout, including a rumored $199.99-a-month premium tier for its Hatch AI agent that would put it in the same weight class as Anthropic and OpenAI at the high end.

Read more: https://www.pymnts.com/technology/2026/meta-plans-cloud-business-to-take-on-big-tech-rivals/

Challenger Brands Are Winning by Doing Less, on Purpose

Dan Eisenberg, CMO at Chicago agency Blue Chip, has a philosophy for challenger brands competing with corporate giants and ten times the budget. He calls it "bigger, fewer, better," which basically means making disciplined, narrow choices about which audiences, markets, and retailers actually matter, then going all in there instead of spreading thin everywhere. 

Every dollar also has to pull double duty, building the brand and driving the sale at the same time, because challenger brands typically can't afford to run separate branding and performance strategies.

For example, Bob's Red Mill went all data-driven, using a tool that algorithmically scored which markets were actually worth the investment, then poured spend there instead of chasing broad national reach. The brand posted its first-ever million-dollar week at Walmart in Q4 2025, part of five straight years of household penetration growth against giants like Quaker Oats and King Arthur Baking.

Read more: https://www.marketingdive.com/news/how-challenger-brands-can-stand-out-with-fewer-marketing-swings/823549/

That's it for today.

Follow me on LinkedIn and BlueSky, and X

FAQs

Does ranking well in Google guarantee AI visibility?

No. BrightEdge found only about 17% of sources cited in AI Overviews also rank in Google's organic top 10, and Moz found 88% of AI Mode citations came from pages outside the top 10 entirely. Traditional SEO rankings and AI citations are increasingly separate systems.

What content do AI systems trust most when generating answers?

Earned media, by a wide margin. Muck Rack's Generative Pulse analysis of 25 million cited links found earned media accounts for 84% of all AI citations, compared to just 0.3% for paid and advertorial content. Journalism alone makes up 27% of cited sources.

Can AI tools replace an SEO or marketing agency?

Partially. AI tools are strong at technical audits and monitoring AI search visibility, but they struggle with prioritization, judging actual content quality, and assessing backlinks or reputation, which remain some of the biggest factors in search performance.

Is Meta building a cloud computing business?

Yes, according to a Bloomberg report. Meta is reportedly developing a cloud infrastructure business under its Meta Compute initiative that would sell AI computing power and model access to outside companies, competing directly with AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.

The Brief: Is Google Becoming a Marketplace? Consumers Don’t Want an Autopilot … Yet, Amazon Puts Ads In AI Conversations, and Your Grocery Pricing Strategy Was Built for Humans

In today’s brief: Google is trying to own the checkout layer, Amazon is putting ads inside AI shopping conversations, consumers are telling researchers they want a copilot, not an autopilot, and Bain is asking grocery retailers whether their pricing strategy was designed for humans, bots, or both.

Today's stories:

1. What Google's Universal Cart actually means for retailers, including my own take

2. Consumers want AI to help them shop, not shop for them

3. Amazon debuted agentic ads inside Alexa+ at Cannes

4. Bain warns grocery pricing strategies weren't built for AI agents

Google Wants to Become a Marketplace. That Should Get Every Retailer's Attention

Google unveiled Universal Cart at Google I/O 2026, an AI-powered shopping hub that lets consumers add products from Search, Gemini, YouTube, and Gmail into a single cart that works across retailers. It can track price drops, surface deals, flag compatibility issues, and route checkout through Google Pay or a merchant's site. Retail TouchPoints rounded up expert reactions, and mine is in there too.

My take is that the short-term significance is being overstated, but the long-term play deserves attention. What Google is really trying to do is become a marketplace. If they can own the primary shopping experience, they gain leverage over sellers much the way Amazon does on its platform. The real question to watch is whether shoppers will eventually visit brand sites less and rely on Google more, or simply use Universal Cart as a smarter search layer. 

Other experts in the piece, including Neil Saunders and Paula Macaggi, flagged that while retailers keep the transaction, they lose visibility into the discovery moment, which is where the influence actually lives. I've written more about this dynamic in my piece on the future of agentic AI in retail.

Read more: https://www.retailtouchpoints.com/features/google-universal-cart-retail-experts-weigh-in/620149/

Consumers Want AI Riding Shotgun, Not Behind the Wheel

PYMNTS Intelligence's May 2026 Consumer AI Benchmark found that while AI adoption in commerce keeps growing, most consumers still want final say over their purchases. While product discovery, deal comparison, and personalized recommendations are areas where people are comfortable letting AI help, it gets murkier with payments, financial commitments, and anything that feels irreversible comes into play.

One interesting finding is that complete frictionlessness can start to feel unsettling when an AI agent is the one removing it. Consumers may actually want deliberate pause points built into agentic experiences, confirmation screens, approval checkpoints, or the ability to override. For retailers and brands building on top of agentic platforms, that’s a real design consideration. 

Read more: https://www.pymnts.com/news/artificial-intelligence/2026/consumers-want-ai-to-shop-with-them-not-for-them/

Amazon Just Put an Ad Inside Your AI Shopping Conversation

Amazon announced Alexa+ Agentic Ads at Cannes Lions, a new format that lets shoppers see an ad and complete a purchase without leaving it. The LLM engages in a natural conversation with the customer, answers questions, and handles the transaction end-to-end. Papa Johns and The Orchard, a Sony subsidiary, are in the beta. Amazon has not disclosed pricing.

Interestingly, agencies are calling organic AI visibility the baseline, and paid placement the tax you pay for not earning it organically. Mike Feldman, SVP of commerce at Flywheel, said paid agentic ads are only what you pay for messing up on the organic side. 

WPP forecasts AI search ads will become the fastest-growing channel in advertising, and OpenAI projects $2.5 billion in ad revenue this year. Whether this format scales depends on whether Amazon can produce a metric that replaces the click, which marketers say is the missing piece before serious dollars move in.

Read more: https://digiday.com/marketing/amazons-latest-ad-format-offers-a-glimpse-of-advertisings-agentic-future/

Your Grocery Pricing Strategy Was Designed for Humans. Bots Are Coming

Bain published a sharp piece this week on what agentic AI does to grocery economics. The argument is that grocery pricing has always worked by anchoring human shoppers on a handful of known-value items, like milk, bread, and bananas, and then recovering margin on everything else in the basket. AI agents do not work that way. They evaluate every SKU, cherry-pick the cheapest items across multiple retailers, and split orders accordingly. The mix that makes a grocery order profitable never gets built.

Bain's potential responses include basket-size incentives, store-only promotions that bots can't access, private-label assortments competitors can't match, and differentiated value in areas like fresh produce and prepared foods, where AI can't easily standardize comparison. 

Almost half of U.S. shoppers already use AI agents to compare grocery prices or find deals, per Bain's own research. The threat to basket building is not a future problem. It's a current one.

Read more: https://www.bain.com/insights/online-grocery-pricing-for-both-humans-and-bots/

That's it for today.

Follow me on LinkedIn and BlueSky, and X

FAQs

What is Google Universal Cart?

Google Universal Cart is an AI-powered shopping hub announced at Google I/O 2026 that lets consumers add products from Search, Gemini, YouTube, and Gmail into a single cart that works across multiple retailers. It tracks price drops, surfaces deals, and routes checkout through Google Pay or a merchant's site.

Will Google Universal Cart hurt retailers?

Experts are divided on the short-term impact but broadly agree that the bigger concern is Google gaining influence over product discovery. Retailers keep the transaction but lose visibility into the moment of purchase decision, which increasingly happens inside AI-powered surfaces rather than on brand websites.

Do consumers want AI to shop for them?

Not entirely. PYMNTS Intelligence research from May 2026 found consumers are comfortable with AI for product discovery and deal comparison, but most want to retain final approval over purchases, especially for payments and higher-stakes decisions.

What are Amazon Alexa+ Agentic Ads?

Alexa+ Agentic Ads are a new Amazon ad format announced at Cannes Lions in June 2026. They allow shoppers to see an ad and complete a purchase inside a conversational AI experience without navigating to a separate page. Papa Johns and The Orchard are beta partners.

The Brief: Salesforce Acquires Fin for $3.6 Billion, Google Gives You an Opt-Out You Shouldn’t Use, and Marketers Still Can't Explain Why They're Doing Anything

In today's marketing brief: Three stories this week that have nothing to do with each other and yet somehow all point at the same problem. A lot of people in marketing and martech are making moves without thinking them all the way through, and one of those people spent $3.6 billion doing it.

Today's stories:

1. Salesforce acquires Fin, the AI customer agent formerly known as Intercom

2. Google released an AI opt-out feature, and your competitors hope you use it

3. More training will not fix marketing's critical thinking problem

Salesforce Paid $3.6 Billion for a Company That Changed Its Name Last Month

Salesforce announced it is acquiring Fin, the AI customer support company that rebranded from Intercom just weeks earlier, for approximately $3.6 billion. Fin's core product is an AI agent that handles complex customer queries end-to-end across live chat, email, WhatsApp, SMS, phone, and Slack. The agent runs on Apex, Fin's proprietary AI model built specifically for customer support, which Salesforce says resolves about 76% of incoming support requests without a human ever touching them.

For Salesforce, this is the fifth acquisition announced in 2026 and the third in June alone, joining M3ter and Contentful. It fits directly into Agentforce, Salesforce's agentic AI platform, which hit $1.2 billion in ARR in Q1 FY27, up 20% year over year. The deal is expected to close in Q4 of Salesforce's fiscal 2027. If you are a B2B marketer or revenue operations leader who lives in the Salesforce ecosystem, Fin's capabilities landing inside Agentforce are worth paying attention to.

Read more: https://martech.org/salesforce-acquires-fin-formerly-known-as-intercom/

Google's AI Opt-Out Is a Trap Wearing a Publisher-Friendly Disguise

Google rolled out new controls letting publishers opt out of having their content surfaced in AI Overviews and AI Mode, and also introduced new AI reporting in Google Search Console. SEO consultant Nick LeRoy at Search Engine Land makes the right call here. The opt-out does not turn off AI search, does not change how users behave, and does not slow AI adoption. All it does is remove your brand from the pool of sources Google can pull from. Users keep searching. Google keeps answering. Your competitors just get the citation instead.

The reporting side of the announcement, which got less attention, is actually more useful. For years, the SEO community has asked for better visibility into AI-driven search performance, and this is the first step toward getting it. LeRoy makes a fair point that the SEO industry has always operated on imperfect data, and waiting for a perfect AI attribution model before acting is not a strategy. The real question for any marketing team is whether you can afford to go invisible in the places where buyers are increasingly going to find answers.

Read more: https://searchengineland.com/google-ai-opt-out-feature-competitors-480375

Your Team Does Not Need Another Course. It Needs to Learn How to Make Decisions.

