The Government Communications Service (GCS) has become an official Gold Standard Advertiser Supporter, demonstrating the UK Government’s commitment to promoting a responsible, transparent and safe digital advertising ecosystem. By backing the IAB UK Gold Standard, the industry’s benchmark for best practice in digital advertising, GCS reinforces the government’s confidence in the industry-led framework that tackles key challenges including ad fraud, brand safety, and supply chain transparency. The move reflects a wider commitment to high standards in online advertising, complementing the work of the Government’s Online Advertising Taskforce, which brings together regulators, industry and civil society to enhance accountability and trust across the digital advertising supply chain.
Global digital experience optimization platform AB Tasty has announced the acquisition of Wandz.ai, a real-time adaptive customer experience platform. This acquisition will enable brands to deliver personalized experiences for the 90% of visitors who are anonymous, non-logged-in, or navigating fragmented, unpredictable journeys. Wandz.ai was built around the idea of adaptive digital journeys, calculating data in real-time throughout a visitor’s journey to identify their preferences and events and anticipate intent and next actions on the spot before they happen. The platform captures intent signals like clicks, scrolls and session patterns in real-time, and adjusts experiences on the fly based on predicted intent, affinity, and next actions. Wandz.ai processes 3.7 trillion data points monthly, serves 1.5 billion users globally, and generates predictions in 20 milliseconds. The platform’s three core capabilities, Core (real-time understanding), Activate (adaptive interactions), and Analyze (generative insights and flow analytics), enable brands to respond to every visitor and signal.
Advertising platform PropellerAds has unveiled significant advances in its precision audience targeting. With a goal to empower advertisers, agencies and brands, PropellerAds is leveraging its advanced targeting technology, AI-driven tools and multisource traffic access to help advertisers achieve precise reach for 1,5B users across 195 markets monthly. Their innovative approach features AI-powered optimisation and its CPA Goal tool which automatically enhances campaigns to reach target conversion prices, while advanced anti-fraud software ensures traffic purity. Additionally, the platform’s Push ad format includes sophisticated demographic and interest targeting options, allowing advertisers to refine their audience selection based on user characteristics and behaviors.
VIOOH, the global digital out of home (DOOH) supply-side platform, has announced its 2024 full year emissions intensity (an objective measure of carbon efficiency), which was 0.041 grams CO2e per ad impression. In June 2025, Ad Net Zero launched version 1.2 of the Global Media Sustainability Framework (GMSF), the global advertising industry standard for emissions measurement across the main media channels including OOH, in order to provide robust and comparable calculations, enabling advertisers to make informed choices about their channel selection and its impact on carbon emissions. Working with its sustainability partner Cedara, the AI Engine for Sustainable Media and a supporter of Ad Net Zero, the 2024 calculations aligned with the new GMSF framework. The full year average emissions intensity compares favourably vs industry benchmarks of 0.84g CO2e per impression for programmatic display, and 1.24g CO2e per impression for programmatic video. This means that pDOOH advertising with VIOOH is on average more than 20x carbon emission efficient compared with programmatic display, and over 30x more efficient than programmatic video.
Connected commerce and retail media tech company GoWit has announced a strategic investment round led by Nuwa Capital, with participation from existing investors Formus Capital, APY Ventures, and DCP. The investment marks a milestone in GoWit’s mission to expand AI-powered commerce and retail media network and strengthen its leadership across EMEA. The new capital will fuel GoWit’s expansion and the development of next-generation AI tools to enhance ad performance, data intelligence, and monetization for retailers, brands, and agencies. GoWit’s technology is trusted by leading retailers and marketplaces, including Carrefour (Turkey), Union Coop (UAE), Raneen (Egypt), Toters Delivery (Lebanon), Mumzworld (UAE), and Heureka Group (Czech Republic).
John Lewis has unveiled its latest retail media offer at the relaunch of its Bluewater branch in Kent. The store features eight eye-catching digital screens, including a seven meter by four-meter show-stopper in its atrium. Custom made and installed by the retail media specialists Barrows Connected Store, the screens are the first of their kind to be introduced at John Lewis. The high-definition displays allow for curated content, which can help boost brand prominence and ultimately drive sales. There’s also a digital pop-up space, which can be supported by physical in-store displays, to help brands standout and sign-post customers to their full range in-store. Brands that have already signed up to advertise on the screens include Neff appliances, Lego, Sony, Samsung and Waterstones.
Magnite (NASDAQ:MGNI), an independent sell-side advertising company, has introduced Live Scheduler, an industry-first offering. Live Scheduler helps media owners easily plan, activate, and measure ads around live events, from major sports matches to political debates, through a standardised framework that turns real-time moments into scalable opportunities. Media owners can use Live Scheduler within Magnite’s SpringServe platform to create upcoming live event ad opportunities and share key details like event name, timing, sport, league, broadcaster, and concurrency estimates. This structure reduces fragmentation in live streaming and helps media owners maximise outcomes across live environments. Buyers and DSPs, including Amazon DSP, gain clearer visibility into upcoming live inventory, allowing them to plan and pace campaigns more precisely to reach engaged audiences when attention is highest.
