Hey friends,
Welcome back to cmd+growth.
This week felt like one of those “the platforms are quietly redrawing the map” weeks.
OpenAI is making ChatGPT ads easier to buy. Google is pushing Search and Shopping further into AI automation. Meta is on track to overtake Google in digital ad revenue. And Instagram is making it very clear that original content matters more than reposting whatever already worked somewhere else.
Subtle? Not really.
Let’s get into it.
Today’s topics
- ChatGPT ads move closer to self-serve performance marketing
- Google expands AI Max into Shopping
- Meta is projected to overtake Google in digital ad revenue
- Instagram keeps rewarding original content
- AI traffic is becoming harder for marketers to ignore
Top Story
ChatGPT is starting to look like an ad platform
OpenAI is expanding how businesses can buy and manage ads inside ChatGPT.
The company announced new ways for advertisers to buy ChatGPT ads, including CPC bidding, more measurement options and the continued development of a broader ChatGPT ad platform.
OpenAI’s announcement is still carefully worded, but the direction is pretty obvious.
ChatGPT is moving from “interesting place where people ask questions” toward “commercial surface where brands may soon compete for attention.”
That matters because ChatGPT does not behave like a feed.
People are not casually scrolling past videos. They are asking for help, comparing options, researching purchases, planning workflows and making decisions.
That makes advertising inside ChatGPT potentially much closer to search intent than social interruption.
But it also creates a trust problem.
If users feel that answers are being shaped too heavily by advertisers, the product gets worse fast. A bad ad in a feed is annoying. A bad ad inside an answer feels like bad advice.
That is the line OpenAI has to walk.
For marketers, this is one to watch early. Not because everyone should immediately throw budget at ChatGPT ads, but because the next major ad platform may not look like a classic ad platform at all.
Google expands AI Max into Shopping
Google is pushing AI Max further across its ad ecosystem.
On April 30, Google announced AI Max for Shopping campaigns, designed to help retailers reach shoppers earlier in the discovery process and better match products to complex, conversational searches.
Google says AI Max for Shopping uses Merchant Center feeds to understand product context, including details like material, durability and fit.
That may sound like a product feed update.
It is bigger than that.
Search behavior is becoming more conversational. Shoppers are not only typing “running shoes size 10” anymore. They are searching for things like “comfortable shoes for long walks in the rain” or “best breathable sneakers for travel.”
Google wants Shopping campaigns to answer those messy queries without advertisers manually building every possible keyword path.
Good news: better reach.
Less fun news: more automation, less direct control.
Same song, new verse.
Search Engine Land’s breakdown notes that Google is scaling AI Max across more campaign types while also adding more controls for targeting and messaging.
For PPC teams, the practical point is simple: clean feeds, strong product data and accurate conversion signals are becoming even more important.
The machine can only match intent if the inputs are not a complete mess.
Meta may overtake Google in digital ad revenue
Here is a sentence that would have sounded weird a few years ago:
Meta may become the world’s largest digital advertising company.
According to an Emarketer forecast, Meta is expected to overtake Google in total digital ad revenue by the end of 2026.
Emarketer projects Meta will reach $243.46 billion in net worldwide ad revenues, ahead of Google’s projected $239.54 billion.
The reason is not mysterious.
Meta has Reels. It has Advantage+ automation. It has Instagram. It has Facebook. It has WhatsApp and Threads turning into bigger ad surfaces. And it has one of the best direct-response advertising machines ever built.
Google still owns enormous search intent.
But Meta is capturing more of the attention layer and more of the creative testing layer.
That changes the media planning conversation.
If Google was the default performance engine for years, Meta is increasingly becoming the place where creative, targeting and automation meet at scale.
The takeaway is not “move everything to Meta.” Please do not do that and then blame the newsletter.
The takeaway is that the old Search-first budget logic is getting weaker.
Instagram keeps rewarding original content
Instagram’s algorithm conversation keeps moving in the same direction: original content, watch time, shares and meaningful engagement matter more than easy reposting.
That is not exactly shocking.
But it is worth repeating because a surprising number of accounts still behave like content recycling machines with Wi-Fi.
Instagram has been pushing creators toward original content and away from aggregator-style reposting. At the same time, the platform continues to reward signals like watch time, sends and deeper engagement.
Buffer’s Instagram algorithm guide breaks down how Feed, Stories, Explore and Reels use different ranking signals.
The practical takeaway for brands is simple:
If your Instagram strategy is mostly reposting trend formats with slightly different captions, that probably gets harder over time.
Original content does not mean every post needs to be a masterpiece.
It means the account needs a point of view, not just a content calendar.
There is a difference.
AI traffic is becoming harder to ignore
AI traffic is still small for many websites.
But the conversation is changing.
Marketers are starting to ask better questions than “how much traffic came from ChatGPT?”
The better questions are:
- Which pages are AI tools sending users to?
- Does AI-referred traffic convert differently?
- Which prompts or use cases create the visit?
- Does AI visibility increase branded search later?
That is where this gets interesting.
AI search may not replace Google traffic overnight. But it may influence discovery before a user ever clicks anything.
That makes AI visibility difficult to measure with old SEO dashboards.
For now, the practical move is boring but useful: clean up analytics, segment AI referrals where possible and watch assisted behavior, not just last-click traffic.
Yes, very glamorous. Marketing is mostly spreadsheets wearing a nice jacket.
Quick hits
- Google keeps moving Search into AI Mode. Google’s AI Mode continues to expand the idea of Search from typed queries toward more conversational and visual discovery. Google has also brought AI Mode-style help into Chrome.
- Google is upgrading Dynamic Search Ads to AI Max. Starting in September, legacy Dynamic Search Ads features will upgrade to AI Max. Google’s announcement makes the direction pretty clear: Search campaigns are becoming less keyword-led and more intent-led.
- Meta’s growth is still being powered by automation. Advantage+ and AI-driven creative tools remain central to Meta’s ad momentum, according to multiple market updates. Two Octobers has a useful monthly marketing roundup.
My take
The thing I keep coming back to this week is that AI is becoming less of a topic and more of a layer.
It sits inside search.
It sits inside ads.
It sits inside creative.
It sits inside analytics.
And increasingly, it sits between users and decisions.
That is the part marketers should pay attention to.
Not every AI feature will matter. Some will be forgotten by next month and quietly removed by a product manager who just wanted their quarter back.
But the direction is clear enough.
The platforms are redesigning around automation, intent and fewer manual steps.
That means the boring fundamentals matter more, not less: clean data, clear positioning, useful content, strong creative and a brand people actually trust.
The tools are getting smarter.
Sadly, they still cannot fix a weak offer.
See you next week.
Diana Yefremova is an independent SEO consultant and the creator of Cmd+Growth. She writes about SEO, AI search, PPC and digital marketing, with a focus on the updates and changes marketers actually need to know.
Each week, she curates the most useful stories, platform updates and industry conversations so readers can keep up without spending hours digging through everything themselves.