Laura Chamberlain, a professor at Warwick Business School, wrote a piece in Marketing Week this week that is going to land differently depending on where you are in your career. Her argument is that marketing's imposter syndrome epidemic, which the Marketing Week Career and Salary Survey puts at 84.9% of marketers, comes down to a critical thinking problem rather than a training problem. Marketers know what to do and how to do it, but most of them cannot explain why, and that gap leaves them unable to defend decisions, influence stakeholders, or communicate strategic value to leadership.

Her prescription skips the certification course and goes straight to practicing decision-making. Articulate your reasoning even in low-stakes situations, get comfortable saying 'it depends' without apologizing for it, and find environments where you can think out loud without getting punished for uncertainty. 

The piece is aimed at individual marketers, but the organizational implication is equally pointed. If your culture rewards outputs and punishes the visible reasoning behind them, you are going to keep producing tactically competent people who can’t tell you why any of it matters. (personal note: I see this across many of today’s organizations. Some call it smart. Others call it laziness wrapped with a shiny ‘AI-knows everything’ label.)

Marketing expert and Professor at Lenoir-Rhyne University, John Andrews, may have a possible solution to this problem. He wrote about how to use AI as a thought partner instead of an answer engine. This back-and-forth methodology may be the way for marketers to fill their gaps in understanding.

Read more: https://www.marketingweek.com/marketings-critical-thinking-gap/

That's it for today.

Follow me on LinkedIn, BlueSky, and X

FAQs

Did Salesforce acquire Intercom?

Yes. Salesforce signed a definitive agreement to acquire Fin, the company formerly known as Intercom, for approximately $3.6 billion. Intercom rebranded to Fin in May 2026 before the deal was announced.

What is Salesforce Fin?

Fin is an AI customer agent platform that resolves complex customer support queries across channels, including live chat, email, WhatsApp, SMS, phone, and Slack. It runs on a proprietary AI model called Apex and is being acquired by Salesforce to expand its Agentforce platform.

Should I opt out of Google AI Overviews?

Opting out removes your content from Google AI Overviews and AI Mode but does not remove AI from search. Users continue getting AI-generated answers, and your competitors fill the gap. Most SEO practitioners advise staying in and focusing on the visibility strategy instead.

What is Google's new AI reporting in Search Console?

Google introduced AI performance reporting in Google Search Console in June 2026, giving publishers early visibility into how their content performs in AI-powered search experiences. The reporting is in beta and not yet available to everyone.

The Brief: Shopify All-In on Agentic Commerce, Visa and OpenAI Team Up on Payments, and a Useful Reality Check for Everyone Evaluating This Space

In today's agentic commerce brief: Shopify is making it easier for merchants to plug into the emerging agentic infrastructure, Visa and OpenAI are building the payment rails underneath it, and MarTech is asking whether any of us have thought carefully enough about what we're actually committing to.

Today's stories:

1. Shopify's Spring platform update puts agentic commerce readiness in merchants' hands

2. Visa and OpenAI partner to bring secure payments to AI agent transactions

3. A framework for evaluating agentic commerce investments before you get burned

Shopify's Spring Update Makes Agentic Commerce a One-Click Decision for Merchants

Shopify dropped its Spring platform update with more than 150 changes, and the headline is agentic commerce readiness. The update adds support for the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), the agentic commerce standard Shopify co-developed with Google, making it easier for developers to build new shopping experiences on top of it. Merchants can now make their entire catalog available to AI shopping agents with a single click through a new Catalog API.

Shop Pay got a meaningful expansion too. It was previously available to non-Shopify merchants, but the integration path required going through Shopify's sales team and a complex setup. Now it works the way everything else on the platform does. Shop Pay processed $35 billion in gross merchandise volume in Q1, up 59% year-over-year, so Shopify has plenty of incentive to get it in more places.

The global selling improvements are practical. Shopify will automatically surface local payment methods for merchants selling internationally and, working with Global-e, can present buyers with a single all-in price covering currency conversion, taxes, and tariffs rather than a stack of fees at checkout. For merchants trying to grow internationally, that kind of friction reduction matters.

Read more: https://www.digitaltransactions.net/ai-takes-the-stage-in-shopifys-latest-pos-platform-update/

Visa and OpenAI Are Building the Payment Infrastructure Underneath Agentic Commerce

Visa and OpenAI announced a partnership at the Visa Payments Forum in San Francisco that will bring secure Visa payments into OpenAI's agentic commerce experiences. Visa is putting its global network, tokenization, and real-time fraud monitoring behind transactions initiated by AI agents, giving developers and merchants a cleaner way to accept payments when an agent does the buying.

Transactions will operate within consumer-defined spending limits, merchant category restrictions, and required approvals, so the agent can't just go off and buy whatever it wants. Tokenized Visa credentials and real-time authorization run underneath every transaction.

Visa's chief product officer said AI will transform commerce more profoundly than the internet or mobile technology did, and that's the bet they're making with this partnership. Consumers are still hesitant to let agents spend on their behalf, and Visa's network credibility is how both companies are trying to close that gap.

Read more: https://financialit.net/news/payments/visa-partners-openai-enable-secure-payments-next-generation-agentic-commerce

Before You Sign That Agentic Commerce Contract, Read This

MarTech ran a useful piece this week on how to evaluate agentic commerce investments without getting burned, framing it through the lens of direct mail, a channel that survived decades of technological disruption. The argument is that durable marketing infrastructure has predictable qualities, and those qualities are worth checking for before you commit.

Agentic commerce pitches all start to blur together. One rewrites the funnel, another consolidates the stack, a third replaces something you bought 12 months ago. The acronyms are in place (UCP, MCP, A2A) and the demos look great, but protocols evolve, companies get acquired, and pricing changes can blow up a three-year roadmap. The data clauses in many of these contracts look a lot like the social media contracts brands signed in 2011, when that industry was still figuring itself out.

Two questions worth asking before you commit:

1. What does your brand actually keep when this relationship ends (product data, interaction history, negotiation policies that can move to another system)

2. What questions will this investment still answer in 2029?

If the best metric you can point to is a high score on a vendor's proprietary index, that's not a long-term asset. Gartner expects more than 40% of agentic AI projects to be canceled by end of 2027, citing escalating costs, unclear business value, and weak risk controls. Worth reading before your next vendor meeting.

Read more: https://martech.org/3-direct-mail-lessons-for-evaluating-agentic-commerce/

That's it for today.

Follow me on LinkedIn and BlueSky

FAQs

How do I make my Shopify store available to AI shopping agents?

Shopify merchants can make their entire product catalog available to AI shopping agents with a single click through the new Catalog API, added in Shopify's Spring 2026 platform update. The update also added support for the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), the agentic commerce standard Shopify co-developed with Google, which is the underlying infrastructure AI agents use to discover and buy products.

What percentage of agentic AI projects are expected to fail?

Gartner expects more than 40% of agentic AI projects to be canceled by the end of 2027, citing escalating costs, unclear business value, and weak risk controls.

Is Visa partnering with OpenAI?

Yes, Visa and OpenAI announced a partnership at the Visa Payments Forum in San Francisco to bring secure Visa payments into OpenAI's agentic commerce experiences. Visa will provide its network, tokenization, and real-time fraud monitoring to support AI agent transactions, with consumer-defined spending limits and approval controls built in.

The Brief: Google Killed FAQ Rich Results, B2B Buyers Don't Trust You Anymore, and AI Pilots Are Not a Strategy

In today's brief: Three stories this week that B2B marketers should not ignore. Google quietly killed off a feature many teams built content strategies around. New research confirms what a lot of us have been feeling: B2B buyers have tuned out. And a Gartner analyst is calling out the AI pilot trap most marketing orgs have walked right into.

Today's stories:

1. Google deprecated FAQ rich results, and it already happened

2. 74% of B2B CMOs say buyers are more skeptical of traditional marketing

3. Marketing teams have too much AI activity and not enough AI value

Google Pulled FAQ Rich Results, and Most People Missed It

As of May 7, FAQ rich results are no longer appearing in Google Search. Google added a deprecation notice to its structured data documentation with almost no fanfare, no blog post, and no explanation. Search Console reporting goes away in June, and API support follows in August.

This one has been coming for a while. Google started restricting FAQ rich results back in 2023, limiting them to government and health sites. This deprecation appears to end eligibility for everyone. The FAQ schema markup itself can stay on your pages without causing issues, but it will not earn visible rich results in search. Worth noting: some in the SEO community had been recommending FAQ schema as a way to help AI systems parse content better. Google has not connected this deprecation to that trend, so that remains an open question.

Read more: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-drops-faq-rich-results-from-search/574429/

B2B Buyers Have Stopped Trusting the Playbook

LinkedIn's 2026 Global B2B Marketing Outlook surveyed 1,299 B2B marketers and CMOs across five countries, and the findings are pretty direct. Three-quarters of respondents say buyers are more skeptical of traditional marketing than they were in the past. Nine in 10 CMOs say buyers need to know and trust a brand before they will even engage with it.

The generational shift is part of it. According to the research, 71% of B2B buyers are now Gen Z or millennials, and they behave differently than the buyers most B2B marketing programs were built for. Two-thirds of UK marketers say buyers are turning to peer recommendations, trusted experts, and creators instead of brand-produced content when evaluating suppliers. That has 87% of B2B CMOs planning to increase spending on creator and influencer marketing in the next year. LinkedIn also announced a Creator Marketplace alongside the research to help brands find and work with those creators more easily.

Read more: https://www.marketingweek.com/b2b-cmo-traditional-marketing/

AI Pilots Are Not a Strategy

Gartner VP Analyst Nicole Greene published a piece in MarTech this week that gets at something a lot of marketing leaders already sense: the early phase of AI adoption produced a lot of pilots and productivity gains, but not a lot of measurable business value. Her argument is that the question has shifted from 'What AI tool should we try next?' to 'Where can AI create measurable value, and how do we capture it?'

Her framework organizes AI use cases into three buckets: defend (efficiency and cost reduction), extend (better conversion, lower acquisition costs, stronger personalization), and upend (new capabilities, new markets, competitive repositioning). The key point is that most teams have been focused on defend-level use cases and calling it AI transformation. Greene argues you need all three types, measured against outcomes that actually matter to the business, not just output-per-hour metrics. Speed and cost savings are a starting point, not a finish line.

Read more: https://martech.org/marketing-needs-ai-outcomes-not-more-ai-pilots/

That's it for today.

Follow me on LinkedIn and BlueSky

FAQs

Did Google remove FAQ rich results?

Yes. Google deprecated FAQ rich results on May 7, 2026. They no longer appear in search results. Search Console reporting ends in June 2026 and API support ends in August 2026. FAQ schema markup can remain on pages without causing issues but will not generate visible results.

Should I remove FAQ schema from my website?

Not necessarily. Google has said unused structured data does not cause problems for search. You can leave FAQ schema in place, but it will not produce rich results in Google Search as of May 2026.

Are B2B buyers skeptical of marketing?

According to LinkedIn's 2026 Global B2B Marketing Outlook, 74% of B2B CMOs say buyers are more skeptical of traditional marketing than in the past. Nine in 10 CMOs say buyers need to already know and trust a brand before they will engage with it.