UK shoppers are taking a hard line on price fairness, with new research from Pricer, a leading global retail technology company, showing that price consistency across channels is now a key driver of customer loyalty. The study finds a growing trust gap between what shoppers expect and what retailers deliver. Nearly eight in ten consumers (79%) say price consistency directly drives their loyalty, while 78% expect in-store and online prices to be identical. The same proportion (78%) say promotions should apply across all channels and two-thirds (66%) are frustrated by offers that are only available in one place. For today’s consumer, fairness is non-negotiable. Any perceived inconsistency—between shelf and website, or in promotions—undermines trust and directly threatens retailer credibility. The findings also reveal how cost vigilance is shaping new shopping behaviours. 78% of shoppers say they are now more price conscious, 74% actively seek discounts and promotions, and the same number (74%) compare prices at the shelf. Almost two-thirds (63%) say they split their shop across multiple stores to get the best prices.
GWI, the insights company, has today announced a new integration with OpenAI’s AI assistant, ChatGPT. The news comes just weeks after GWI’s inaugural integration with Anthropic’s Claude, and at a time when demand for reliable data to feed AI is continuing to grow. By connecting its Model Context Protocol (MCP) with OpenAI, GWI users can now access reliable, representative, bias-checked audience data and insights —all grounded in human truth—without leaving their conversation with ChatGPT. Instead of relying on scraped data or outdated information, ChatGPT can now instantly generate outputs backed by real human understanding, with every answer a true representation of how people think, feel, and behave.
Enterprise CMS Storyblok has partnered with OtterlyAI, the industry leading AI search monitoring solution for marketing teams and brands. The partnership is a key part of Storyblok’s mission to help brands adapt and thrive in the new era of AI-powered consumer decision making. With this partnership, brands can now monitor how their content performs in multiple AI search engines against their competitors, and discover how they can optimize it to improve their AI search visibility. OtterlyAI currently supports ChatGPT, AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Google Gemini, Copilot, and Perplexity.
Visualsoft is partnering with Shopify to help UK retailers bridge the gap between online and in-store shopping, as new research from its One Shopper, One Journey report reveals the growing urgency for truly connected retail experiences. Almost nine in ten shoppers (88%) already buy both online and in-store from the same retailers, showing that omnichannel behaviour is now the norm. Perhaps most surprisingly, a third (33%) of shoppers would willingly pay more for a consistently seamless retail experience, and that willingness doubles among younger adults, rising to 61% 18-34 year olds.
Albatross, a Zurich-based AI company founded by former Amazon AI leaders, has raised $12.5 million in new funding to rewrite that logic with the world’s first platform for real-time product and content discovery – one that learns, reasons, and adapts as users interact. The round was led by MMC Ventures with participation from Redalpine, Daphni, and strategic angels, bringing Albatross’s total funding to $16 million, following a $3.5 million foundation round in September 2024 led by Redalpine. The company’s platform is already serving billions of live events and tens of millions of predictions each month across marketplaces, retail, and travel platforms worldwide, processing approximately a hundred million products and tens of millions of end users. While much of the industry focuses on large language models that generate content, Albatross is building the second pillar of AI: understanding how users perceive and interact with content in real time. It is built on transformer-based architecture with sequential embedding models trained directly on live events.
FIFA has announced that Deliveroo, as part of DoorDash’s global portfolio (NASDAQ: DASH), is a proud Tournament Supporter for both the FIFA World Cup 2026™ and FIFA Women’s World Cup 2027™ in the UK, France and Italy. DoorDash’s partnership spans nine countries – the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Denmark and Finland. As the On-Demand Pick-Up and Delivery Supporter, Deliveroo, along with DoorDash, will help connect fans with the energy and excitement of the tournaments through a series of localised campaigns, digital activations, and community-driven experiences designed to celebrate the global spirit of football. The FIFA World Cup 2026™ will be the biggest standalone event in history, hosted for the first time across three nations — Canada, Mexico, and the United States.
StackAdapt, the leading technology company in advertising and marketing, today announced expanded Account-Based Marketing (ABM) capabilities through new integrations with Bombora, Lead Forensics, and Leadspace. These partnerships represent a major step in unifying premium intent, firmographic, and technographic data within a single platform. Unlike legacy models that rely on intermediaries, StackAdapt’s direct integrations provide frictionless access to premium B2B data within a single, self-serve platform. Together, these integrations improve targeting accuracy, simplify execution, and expand the global reach of ABM campaigns, giving in-house teams and agencies the flexibility to move faster and deliver measurable results. StackAdapt’s ABM ecosystem was built for activation—not just analysis—enabling marketers to move from insight to impact in a single workflow.