The Brief: Grocery AI at Kroger, Alexa Custom Merch, Ulta AI Results, Mastercard Agent Pay

In today's brief: Agentic commerce kept making moves this week. A grocery AI platform went live with two major chains, Amazon's shopping agent learned a new trick, Ulta Beauty showed what early AI results actually look like, and Mastercard's CEO asked the consumer protection question everyone else is avoiding.

Today's stories:

1. Cooklist brings its AI shopping assistant to Kroger and Wegmans

2. Alexa for Shopping now lets you design custom merch with a text prompt

3. Ulta Beauty's AI assistant is driving real ecommerce growth

4. Mastercard's CEO wants to know what happens when the AI agent gets it wrong

Grocery AI Just Got a Lot More Mainstream

Cooklist launched its AI Shopping Assistant with Kroger and Wegmans, putting agentic grocery shopping in front of 10 million digital shoppers across more than 700 stores. The platform takes natural language requests, checks live inventory, and builds personalized product bundles based on a shopper's purchase history, budget, dietary preferences, and nutritional goals. It can also import recipes from social media videos or blog posts and turn them into checkout-ready carts.

Cooklist plans to roll out to 10 more grocery banners and another 7 million shoppers in the coming weeks. When a shopper can describe what they want for dinner and get a cart built from actual in-stock items at their local store, that's agentic commerce doing exactly what it's supposed to do. For more on where this is all heading, I've written about the agentic AI opportunity in retail.

Read more: https://progressivegrocer.com/cooklist-brings-agentic-ai-based-shopping-kroger-wegmans

Alexa for Shopping Now Makes You a Merch Designer (Whether You Asked or Not)

Amazon added a new feature to Alexa for Shopping this week: type a prompt, get a custom design for a T-shirt, sweatshirt, or water bottle. Amazon then prints and ships it through Merch on Demand with Prime-eligible delivery, and designing is free — you only pay when you actually order something.

Alexa for Shopping launched in mid-May as a combined version of Rufus and Alexa+, Amazon's generative AI-upgraded voice assistant. Amazon demoed the feature with a sample prompt of "make a design of a golden retriever as a 90s corporate lawyer at a disco," which sounds about right for an AI-generated T-shirt. The feature is live for all U.S. customers, with more customizable product types on the way.

Hey Printful, you feeling good right about now? Asking for a friend.

Read more: https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2026/06/08/amazons-alexa-for-shopping-adds-customization-feature-for-merch/

Ulta's AI Assistant Is Not Just a Press Release Anymore

Ulta Beauty's Q1 results are the kind of numbers that make other retailers pay attention. Ecommerce comparable sales grew in the mid-teens while physical store comps came in at low single digits, and total net sales hit $3.16 billion, up 11.1% year over year. A big part of that digital lift is Ulta AI, an AI shopping assistant launched in April and built on Google's Gemini Enterprise.

Ulta also integrated with Google's AI Mode in Search and the Gemini app, letting shoppers search, compare, and buy directly through Google's conversational interfaces. Add in an Uber Eats partnership for same-day delivery across 1,500-plus stores, Klarna's buy now, pay later option, and a TikTok Shop livestream that pulled more than 5 million impressions, and this is a company running a real omnichannel playbook. Full-year guidance calls for 6% to 7% net sales growth.

Looking for which retailers have upcoming earnings reports? Check out my Interactive Retail Earnings Calendar

Read more: https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2026/06/05/ulta-beauty-ai-assistant-ecommerce-sales-q1-fy26/

Mastercard's CEO Is Asking the Questions Nobody Else Is

Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach went on record this week with some pointed concerns about agentic commerce: What happens when an AI agent buys the wrong thing? Is the agent actually who it claims to be? Will it follow spending instructions? Those aren't hypothetical anymore. Robinhood launched an agentic credit card feature in May letting customers connect third-party AI agents to their accounts with preset spending caps, and Stripe expanded its Shared Payment Tokens to let AI agents initiate transactions using tokenized credentials from both Mastercard and Visa.

Mastercard's answer is Agent Pay, a framework that uses tokenization to replace card numbers with secure digital credentials and includes a "Know Your Agent" verification process so banks can approve or block individual AI agents. Accenture found 78% of financial institutions expect AI agent-related fraud to rise significantly, and the Consumer Bankers Association called agentic payment tools a potential massive disruptor of the existing consumer payments landscape. The infrastructure is moving fast. The guardrails are moving a little less fast. I've written more on where this is heading in my piece on the future of agentic AI in retail.

Read more: https://www.aol.com/articles/mastercard-ceo-shares-grave-concerns-141700000.html

That's it for today.

Follow me on LinkedIn and BlueSky

FAQs

What is Cooklist and how does it work with Kroger?

Cooklist is a grocery AI platform that uses natural language to check inventory and build personalized shopping carts. It launched with Kroger and Wegmans in June 2026, reaching 10 million digital shoppers across more than 700 stores.

Is Ulta Beauty using AI for ecommerce?

Yes. Ulta launched its Ulta AI shopping assistant in April 2026, built on Google's Gemini Enterprise. The company posted mid-teen ecommerce comparable sales growth in Q1 and credits ongoing digital investments, including AI, as a key driver.

What is Mastercard Agent Pay?

Agent Pay is Mastercard's agentic commerce security framework that uses tokenization to secure AI-initiated transactions and includes a "Know Your Agent" verification process so banks can approve or block individual AI agents.

Can AI agents make purchases on your behalf?

Yes. Robinhood launched an agentic credit card feature in May 2026, and Stripe supports AI-initiated transactions through tokenized credentials. Both Mastercard and Visa are building infrastructure to support AI-agent purchasing with consumer protection guardrails.

Consumers Don't Trust AI to Shop for Them & Merchants Aren't Ready, and the Race to Own the Checkout Just Got More Interesting

In today's brief: a new report paints a pretty rough picture of where merchants stand on AI readiness. Google used its I/O developer conference to quietly advance its checkout ambitions. DHL and USPS made their 25-year partnership official in a very big way. And two marketing tech companies just merged to build something that looks a lot like the operating system for agentic retail.

Today's stories:

1. 73% of merchants aren't ready for the AI shopping era

2. Google Pay goes all-in on agentic checkout

3. DHL and USPS strike a $10 billion last-mile deal

4. Insider One acquires Bluecore to build the agentic marketing stack

AI Is Already Shopping. Merchants Are Not Ready for It.

A new report from Ballerine, a merchant risk and compliance platform, found that 73% of online sellers are not 'agent-ready,' meaning their digital infrastructure can't reliably support AI-driven shopping. Bain & Company projects agentic commerce could account for up to 25% of the U.S. online retail market by 2030, roughly $500 billion in annual spending, while consumer adoption is already accelerating. The merchant side hasn't kept pace.

AI agents need structured, machine-readable data to function, such as accurate inventory, clear policies, verified merchant identities, and real pricing. Most merchant websites were built for human shoppers who can read between the lines and fill in the gaps. When the data is incomplete or unreliable, agents either fail the task outright or, worse, send a shopper to a merchant they shouldn't have recommended in the first place.

Ballerine launched Agenticom.org to give the ecosystem a shared reference point for what needs to be built. Agentic commerce won't scale on the buyer side alone if the merchant side hasn't caught up, and right now it hasn't. For more on what that means for retail, see my piece on the future of agentic AI in retail if you want more context on where this is going.

Read more: https://www.gregzakowicz.com/blog/future-of-agentic-ai-in-retail

Google Pay Wants to Be the Checkout Layer for the Agentic Era

At Google I/O, Google announced a round of Google Pay updates aimed less at the traditional checkout experience and more at building the infrastructure for AI-driven commerce. The biggest one is that existing Google Pay merchant IDs are now compatible with Google's Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), meaning merchants can participate in agentic commerce without rebuilding their payment stack, which removes a meaningful barrier to entry.

Google also launched a Google Pay and Wallet Developer MCP server, now in public preview, which lets AI agents plug into payment workflows to handle integration troubleshooting, trend analysis, and code generation. On the conversion side, they're bringing dynamic checkout callbacks to Android (already live on web), which allows the Google Pay button to move earlier in the purchase flow, like to product detail or cart pages, while still presenting accurate shipping costs and totals in real time.

There's also a cross-device authentication feature for desktop that takes aim at MFA prompts, one of the more reliable ways to lose a customer mid-checkout. Google routes that step to the user's phone instead, where a biometric or PIN handles it cleanly and quickly, which should improve conversion rates for merchants running checkout on the web.

Read more: https://developers.googleblog.com/the-latest-updates-to-google-pay/

DHL and USPS Just Made Their Long Partnership Very, Very Official

DHL eCommerce and the U.S. Postal Service signed a new exclusive multi-year contract for last-mile parcel delivery services worth over $10 billion, the largest agreement in a partnership that's been running for 25 years. Under the deal, DHL handles pickup, sortation through its 19 automated hubs, and linehaul across its air and ground network, while USPS takes the final mile, covering more than 170 million delivery points across 41,550 ZIP codes six days a week.

For both sides, the arrangement makes sense. DHL gets access to one of the most complete residential delivery networks in the country without having to build or maintain it, while USPS picks up long-term package volume at a time when its traditional mail business keeps shrinking. For shippers, that translates to better reach, especially outside major metro areas where private carriers either don't operate or aren't cost-effective.

For brands actually shipping through DHL, the most meaningful outcome is consistency. The long-term contract gives DHL the stability to invest deeper in its infrastructure, which should improve reliability over time. Whether that plays out in practice depends on how well DHL and USPS share data and coordinate handoffs, because the physical network only gets you so far. Tracking, exception management, and delivery visibility are what actually determine whether the experience improves for the end customer.

Read more: https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2026/05/29/dhl-usps-partner-last-mile-delivery/

Insider One Acquires Bluecore, and the Agentic Marketing Stack Starts Taking Shape

New York-based customer engagement platform Insider One has acquired Bluecore, a retail martech company that serves more than 400 U.S. enterprise brands, including Sephora, J.Crew, ALO Yoga, and Ralph Lauren. Terms weren't disclosed. Bluecore's main asset is its Transparent ID Network, which processes over 10 billion daily shopper events and powers machine learning models built specifically for retail commerce.

Insider One's play here is about data infrastructure. Its platform already handles cross-channel journey orchestration, personalization, and AI agents that manage customer engagement workflows autonomously across 12 digital channels. What Bluecore adds is an identity graph that converts anonymous site visitors into known customers and keeps that data accurate and actionable across touchpoints, filling in a gap the platform needed to run autonomous customer engagement at scale.

The agentic marketing platform category is still early, but it's already producing real M&A activity, which is a sign that vendors are racing to assemble the complete stack before brands lock in their architecture choices. If you're evaluating marketing technology right now, understanding how each platform fits into the broader infrastructure layer that agentic commerce runs on matters as much as what the platform does on its own.

Read more: https://uk.fashionnetwork.com/news/Agentic-commerce-marketing-platform-insider-one-acquires-bluecore,1835981.html

That's it for today.

Follow me on LinkedIn and BlueSky

FAQs

Was Bluecore acquired?

Yes. Insider One, a customer engagement and AI marketing platform, acquired Bluecore in 2026. Bluecore serves more than 400 enterprise retail brands, including Sephora, J.Crew, and Ralph Lauren.

What percentage of merchants are ready for agentic commerce?

According to a 2026 Ballerine report, only 27% of online merchants have the structured data infrastructure that AI shopping agents need to work reliably. Most merchant websites were built for human shoppers, not agents, and that gap is becoming a real business problem as consumer adoption accelerates.

What is the DHL and USPS delivery partnership?

DHL and USPS signed a $10 billion exclusive agreement where DHL manages pickup, sortation, and linehaul while USPS handles the final mile to more than 170 million delivery points across the country. It's the largest deal in a partnership that's already been running for 25 years.

What is Google's Universal Commerce Protocol?

Google's Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) is the payment and commerce framework Google is building so that AI agents can complete purchases on behalf of shoppers using existing merchant infrastructure. Merchants with Google Pay IDs can now connect to UCP without rebuilding their payment stack.

Payment Systems Aren't Ready for AI Shoppers, Amazon Replaces Rufus, and Marketing Metrics Get an AI Overhaul

In today's brief: Payment infrastructure faces a reckoning as AI agents start buying things on behalf of consumers. Amazon is done experimenting with Rufus and putting Alexa front and center for shopping. B2B marketers are learning that website traffic isn't the metric that matters anymore. And Starbucks is cutting another 300 office jobs while its turnaround plan racks up costs.

Today's stories:

1. Chargebacks911 warns payment systems aren't ready for AI shopping agents

2. Amazon replaces Rufus with Alexa for Shopping in the main search bar

3. B2B marketing metrics shift from traffic to AI visibility

4. Starbucks cuts 300 more corporate jobs, takes $400 million charge

Payment Systems Aren't Built for AI Agents

Chargebacks911 is raising an alarm that nobody asked for, but everyone should hear: the entire dispute and chargeback infrastructure is not ready for AI agents making purchases.

When an AI agent buys something on your behalf, and it goes wrong, who disputes it? The consumer, the agent provider, the merchant, or some combination of all three? The current system assumes a human clicked "buy" and can explain what happened. That breaks down when software makes the decision.

The problem isn't theoretical. AI shopping agents are already live in limited form through tools like ChatGPT's shopping features and various browser extensions. As these scale, banks and payment processors are going to face disputes they have no framework to handle. The software made the purchase, and models don't have purchase intent in the legal sense.

The real issue is accountability. If an agent buys the wrong product, processes a duplicate order, or misinterprets instructions, the dispute process has to figure out where liability sits. Right now, it doesn't.

Read more: https://techround.co.uk/artificial-intelligence/risks-ai-agents-ecommerce-businesses-banks/

Amazon Sidelines Rufus and Goes All-In on Alexa

Amazon replaced Rufus with Alexa for Shopping in its main search bar, and the shift is telling. Rufus was the AI shopping assistant Amazon launched with fanfare less than a year ago. Now it's been moved to a side menu while Alexa takes the prime real estate.

Amazon is betting that voice and conversational interfaces are the path forward. Alexa has brand recognition, existing integrations, and years of user behavior data. Rufus was new and unfamiliar. Putting Alexa in the search bar makes the AI shopping experience feel like an extension of something people already use.

For consumers, the experience is more conversational. You can ask Alexa to find products, compare options, and complete purchases without typing queries or scanning through result pages. For Amazon, this is a way to keep shoppers inside its ecosystem longer and reduce friction at the point of purchase.

It also puts pressure on Google, which has been slower to integrate its AI shopping tools into the main search experience. Amazon's bet is that people will get used to asking Alexa instead of searching, and once that behavior sticks, it's hard to reverse.

Read more: https://www.retaildive.com/news/amazon-ai-alexa-for-shopping/820218/

B2B Marketers Are Measuring Different Things Now

Website traffic is losing its spot as the primary success metric for B2B marketing. A new report from 10Fold found that 52% of B2B tech marketing leaders now see AI-generated search as their top channel for reaching buyers.

Buyers are getting answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews without ever clicking through to a vendor site, meaning fewer visits but not necessarily fewer conversions. About 42% of respondents said both visibility and traffic increased, but others are seeing stronger lead quality even with lower site visits.

The priority now is whether AI systems recognize your content as credible enough to cite, summarize, or reference. That puts the focus on authority signals like media coverage, analyst mentions, expert bylines, proprietary research, and influencer validation. Producing more content doesn't help if it all sounds the same as everything else the AI is reading.

Marketing teams now have to figure out how to measure influence when buyers never land on their site but still show up in the pipeline better informed and further along in the buying process. The metrics haven't caught up to the behavior yet.

Read more: https://martech.org/the-ai-search-shift-changing-b2b-marketing-metrics/

Starbucks Cuts 300 More Jobs as Turnaround Costs Pile Up

Starbucks is laying off 300 corporate employees and closing four regional offices in the U.S., the third round of office cuts since 2025. The company is also taking a $400 million restructuring charge, split between real estate impairments and severance.

Sales have started to recover under CEO Brian Niccol's "Back to Starbucks" plan, which includes store renovations, hiring more baristas, and menu refreshes. But those investments are expensive. Store operating costs jumped 7% in the first half of the fiscal year, and profit margins remain below their historical levels.

The company is targeting $2 billion in cost savings over the next two years, and cutting office jobs is part of that. Starbucks employed about 9,000 people in U.S. corporate roles as of last September. The 300 cuts announced now will likely be followed by more internationally as the company reviews its overseas structure.

The regional office closures in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, and Burbank come as Starbucks opens a second major office in Nashville, which will eventually house 2,000 employees. The Nashville move has caused tension in Seattle, where Starbucks has been headquartered for decades and where former CEO Howard Schultz recently criticized local officials for policies he says are hostile to business.

Read more: https://www.ft.com/content/2ae677ec-73be-4be1-8158-f56633cf0708

That's it for today.

Follow me on LinkedIn and BlueSky

FAQs

Who is liable when an AI shopping agent makes a wrong purchase?

Current dispute and chargeback systems don't have a clear answer for AI agent purchases. Liability could fall on the consumer, the AI provider, the merchant, or some combination of all three, but payment processors have no established framework to handle these disputes since AI models don't have "purchase intent" in the legal sense.

What happened to Amazon Rufus?

Amazon replaced Rufus with Alexa for Shopping in its main search bar in May 2026, moving Rufus to a side menu. The change signals Amazon's bet that its established Alexa brand with years of user data is more effective than introducing a new AI chatbot.

Is website traffic still the most important metric for B2B marketing? 

No, website traffic is losing its position as the primary B2B marketing success metric. According to a 2026 report from 10Fold, 52% of B2B tech marketing leaders now consider AI-generated search their top channel, with the priority shifting to whether AI systems recognize content as credible enough to cite or reference.

How much is Starbucks' restructuring costing the company?

Starbucks is taking a $400 million restructuring charge in 2026, covering 300 corporate job cuts and four regional office closures. This is part of a $2 billion cost savings target over two years under CEO Brian Niccol's "Back to Starbucks" turnaround plan.

Buffalo Bills 2026 Schedule [Plus Week by Week Pros and Cons]

The 2026 Buffalo Bills schedule is out and is filled with a lot of interesting nuances. The Bills are projected to travel 19,734 miles during the 2026 NFL regular season, the 13th most in the NFL. That’s not bad at all. However, with a murderers’ row of opponents in 2026, what are the pros and cons of the Bills’ schedule week by week? Let’s dig in.

View fullsize

Buffalo Bills 2026-2027 Schedule

Week 1: Buffalo Bills at Houston Texans, September 13, 1pm ET

The Buffalo Bills’ 2026 NFL season opener will take place on the road against the Houston Texans on Sunday, September 13, at 1pm ET. 

Pros:

• Not a very tough opponent. This may be good for a team with a new HC and DC.

• If Stroud continues his mediocre play, the defense should have time to settle in. 

• Fewer distractions on the road. 

Cons: 

• Facing a tough Houston defensive line. The O-line will be tested.

• Will the new-look offense and defense look good? There could be plenty of rust and learning curves.

Week 2: Buffalo Bills vs. Detroit Lions (home opener), Thursday, September 17, 8:15pm (TNF)

The Buffalo Bills will open Highmark Stadium against the Detroit Lions on TNF on Thursday, September 17, at 8:15pm ET.

Pros:

• It’s a new stadium! What else could you want?

• A nighttime game gives the fans plenty of time to “get ready.” It’s going to be loud.

• This should be an offensive game. The fans should have plenty to cheer about, and Josh Allen will be the broadcast centerpiece.

• Getting a Thursday night game out of the way early in the season is a good thing. Extra rest and game planning heading into week 3 is great.

Cons:

• Coming off a short week with a new head coach and defensive coordinator could make it difficult to make adjustments.

• The rookie CBs will be tested early.

• It’s a tough game. A possible loss for a stadium opener is less than appealing.

Week 3: Buffalo Bills vs. Los Angeles Chargers, September 27, 4:25pm

The Los Angeles Chargers come to Highmark Stadium on Sunday, September 27, at 4:25pm. Justin Herbert, now equipped with a new, forward-thinking OC, may be a litmus test to reveal how Jim Leonhard plans for high-caliber quarterbacks.

Pros:

• Back-to-back home games in the new stadium while the weather is nice is a beautiful thing to see. 

• Josh Allen vs. Justin Herbert is a great QB matchup.

• The Chargers’ defense, while talented, has cracked against good offenses. Allen and the Bills can exploit them.

Cons:

• Justin Herbert and the Chargers’ offense can score from anywhere at any time. If Leonhard’s defense has not found its footing early, this could get ugly.

• The Chargers were streaky last year. If the new OC finds a rhythm, we could see another shootout.

• A loss here raises real questions about the Bills’ prospects in year one under Brady/Leonhard.

Week 4: Buffalo Bills vs. New England Patriots, October 4, 1pm ET

The Bills return home for a divisional matchup with the New England Patriots on Sunday, October 4, at 1:00 pm. Coming off a Super Bowl appearance and division championship, the Patriots will be looking to prove that last year was no fluke.

Pros:

• I think the Patriots were frauds last year. While they have improved, how will Drake Maye deal with an aggressive defense?

• The Bills will be fired up to reclaim their spot atop the AFC East.

• Still early in the season, so again, the weather should be nice.

Cons:

• Divisional games are always tough.

• If the Bills lose this game, it’ll be a long flight to LA.

• If Buffalo stumbles early, the pressure on Joe Brady may be high.

Week 5: Buffalo Bills at Los Angeles Rams, Monday, October 12, 8pm ET (MNF)

The Bills hit the road to face the Los Angeles Rams at SoFi Stadium for their first Monday night appearance of the year. 