MediaPET.ai has announced the launch of “Agentic” mode for its all-in-one AI video platform which uses an AI agent to walk through all of the steps necessary for creating a cinematic ad. MediaPET is pioneering the first platform to produce full ads entirely in an agentic mode. Available to premium members for $199.99 per month, enough for producing up to 12 thirty second ads, the new agentic mode allows creators to simply describe the ad they want and select a narrator’s voice. The AI then autonomously generates all key components, including visuals, narration and custom musical score, producing a complete, ready-to-edit ad in minutes.
Mitel, a global leader in business communications, has introduced Mitel CX 2.0, the next evolution of its customer experience (CX) platform, combining AI-driven intelligence and enterprise-grade administration in a single, unified solution. Built to operate in hybrid communication environments, Mitel CX 2.0 provides a modern user experience with the flexibility to deploy in private cloud, hybrid, or on-premises environments. The platform enables organizations to leverage GenAI virtual agents to complement the work of contact center professionals, boosting productivity, efficiency, and their customers’ experience. Building on Mitel’s multi-cloud hybrid communications portfolio, Mitel CX 2.0 delivers modern, AI-embedded workflows that unite agents, supervisors, and back-office teams on a single interface. Together, these capabilities simplify work, speed resolution, and drive more meaningful engagement across every customer touchpoint.
As UK retailers prepare for the biggest online shopping weekend of the year, new research from LaunchDarkly, a feature management platform, warns that mounting deadline pressure is causing software teams to take dangerous shortcuts, putting millions in online sales and customer loyalty at risk. The findings reveal that 40% of software teams admit to deploying risky or untested code changes under pressure, while more than 80% experience production incidents weekly or more often. For retailers, these behaviours can translate directly into downtime, lost sales, and reputational damage during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
As part of its partnership with Shaquille O’Neal and the launch of the Soundwave recliner, DFS extended its comfort expertise into gaming culture with a live Twitch activation featuring Andy Castell (AJ3), proving that comfort and performance go hand in hand. To bring the UK Gaming Index to life, DFS launched the Gaming Thrones tournament, inviting gamers to submit applications for the chance to compete live against streamer AJ3 in the newly released EA Sports FC 26. During the stream, AJ3 showcased the Soundwave recliner, demonstrating expert-backed techniques from DFS’ partnered physiotherapist and psychologist. The session illustrated how proper seating, posture, and movement can enhance focus, reduce strain, and boost performance in real time, complete with the recommended breaks to stay sharp and comfortable throughout play.
Over two in five consumers (42%) say they are likely to trust AI-generated summaries without visiting a website, according to new research from Optimizely, the leading digital experience platform. The findings, based on a global survey of more than 1,300 consumers, a companion survey of 1,000 marketing leaders, and Optimizely product data from previous Black Friday and Cyber Monday periods, illustrate a profound shift in how people navigate the web — and what it means for marketers competing in an increasingly “click-less” discovery landscape. The consumer and marketing leader survey findings were recently published in Optimizely’s report AI & The Click-less Customer, which explores how AI is transforming the way people discover, evaluate, and engage with brands online. The research shows that more than half (52%) of consumers frequently use AI to research products, signalling AI platforms are the new front door to digital experiences.
Wallet-first infrastructure provider Mangopay predicts that experiences will be one of the standout growth areas of Black Friday 2025, as new analysis of more than 113 million transactions from last year’s sales period shows UK shoppers increasingly funnelling their spend into travel, days out and live entertainment. Mangopay saw a 26% increase in total Black Friday transactions year-on-year in 2024, reflecting wider growth in UK shopper activity during the period. While fashion remained steady, travel bookings jumped 23% and ticketing rose 6% during the Black Friday window compared to the week before – early indicators, Mangopay says, of a decisive pivot towards experience-led spending that is set to intensify this November.
According to the Contentsquare Foundation’s new Accessibility in Ecommerce: 2025 Snapshot, the UK remains one of the least accessible ecommerce markets in Europe. UK ecommerce sites score just 4.6/10 on accessibility – behind Germany (4.7) and ahead of Italy (3/10) Product pages are the UK’s biggest barrier, scoring 3.6/10 (PLP) and 3.4/10 (PDP), making it difficult for many visually impaired or screen reader users to even reach checkout. 59% of UK pages fail basic contrast requirements, making content unreadable for users with low vision or dyslexia. Online forms pages fail 68% of the time due to missing labels, no autocomplete or absent error messages – blocking everything from account creation to payment. Please find the full report here.
Sky Media has announced charity GoodGym as the overall winner of the Sky Zero Footprint Fund, receiving an additional £500,000 in media value to further amplify their sustainability mission. Chosen from six inspiring finalists – Fussy, GoodGym, GUPPYFRIEND, PÄRLA, Tony’s Chocolonely, and WRAP – the Grand Prix winner was announced at a special showcase event held at Soho Hotel on Thursday afternoon. Each brand had the opportunity to share their final TV creative along with a pitch to why they felt they should secure the additional funds. All finalists were already winners, having secured a share of £1.5m in media value across the Sky Media portfolio. The judging panel, comprising experts from across advertising, sustainability and creative industries, awarded GoodGym for its inspiring campaign to encourage positive community action, physical exercise and promoting mental well-being.