Pros:

• Josh Allen loves the primetime spotlight. 

• The Bills could be rolling and wanting to prove they are the team to beat in the NFL.

• A healthy Bills team with the talent advantage should be able to get this done, even on a challenging road trip.

Cons:

• The Rams are one of the most dangerous teams in the NFL. This may be the Bills’ first true test of the year. 

• The DBs will be tested … again. 

• The Bills may be struggling, and trying to climb out of a hole against a great team will be a challenge.

Week 6: Buffalo Bills at Las Vegas Raiders, October 18, 4:05pm ET

The Bills travel to Allegiant Stadium to face the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday, October 18, at 4:05 pm.  I wish I could say more, but what happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas. Let’s just hope this doesn’t become the theme song for the trip.

Pros:

• Mendoza may still be adapting to the NFL. The defense could have its first signature game of the year. 

• The Bills, flat out, have a better roster.

• It’s the Raiders.

Cons:

• Back-to-back cross-country trips are tough on the body, especially on a short week. Fatigue could slow Buffalo.

• Mendoza could look like a true top-tier quarterback.

Week 7: BYE 

Week 8: Buffalo Bills vs. Baltimore Ravens, November 1, 1pm ET

The Baltimore Ravens come to Highmark Stadium on Sunday, November 1, at 1 pm. This is one of the signature home games on this schedule. Lamar Jackson versus Josh Allen, at the new stadium, in November? Sign me up!

Pros:

• A home game against one of the AFC’s best teams is a chance to make a genuine playoff statement. 

• Coming off a bye week, the Bills will be rested, and the staff will have had plenty of time to prepare for the game.

• A victory over Baltimore would carry serious weight in the AFC seeding race and validate everything Brady’s staff has been building.

Cons:

• Lamar Jackson is still capable of making defenses, especially aggressive ones, pay. Containing him is an entirely different challenge than what the Bills have faced so far.

• I think the Ravens are one of the best teams in the AFC. 

• After last year’s loss to Buffalo and playoff miss, Baltimore will be highly motivated. This game could swing on one play.

Week 9: Buffalo Bills at Minnesota Vikings, Monday, November 9, 8pm ET (MNF)

The Bills hit the Twin Cities for their second Monday Night Football matchup of the year. This could be a massive game in the standings.

Pros:

• U.S. Bank Stadium is indoors. The Bills' offense has no excuses.

• Fewer distractions on the road.

• Minnesota has an average to less-than-average QB. Buffalo does not.

Cons:

• The Vikings’ indoor crowd is legitimately difficult to deal with. If they get into it, it may cause challenges.

• Hopefully not, but the Bills could still be struggling on defense (either due to players or scheme) 

• The Vikings have a capable head coach who will surely have his team prepared.

Week 10: Buffalo Bills at New York Jets, November 15, 1pm ET

The Bills travel to MetLife Stadium for a divisional road game against the New York Jets on Sunday, November 15. The Jets are always looking to pull an upset here, and this one will be loud.

Pros:

• The Jets are still the Jets and have no real QB to speak of.

• The Bills have a better roster.

• The D-line should be able to do some work.

Cons:

• The turf. 

• Division games are never easy. 

• The weather could be terrible.

Week 11: Buffalo Bills vs. Miami Dolphins, November 22, 1pm ET

The Bills host the new-look Miami Dolphins at Highmark Stadium for the first time on Sunday, November 22, at 1:00. The fans will no doubt make their voice heard against this divisional rival. 

Pros:

• Josh Allen has historically performed well against Miami, and the Bills have largely controlled this series in recent years.

• Home in Buffalo against Miami is an enormous advantage. The weather, the crowd, and the environment all favor the Bills.

• Jim Leonhard may look to let Bradley Chubb loose on his former team.

• The Dolphins may be mentally checked out by now. 

Cons:

• While Malik Willis isn’t all that good, he’s probably better than Tua.

• Divisional games are usually closer than records suggest. 

• Achane may be an X-factor that can give the Dolphins life. 

• On an impending short week, the Bills may be looking ahead to the Chiefs.

Week 12: Buffalo Bills vs. Kansas City Chiefs, Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 26, 8:20pm ET (TNF)

The Buffalo Bills will host the Kansas City Chiefs on Thanksgiving night on Thursday, November 26, 2026. This heated rivalry between the two teams will again feature Josh Allen versus Patrick Mahomes in Primetime. Get your pumpkin pie ready!

Pros:

• Allen vs. Mahomes. What else is there to say?

• Don’t need to travel on a short week. 

• A nighttime game gives the crowd plenty of time to get ready.

• Jim Leonhard is familiar with KC. Maybe they can crack the Reid/Spagnuolo code 

Cons:

• Playing on short rest. Another short week to prepare for a tough opponent.

• Lots of sleepy and full bellies.

• It’s Mahomes and Kelce. These games are never easy!

Week 13: Buffalo Bills at New England Patriots, December 6, 4:25pm ET

The Bills travel to Gillette Stadium to take on the New England Patriots on Sunday, December 6. This game promises to have significant playoff and divisional implications. The winner of this game may just be the division winner.

Pros:

• The Bills should be well settled into both sides of the ball. No excuses.  

• Josh Allen > Drake Maye

• The Bills have more offensive weapons than the Pats have defensive counterpunches. 

Cons:

• Never comfortable going into Gillette Stadium, especially in December.

• The Patriots will know what’s at stake and may give this game their all.

• The Patriots like to cheat. 

Week 14: Buffalo Bills at Green Bay Packers, December 13 at 8:20pm ET (SNF)

The Bills make another Sunday Night Football appearance when they travel to Lambeau Field to take on the Green Bay Packers. Lambeau in December is as classic as it gets in the NFL. How many times will they compare Green Bay's cold to Buffalo's snow? The over/under is 58.5.

Pros:

• Josh Allen shows up in Primetime! Not to mention, he will love playing in Lambeau at night.

• The Packers will likely be fighting for playoff positioning. This game will be meaningful for them.

• Bucket list trip for Bills fans.

Cons:

• It’s going to be cold.

• Green Bay’s offense can find rhythm quickly at home, and its defensive front will test the Bills in the cold.

• Third straight game versus a tough opponent. The Bills could be mentally tired by this game. 

Week 15: Buffalo Bills vs. Chicago Bears, Saturday, December 19, 8:20pm ET

The Bills return home to Highmark Stadium to host the Chicago Bears on Saturday night (8:20 pm ET). A late-season home game, the Bills need to win to stay on track for a top playoff seed.

Pros:

• December at Highmark Stadium is legitimately one of the toughest environments in the NFL. Nobody wants to play in Buffalo in winter.

• DJ Moore revenge game. Let him loose!

• We may see the overhang tested for the first time. Plus, wind probably won’t be a factor.  

Cons:

• Fourth tough game in a row. If the team wasn’t drained before the last one, this one could do it.

• Injuries could be a real concern by this point. The Bills’ newly drafted depth may be genuinely tested.

• The Bills could try to force the ball to Moore, throwing off their offense. 

Week 16:  Buffalo Bills at Denver Broncos, Christmas Day, Friday, December 25, 4:30pm ET

The Bills head west to take on the Denver Broncos on Christmas Day at 4:30 pm. A cross-conference AFC West road trip and legitimate altitude challenge await.

Pros:

• Joe Brady will have a sour taste in his mouth from the playoff loss. He’ll want to prove a few things.

• Jim Leonhard knows Denver, and he should know how to attack them. 

• The Bills may be in playoff mode by this time, making their entire focus on winning.

Cons:

• Playing a meaningful road game on Christmas Day requires exceptional focus, especially for first-time fathers (looking at you #17). Josh’s mind could be elsewhere. 

• The Broncos know Jim Leonhard and may know how to take advantage of his aggressiveness.

• Denver’s defensive front is built to be disruptive, and the crowd at Empower Field creates real noise issues for the offensive line.

• The second short week in a row, and a long cross-country flight, can be physically draining.

Week 17: Buffalo Bills at Miami Dolphins, Saturday, January 3, 2027, at 1pm ET

The Bills head south to take on the Miami Dolphins for a Saturday slate on January 3. Miami in January is better than Buffalo in January. Bring on the sun.

Pros:

• Being a late January game, the intense afternoon sun shouldn’t be too much of an issue. 

• The sunshine may be seen more as a wanted escape than a road game.

• Dolphins’ players, who know they are in full rebuild mode, may still be slow from the New Year’s celebration in South Beach.

• Likely a road home game.

Cons:

• Divisional games are still usually close. 

• Achane may be an X-factor that can give the Dolphins life. 

• Both teams could be banged up heading into this game after 16 weeks. The injury report will matter more than usual.

• A loss here could flip the AFC East and significantly complicate the Bills’ path to not only a top seed but maybe even a playoff spot.

Week 18:  Buffalo Bills vs. New York Jets, either Saturday, January 9 or Sunday, January 10, 2027

The Bills close out the 2-026-2027 regular season by hosting the New York Jets at Highmark Stadium. Win this, build momentum, and let the crowd get fully fired up for, hopefully, a long playoff run.

Pros:

• The Jets will certainly be checked out by this game.

• This game will likely be meaningful for the Bills’ playoff path. Going against an already-defeated team will be the breather they need.

• If the Bills don’t need the game, it’s a perfect time to rest some players, since a Jets win likely won’t impact other AFC playoff seeding. 

Cons:

• Potential to look past the Jets could lead to a devastating trap game.

• Needing to win exposes the team to injuries. With the Bills’ bye week coming early (week 7), they will need some rest by this point. 

• Get off to a slow start in a big game, and the boo birds could be out.  

FAQs:

Who do the Buffalo Bills open with to start the 2026 season?

The Buffalo Bills will open the 2026 NFL regular season at the Houston Texans on Sunday, September 13 at 1pm ET. 

When is the home opener for the Buffalo Bills?

The Buffalo Bills will play their home opener and first-ever game at Highmark Stadium on Thursday, September 17, at 8pm, against the Detroit Lions. 

Do the Buffalo Bills play on Thanksgiving Day?

Yes. The Buffalo Bills will play the Kansas City Chiefs on Thanksgiving Night on Thursday Night Football, with kickoff scheduled for 8:15pm ET.

How many primetime games do the Buffalo Bills have in 2026?

The Bills have seven primetime games in the 2026-2027 NFL season, in addition to two 4:25pm games. 

Rufus Product Optimization, Target Goes All-In on Stores, LinkedIn Leads the Field, and Does Agentic Commerce Has a Dispute Problem?

In today’s brief: Keyword-stuffing on Amazon is going the way of the Buffalo (p.s. go Bills), physical retail is having a moment, B2B marketers are finally getting the LinkedIn ROI data they've been asking for, and agentic commerce is running into its first real infrastructure headache.

Today's Stories:

1. Amazon Rufus may recommend your competitors

2. Target commits $5B to 130+ store remodels and 30 new locations

3. LinkedIn posts 121% ROAS, the only positive return among major B2B ad platforms

4. Agentic commerce has payment rails in progress, but no dispute layer to match

Amazon’s Rufus May Recommend Your Competitor If You’re Not Careful

Amazon optimization is evolving from keyword stuffing to conversational relevance. Sellers are being warned that Amazon’s Rufus AI shopping assistant may actively steer shoppers toward competing products if a listing doesn’t clearly answer customer questions. If a shopper asks something like “Will this work with an iPhone 16 Plus?” and the listing provides vague or incomplete information, Rufus may immediately suggest better-matching competitor products instead. Bad dog, Rufus!

This shifts Amazon SEO and product optimization for sellers. Rather than focusing mostly on keywords, brands now need “answer-complete” listings that directly address real shopper questions. Rufus prioritizes highly structured and trustworthy content, especially product descriptions, A+ content, and structured attributes such as dimensions, compatibility, materials, and fit. Reviews and customer Q&A act as secondary validation sources, while hidden metadata and image-only information have much less influence on AI-generated recommendations.

To adapt, sellers are encouraged to think like shoppers and audit their listings around likely customer questions and use cases, such as by replacing vague marketing language with specific claims, reinforcing key product details across multiple sections of a listing, and using AI tools to identify gaps in question coverage. 

Read more:https://www.interodigital.com/blog/rufus-will-recommend-your-competitor-if-your-amazon-listing-doesnt-answer-the-question/

Target Is Betting $5 Billion on Its Stores

Target just made its position on physical retail very clear. The company is putting $5 billion into its store network, with more than 130 remodels planned this year and 30 new stores on the way. This is a full commitment to the idea that physical stores are worth the investment, not a test-and-learn pilot.

Part of what makes the math work is scale. About 76% of the U.S. population lives within 10 miles of a Target. That kind of reach turns the store network into something closer to a distribution system than a traditional retail footprint, and it's why the company treats remodels as infrastructure spending rather than interior design.

The early returns support the bet. Stores that have gone through a remodel are seeing low-to-mid single-digit sales lifts. That's not a headline number on its own, but apply it across hundreds of locations and the economics get interesting fast.

Read more: https://corporate.target.com/news-features/article/2026/05/target-store-remodels-new-stores-strategy

Is LinkedIn the Only B2B Ad Platform Actually Making Money

If you've been defending LinkedIn ad spend to skeptical executives, Dreamdata just handed you some useful ammunition. The company's 2026 B2B benchmarks report found LinkedIn is the only major paid social platform delivering a positive return on ad spend: 121% ROAS compared to 67% for Google and 51% for Meta.

LinkedIn now accounts for 41% of B2B paid social budgets, and that allocation looks well-supported by the numbers. The buying cycle data helps explain the dynamic: the average B2B buyer journey now runs 272 days, up from 211 a year ago, with sales pipeline visibility showing up around day 220. Staying visible to professional audiences across a nine-month cycle requires a platform that can target based on professional identity, and that's where LinkedIn has a genuine edge.

The 121% figure won't hold for every account, but the broader finding is consistent: LinkedIn works for B2B in ways that general-purpose platforms don't.

Read more: https://www.demandgenreport.com/industry-news/news-brief/linkedin-outperforms-all-b2b-ad-platforms-dreamdata/52164/

Agentic Commerce Is Getting Payment Rails, But No Dispute Layer

The vision for agentic commerce is simple: AI agents buy things on your behalf and the whole experience is seamless. Visa, Mastercard, and others are already building the payment infrastructure to make that work. What nobody has built yet is what happens when something goes wrong.

Donald Kossmann, CTO of Chargebacks911, laid out the problem in a recent piece: in a traditional purchase, there's a checkout event that creates a consent signal, and that signal is what makes chargebacks possible when a dispute arises. In agentic transactions, consent is granted before the purchase, often at the authorization stage rather than at checkout. Without that checkout moment, there's no clean mechanism to dispute a transaction.

McKinsey projects agentic commerce could represent $3 to $5 trillion in transaction value. That's a significant amount of volume to route through a system that can't yet handle a return. The payment rails are coming while the dispute layer may be very far behind.

Read more: https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2026/05/infrastructure-agentic-pay/

That's it for today.

Follow me on LinkedIn and BlueSky

FAQs

How much is Target investing in physical retail stores?

Target Corporation is investing $5 billion into its physical retail footprint, including more than 130 store remodels and 30 new stores planned for 2026. The retailer says the strategy is designed to strengthen both in-store shopping and fulfillment capabilities as stores increasingly function like local distribution hubs.

What percentage of Americans live near a Target store?

About 76% of the U.S. population lives within 10 miles of a Target Corporation store. That proximity gives the retailer a major logistics advantage for same-day pickup, delivery, and inventory distribution.

Which B2B advertising platform has the highest ROAS in 2026?

According to Dreamdata’s 2026 B2B benchmarks report, LinkedIn is the only major paid social platform delivering a positive return on ad spend (ROAS), averaging 121% compared to 67% for Google and 51% for Meta.

How long is the average B2B buyer journey in 2026?

The average B2B buyer journey now lasts 272 days, up from 211 days a year earlier. Research cited by Dreamdata shows most companies do not gain meaningful sales pipeline visibility until around day 220, reinforcing the importance of long-term brand visibility and nurturing campaigns on platforms like LinkedIn.

Amazon Rufus Hits 250M Users with Auto-Buy, Agentic Commerce Reshapes Brand Competition, and B2B Marketers Can’t Measure What They’re Spending

In today’s brief: Amazon turns Rufus into an autonomous shopping agent with 250 million users, agentic commerce threatens to upend decades of brand dominance in CPG, Loblaw proves AI grocery shopping works, and B2B marketers are getting budget increases without knowing what’s working.

Today’s stories:

1. Amazon expands Rufus AI with 12-month price tracking and auto-buy as usage surges to 250 million

2. Agentic commerce threatens legacy brands while opening doors for challengers

3. Loblaw’s ChatGPT grocery integration exceeds adoption expectations

4. B2B marketing budgets are growing, but ROI measurement remains the top challenge

Amazon Expands Rufus AI with 12-Month Price Tracking and Auto-Buy

Amazon’s Rufus AI assistant now shows 12 months of price history and can automatically buy products when they hit your target price. The expansion comes as Rufus reaches 250 million monthly active users, up 115% year over year, with engagement jumping 400%.

The auto-buy feature lets customers set a target price for any product, and Rufus handles the purchase when the price drops. It’s a shift from chatbot to autonomous shopping agent that could fundamentally change how people buy online. Amazon says customers using Rufus are 60% more likely to complete a purchase.

The price history transparency matters too. Showing 30, 90, and 365 days of pricing data makes it harder for retailers to play games with fake discounts or temporary price bumps before sales. Since its launch in 2024, over 50 million customers have checked price history, averaging three checks per month.

For sellers, pricing consistency now matters more than ever. Rufus surfaces price history directly to shoppers, so strategic discounting needs to be actually strategic. Timed price drops can trigger automatic purchases from customers who’ve set alerts. The shift toward agentic commerce is happening fast, and Amazon is betting on being the platform where it scales.

Read more

How Agentic Commerce Threatens Legacy Brands While Opening Doors for Challengers

If enough consumers let AI agents make buying decisions, legacy CPG brands are in trouble. That’s the takeaway from a new joint report by Kearney and NIQ analyzing $7.2 trillion in consumer spending across 90 countries.

The report finds that innovation, not volume, is becoming the main growth driver for food and beverage brands. Agentic commerce levels the playing field because AI agents don’t care about brand legacy or shelf dominance. They match product attributes to consumer preferences. A niche brand focused on innovation can compete directly with established players if its products better match what the AI is looking for.

For retailers, this could mean that in-store interactions need to become more experiential. Agentic shopping handles transactions. People come to stores to see, touch, taste, and get advice. The routine replenishment gets delegated to AI.

The data shows 74% of consumers already use AI to research products. Among AI shoppers, 31% will shop directly with a retailer if they have an emotional connection, while only 6% will direct their AI to recommend a specific brand even if it costs more. That gap shows how brand loyalty works in an AI-mediated world.

I’ve written more about the agentic AI opportunity in ecommerce and the future of agentic AI in retail if you want to dig deeper.

Read more

Loblaw’s ChatGPT Grocery Integration Exceeds Adoption Expectations

Loblaw says customer adoption of its ChatGPT grocery integration is running ahead of expectations. The Canadian grocer integrated OpenAI’s chatbot to help shoppers build shopping lists, find recipes, and plan meals, and it turns out people actually want to use AI for grocery shopping.

The success makes sense when you think about the friction in grocery shopping. Building a meal plan, checking what’s in season, figuring out substitutions, and finding recipes that use what you already have. These are real problems that AI can solve without requiring people to learn new interfaces or change their behavior much.

What Loblaw is doing right is meeting customers where they already are. ChatGPT integration means people can use familiar conversational AI to handle grocery tasks without downloading new apps and creating new accounts.

This is part of a broader trend where grocers are racing to figure out AI-powered shopping before Amazon and Walmart lock it down. The winners will be the ones who make AI shopping feel like a natural extension of how people already shop.

Read more

B2B Marketing Budgets Growing, But ROI Measurement Remains Top Barrier

Here’s a strange disconnect: 56% of B2B marketers expect budgets to grow in 2026, yet 25% say measuring ROI remains their biggest barrier. You’d think if budgets are growing, someone would be measuring what’s working.

The data comes from the EndeavorB2B Marketing Benchmark Report, which also found that 49% of organizations are increasing in-person event budgets while 37% plan to expand virtual events. Trade shows, roundtables, and small-group meetings are where deals move from interesting to serious.

B2B buyers are moving through discovery, comparison, and decision-making in non-linear ways, disrupting the traditional funnel. Marketers don’t control the path, so funnel-based attribution becomes less reliable. The fix is to create content buyers want, show up in peer networks and reviews, and make it easy for them to get information.

That's it for today.

Follow me on LinkedIn and BlueSky

FAQs

How many users does Amazon Rufus have?

Amazon Rufus reached 250 million monthly active users as of May 2026, with usage growing 115% year over year. Engagement jumped 400%, and Amazon says customers using Rufus are 60% more likely to complete a purchase compared to those who don't use it.

What percentage of consumers use AI to research products?

74% of consumers already use AI to research products, according to a Kearney and NIQ report analyzing $7.2 trillion in consumer spending. Among AI shoppers, 31% will shop directly with a retailer if they have an emotional connection, while only 6% will direct their AI to recommend a specific brand even if it costs more.

Are B2B marketing budgets growing in 2026?

Yes. 56% of B2B marketers expect budgets to grow in 2026, according to the EndeavorB2B Marketing Benchmark Report. 49% of organizations are increasing in-person event budgets, and 37% plan to expand virtual events. However, 25% say measuring ROI remains their biggest barrier, creating a disconnect between spending and accountability.

Why is Loblaw's ChatGPT integration succeeding?

Loblaw's ChatGPT grocery integration is exceeding expectations because it meets customers where they already are. People can use familiar conversational AI to build shopping lists, find recipes, and plan meals without downloading new apps or creating new accounts. It solves real grocery friction points without requiring behavior change.

The Brief: Amazon's Logistics, Private Labels Get a Makeover, and AI Giants Want to Own Your Shopping Cart

In today's Azimuth brief: Amazon officially turned its logistics empire into a product any business can buy. Walmart and ALDI are rethinking what their store shelves look like from the inside out. And Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google are all trying to solve the agentic commerce puzzle with completely different pieces.

Today's stories:

1. Amazon opens its entire logistics network to any U.S. business

2. Why major retailers are redesigning their private-label packaging

3. Where Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google each stand in the agentic commerce race

Amazon Opens Its Logistics to Everyone

Amazon launched Supply Chain Services this week, opening its logistics infrastructure to any U.S. business, not just sellers on its marketplace. The offering bundles freight forwarding, customs brokerage, warehousing, transportation, and last-mile delivery into a single package. P&G, 3M, American Eagle, and Lands' End are among the early adopters.

The network Amazon is putting to work: 200-plus fulfillment centers, 80,000 trailers, 24,000 intermodal containers, and 100 cargo aircraft. All of it was originally built to run Amazon's own retail operation. Now they're monetizing it.

FedEx dropped 9%, and UPS fell 10% on the news, and the concern is straightforward. Amazon can price aggressively because the fixed costs of this infrastructure are already covered by the core business. Competing with that as a traditional shipper is a tough spot.

For retailers and brands, the real question is a trust one. Handing your logistics over to a company that competes with you on the shelf is a trade-off every supply chain team is now going to have to think through. The cost savings might make sense. The strategic exposure is the part that takes a little longer to work out.

Read more

Private Label Gets a Packaging Refresh

Walmart, ALDI, and Target have all done significant redesigns of their private-label packaging recently, and the rationale is the same across all of them: the products are good, but the packaging does not reflect that.

Walmart's overhaul of Great Value is the most ambitious of the group. The brand spans nearly 10,000 grocery and consumer products, and this is its first full design refresh in over 30 years. Walmart's own customer research found that shoppers liked the quality and the price, but "didn't particularly feel proud to display it in their home or with their families." That is a useful thing to know about your flagship store brand.

ALDI went through a similar refresh to unify the look of all its private-label products under a consistent visual identity. Target updated its Up&up line in 2024 with cleaner, bolder packaging. The pattern is not a coincidence. These retailers are treating their store brands less like budget fallbacks and more like actual brands they want shoppers to pick on purpose.

Private label has been gaining share for years, mostly driven by price. The interesting shift now is that the competition is moving up the value chain. When a store brand looks good sitting out on the counter, the old calculus of "name brand vs. store brand" starts to blur. National brands have been dealing with the price challenge for a while. The design challenge is a newer front.

Read more

Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google Are Running Very Different Plays in Agentic Commerce

Digital Commerce 360 put out a solid breakdown of where the three major AI labs stand in agentic commerce, and the most notable thing about it is how different their approaches are from each other.

Anthropic ran an internal experiment called "Project Deal," where 69 employees used AI agents to negotiate with each other in a test marketplace. The bots closed 186 deals totaling more than $4,000. Small dollar amounts, but it is the clearest proof of concept yet for agent-to-agent commerce working in practice. Anthropic also donated MCP, its Model Context Protocol, to the Linux Foundation, which is a significant move on the infrastructure layer. (If you want more background on where this is all heading, I've written about the agentic AI opportunity in retail here.

OpenAI moved away from its original in-ChatGPT checkout experience and pivoted to a ChatGPT app model, where retailers integrate directly into the platform. The Agentic Commerce Protocol it built with Stripe, is still active, and Target, Sephora, Nordstrom, Lowe's, Best Buy, and Home Depot are already plugged in. It is a different architecture than where they started, but the retailer list is serious.

Google is going deeper into enterprise retailer partnerships. Ulta Beauty and Macy's both have live AI shopping agents built on Google's technology. It has multiple active protocols in the market: UCP for product discovery (built with Shopify), AP2 for payments, and A2A for agent-to-agent coordination. Google bets that its existing retailer relationships and ad infrastructure give it an edge that the others cannot easily replicate.

None of these approaches has won yet. The fact that each company is building its own protocols means the underlying infrastructure of agentic commerce is going to be fragmented for a while. For anyone in ecommerce, understanding which protocols your tech stack supports is going to matter sooner than most people expect.

Read more

That's it for today.

Follow me on LinkedIn and BlueSky

First-Time Coaching Flag Football: How It’s Going & What I’ve Learned

Well, I’ve taken my inaugural turn at coaching 5th/6th-grade flag football. Though I’ve never coached flag football, I watched my older son play a few seasons and got a sense of what I thought was important to succeed at the sport and things I thought were always game killers. 

So, when the opportunity arose, I figured it was time to put my money where my mouth is. 

If you are a first-time coach looking for some pointers, you can see what I’ve done,  improve upon it, and adapt it for your own situation. Let’s run through a quick breakdown of the team, the league, my philosophy, and the fun stuff: the plays.

Team and league background

The team

Our team this season is a random collection of friends. While this makes it fun for the kids, it also presents challenges I needed to plan around (more on this below). After all, there is no random superstar athlete assigned to my team.

League format

This league is different in that it is either 6v6 or 5v5, based on roster size and available subs. This season, the league has decided we will play 5v5. This format fits my overall philosophy well, but also challenges me on defense.

Unique rules

1. Only one run (screen pass counts as a run) per drive on each side of the field. No runs inside the 10 or within 5 yards of the first down.

2. No rushing the passer unless there is a play behind the line of scrimmage (run, fake handoff, screen pass).

3. Must have at least one offensive player on each side of the center (can’t overload one side).

My flag football philosophy

After watching a couple of seasons with my other son, I believe youth flag football is won with speed, space, and purpose. If you give players space, they can use their speed to their advantage, regardless of how fast they are. And, of course, everything we do needs to be done with purpose. We run routes, throw, pull flags, and attack the ball carrier with purpose. 

Let’s spend a second talking about game-killers. I’ve seen it in just about every game: consistent deep throws lose more games than they win. It may be fun for players to throw and catch deep, but they get picked and returned for TDs way too often.  

Finally, it is youth sports, and sportsmanship matters. We conduct ourselves like we should. When we pull flags, we don’t drop them or spike them. We hand them back to the player. We celebrate wins and each other, pick each other up when things are tough, acknowledge mistakes will happen, and learn from them without hanging our heads. We shake hands, congratulate the other team when they make a good play, and show respect.  

So, here’s how it all looks. 

Team challenges and limitations

1. No true QB

   Our two QBs are reluctant QBs and prefer other positions. Neither is a natural thrower. Neither wanted (or wants) to play QB, but they are our best option. We try to rotate them so they get turns playing other positions, but they are our two best at the position (I think they are beginning to enjoy it though). While this can be good for limiting deep passes, the ones we scheme open need to be done almost to perfection. I also recognize I need to make it easy for them to snap, read, and throw comfortably.

2. Lack of experience

   Just about every player has zero experience playing organized flag football. Teaching both sides of the ball gets complicated because of this. 

3. No superstar athletes

   Most players are good athletes, but they’re not the fastest or most natural football players. This isn’t to say we don’t have quick players or players who can catch, but we don’t have elite speed or a superstar who can carry the team. I’d say half of our team is of average speed. We need to be a collective.  

4. Players are independent

   Coaches are not allowed on the field during play, meaning players need to call their own plays. It’s critical they know what they're doing and take ownership of the play-by-play. While this can make it fun for the players, when things don’t go as planned, it can go sideways real quick. 

My plan and playbook

1. Create plays that match my philosophy and enable players to maximize their skills.

2. Make plays “simple” with terminology the players can understand.

3. Build upon concepts as the season progresses. 

4. Understand that our best defense will be a good offense.

Flag football playbook for 5th and 6th-graders

For games 1 and 2, we installed four plays. We initially called the “Triple-stack” formation for 6v6, but since we are now 5v5, it is simply STACK (if you want to see 6v6 formation, just contact me). It should be obvious why it is called “stack,” but this is easy for the kids to remember. Let’s walk through them.

Note: For us, the X WR is a less important designation due to the roster makeup. It serves more of an identifier when teaching the plays than assigning a player as a typical X.

View fullsize

Here is Stack LEFT (we “stack” players, routes go left: easy for kids to understand). The play design provides the QB two short throws where, if we move with quickness, the WRs should be open. The streak route gives us a look deep if we want/have a mismatch, knowing the safety will cheat to the Y WR at 10 yards. I included the gray ovals to show that the goal here is to create space for WRs to catch and run. 

View fullsize

Our next play, Stack “LEFT RIGHT” takes this same concept, but the Z receiver jukes left and cuts right. This player is open 95% of the time, and, because defenders are all drawn to the opposite side of the field, it’s often a huge chunk play. The kids LOVE this play!

Our final two plays, Stack “MOTION” and Stack “BREAK,” incorporate motion, one being a run and the other a pass. Why “Break?” It’s like a jail break: we run as fast as possible. The route for the motion play is the same as “Left.”

The cadence is for the Z to move on the first “hut.” The only nuance to MOTION is that the player in motion has the option to run a wheel route to the sideline or cut inside the X receiver, based on either what he sees or if he gets a late start to his motion. Most times, it’s a wide-open wheel route, but it does require an accurate throw. 

View fullsize

View fullsize

One formation, easy routes, obvious terminology. 

We focused on these concepts exclusively for the first two games. This helped them settle into calling plays in the huddle without a delay of game, run the right routes (mostly), and go through the motions of play. 

Game results:

Game 1: Tie, 44-44 (had a two TD lead late, giving way to a pick-six, punt, and quick drive). Not bad considering we haven’t really talked about defense yet. 

Game 2: Win, 44-24

Adding in new plays

Our next evolution was to incorporate a different formation called FLAT. This should be obvious, but it lines players up “flat” along the line of scrimmage, although this time we make the left side our strong side. These plays have the WRs run different routes to keep the defense honest and, hopefully, confused. 

Note: after some in-game trial and error, we wound up scaling back new plays. We kept three: Flat BREAK, Flat MOTION, and Flat MOTION 2.

MOTION and BREAK are identical and mimic the operation from the stack. However, for MOTION, we introduce a subtle crossing concept over center. MOTION 2 sends the Y instead of the Z in motion and opens us up for deep routes (when we need) while giving the QB an outlet to the center or Y player — all with space. The kids love MOTION 2 the most of the three.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

For MOTION 2, the center is often the most dangerous WR option, although we’ve successfully hit on a few deep passes to the X lately. The trick with the deep pass is to see the mismatch quickly and throw it in a roughly 1.5-count. This keeps the safety far enough away and the CB from making up ground on a floating ball.    

View fullsize

Because we had to cut some plays from our Flat package, we added a screen pass to our Stack concept, simply called “Stack SCREEN.” Remember, screen passes count as a run play. Here’s how it looks. 

Adding the new plays and formation, our next three games went as such:

Game 3: Win, 58-12

Game 4: Win, 44-32

Game 5: 52-40

These concepts and plays have done exactly what I hoped they would. Our slowest player has multiple TDs, a ton of receptions, and can use space to his advantage. Every player touches the ball multiple times each game. Every player has scored a TD. 

What we need to work on 

Players, especially young ones, tend to become lax when things go well. The attention to detail dropped. It’s not the way we are going to finish the season like we want.  

Route running:

Last week, we spent the first half of practice talking about route running. During the previous game, the team was not consistently moving with purpose. They rounded their breaks, ran the wrong routes far too often, and drifted backward when they were inevitably covered. There were times when four receivers were deep. (and yes, we threw INTs because of it). This is not a good recipe, especially without having a pinpoint QB.  

We rehearsed jukes, crisp cuts, and staying at the proper depth. Five yards does not mean 10. We talked about being covered and how to react (work back to where you came from, or, if deeper, run toward the QB). Because of our situation, it is critically important that the QB knows where he will throw the ball, how to recognize whether someone is open, and release it within the allotted time (a 4-one-thousand count). 

We combined this with rehearsing our core plays with a mix of walk-throughs and then at full speed. We demonstrated how easy it was to cover someone when they round routes and drift backward. We ran routes until everyone nailed it. The extra step you take and the extra space it creates make all the difference. 

And boy, did it pay dividends during our game. The first play the kids chose was Stack LEFT RIGHT. They ran crisp routes. The Z (“right-cutting”) WR juked and ran the route like he was supposed to. Defenders were pulled away, the juke created extra space, and the WR was wide open, quickly turning it up the field for a TD. 

That’s how you execute with speed, space, and purpose! 

Defense:

Knowing we don’t have the most athletic, fastest, and tallest players, I knew our defense would suffer. However, we’ve been making defensive coaching a focus of each practice and in-game learning, hoping to improve a little with each snap. We play man-to-man with a free safety monitoring the field, helping cheat to height and speed mismatches. This is important because teams like to throw deep (not always a bad option when their WR is a foot taller).

But hey, I’ll invite deep passes because we’ll get our picks 🙂 

The safety is really the glue that holds it together. They need to alert the team to runs, help in pass defense, and attack flags when shorter passes are completed. For someone who hasn’t played organized football before, the improvement in recognizing where the QB is looking and sacrificing possible plays to one side in favor of helping out the mismatch has been remarkable. My tip: find a strong safety! 

Individually, at this age, footwork and smooth movement with purpose are key to defensive proficiency. We struggle with CBs waiting for WRs to get to them before they react, and they get burned, putting the safety in a tough position. We work on backpeddling, how to turn to follow WRs, and how to position themselves to allow a catch but immediately pull flags. This keeps plays small, limits TDs, and forces the opposing offense to continue executing. 

We’ve reinforced to keep the WR in front of them and not go for the interception unless it’s an easy one. Knock it down if you are in front of the WR, otherwise, allow the catch and immediately pull their flags. Giving up a positive play is part of the game, but by immediately tackling them, we remove their speed and space, and force them to continue executing. This has been challenging, but we are making small improvements each week.

Our biggest challenge is chasing down defenders after a play is made or a flag pull is missed. It’s common for players to feel they are too far away to make a difference, but in flag football, you’re never out of a play. Players tend to turn backward or sideways to avoid pulls, giving defenders time to make up their lost ground. Moving with purpose until the whistle takes effort and we’re improving.

Finishing the season strong

I’ve really enjoyed my time so far, and it’s been rewarding watching the kids improve each week. Is there anything better than watching a group of young kids with no experience walk into a huddle and call out, “Stack Left Right … Stack Left Right?” The parents consistently tell me how much fun they’re having (winning helps, I’m sure), and that’s great to hear. Sports should be fun.  

I’m looking forward to seeing how the players commit to improving during the rest of the season. I hope I have provided enough tools and coaching to put them in a position to earn their league title. As the other teams improve each week, it’ll be tough, but I’ll take my group of kids any day.

Stack LEFT RIGHT. Now let’s finish this thing!

[UPDATE] How The Season Ended

Heading into the final week of the regular season undefeated, the team’s confidence was sky high. In fact, too high. Practice was a mess. The kids were mostly uninterested in review and skill development. They were focused on touchdown celebrations.

We took the opening drive for a TD, but something wasn’t right. Half of the team ran the wrong route. Then, our defense quickly gave up a tying score. Speed, space, purpose? More like, half-speed and little purpose. 

Our offense routinely lined up in incorrect formations on almost every play. We had players on the wrong side of the field, receivers bunched close to the center (bye bye space), and the wrong routes being run … all. Game. Long.

We scored a TD late, but it was mostly garbage time. We lost our first game 36-32. I was kind of glad we did. The kids were not. This was an opportunity to reinforce that we needed to pay attention to details. We needed to practice like we play (with purpose). The QB needed to take ownership of calling plays and lining up people correctly.  

Championship Game

We headed into the championship game feeling good. Our practice was solid! The kids were dialed in. They hated losing, and it became all too real that they may not win. They knew they were, in fact, not unstoppable. 

We won the toss and took the ball. We always take the ball because we want to exert pressure. Two quick plays, with routes run perfectly, creating space, and we were up 6-0. Our defense went lights out, batting passes and pulling flags as I’ve never seen them do. They played with purpose! 

We got a stop, took the ball, and, wouldn’t you know it, ran routes so clean it opened up some deeper sideline throws. It was quickly 13-0. We kept our foot on the gas. 13-6, then 20-6, 26-6, and 32-6. On the final play before half, the opposing team had the ball at the 2-yard line. One play to cut into the lead. An unsung hero, who played lights out defensively, recovered and broke up a pass.  Halftime.

We started the second half on defense, and the team, while still playing well, began to feel it a little too much. They started moving a bit slower (or, as I say, not with purpose). 32-12. But we responded on a sustained drive, pushing our lead to 38-12.  

We then got lax, and they took advantage. 38-18, then 38-25. The kids got it, felt a little pressure, and they continued to do what they did all season: dialed in.

FLAT-MOTION … TD! 44-25. Game, set, match.

I am incredibly proud of how the kids learned the purpose of running routes: how each one is important to the success of the play. For how they commanded the field on their own. How they didn’t run from adversity or sulk when they made a mistake. They were coached up, nodded, focused on the next play, and got better with each snap. How they took one of their greatest weaknesses, flag pulling, and were so good at it in the final game that it took the opponent’s best plays and shut them down. 

Until next season, T-BONE LEFT.

The Brief: 40K Store Closures, Livestream Commerce, and the AI ROI Problem

Today's Azimuth brief covers the looming wave of retail closures driven by tariffs and labor costs, livestream shopping platform Whatnot's integration with Shopify, the declining share of marketers who can prove AI ROI, and Walmart's aggressive AI push highlighted in its annual report.

Today's stories:

• Retailers could close more than 40,000 stores in the next 5 years

• Whatnot integrates with Shopify, opening the platform to millions of merchants

• Share of marketers proving AI ROI drops from 49% to 41%

• Walmart's 2026 annual report highlights AI as a pivotal moment

1. Retailers Could Close More Than 40,000 Stores in Next 5 Years

UBS analysts are forecasting that U.S. retailers could close more than 40,000 stores over the next five years. The culprit isn't e-commerce eating physical retail. It's tariffs and immigration policy creating cost pressures that make marginal locations unsustainable.

Tariffs raise the cost of goods. Tighter immigration enforcement shrinks the labor pool and drives up wages. Retailers operating on thin margins with aging footprints can't absorb both at once. The stores that survive will be the ones generating enough revenue to justify their real estate. High-traffic locations in strong markets stay open. Everything else is on the table.

Expect closures to concentrate in secondary markets and older formats that no longer pull their weight. This isn't a slow decline. It's a structural reset driven by operating costs rising faster than sales can keep up.

Read more

2. Whatnot Integrates with Shopify, Opening Platform to Millions of Merchants

Livestream shopping platform Whatnot now integrates directly with Shopify, which means millions of merchants can sync inventory and run live shows without leaving their existing setup. Whatnot started with collectibles like trading cards and Funko Pops but has been expanding into fashion, beauty, and home goods, and this integration is a bet that livestream commerce works beyond niche categories.

For Shopify merchants, the integration lowers the barrier to testing livestream selling. They can keep their existing backend, add Whatnot as a sales channel, and see if live shows drive incremental revenue. For Whatnot, more sellers mean more content, which keeps buyers engaged and coming back. The platform's entire model depends on having enough live shows running at any given time to keep people browsing.

Livestream shopping still hasn't cracked the U.S. market the way it has in China, but platforms like Whatnot and TikTok Shop are showing that there's an audience for it. Whether that audience is big enough to turn livestream commerce into a mainstream sales channel instead of a novelty is still an open question. Shopify integration is Whatnot's way of finding out.

Read more

3. Share of Marketers Proving AI ROI Drops from 49% to 41%

The share of marketers who say they can prove AI ROI dropped from 49% to 41% in a single year, and in retail, the fall was even steeper: from 54% to 38%. This is happening as AI adoption continues to climb, meaning more teams are using the technology, but fewer can show that it's actually working.

Early AI wins were straightforward to measure: faster content production, automated segmentation, and basic efficiency gains. Those were real, but didn't move the needle much. Now leadership wants to see pipeline contribution and revenue growth, and most marketing teams can't connect those dots because they layered AI on top of broken attribution models and manual reporting processes that were already failing.

While declaring AI a priority is easy, proving it moves the bottom line requires defining what success looks like and building the measurement infrastructure to track it. Then you have to report it in a language that the language finance actually understands. No AI tool does that for you, which is why the gap between adoption and accountability keeps widening. Marketers who can't close it are losing budget.

Read more

4. Walmart's 2026 Annual Report Highlights AI as a Pivotal Moment

Walmart's 2026 annual report frames AI as central to the company's strategy, with CEO John Furner saying the retailer is at a pivotal moment. The report highlights e-commerce growth, new Supercenter openings, and what Walmart is calling major AI initiatives across operations and customer experience, though it doesn't break out specific investments or revenue attribution.

The language matters here. Walmart isn't calling AI experimental or a pilot program anymore. Framing it as a foundational strategy means the company expects AI to change how it operates, not just optimize around the edges. When the largest retailer in the U.S. makes that kind of declaration, suppliers, competitors, and investors all pay attention because it usually means the rest of the industry follows.

The challenge for Walmart and everyone else is the same one marketing teams are facing: turning AI ambition into measurable business outcomes. Walmart has the scale and resources to fund the experiment longer than most, but the same accountability questions apply. If AI is truly pivotal, the company will eventually need to show how it moved sales, lowered costs, or improved margins in ways that matter.

Read more

That's it for today.

Follow me on LinkedIn and BlueSky