Each day, New Digital Age gathers the most interesting digital marketing industry news from around the web…
BIG TECH
Performance Marketing World – Bethany Lee, 2nd September 2026
Amazon slams FTC’s ad auction lawsuit as ‘misguided’
The tech giant has strongly rejected claims of $20bn ad surcharge scheme as regulators allege inflated prices misled advertisers.
CREATOR
Digiday – Alyssa Mercante, 2nd September 2026
Why brands are turning to older creators for authenticity AI can’t fake
A generation of content creators is growing up, and so are the brand deals they’re being offered.
AI
Performance Marketing World – Bethany Lee, 1st September 2026
ChatGPT to surpass $1bn in ad revenue
OpenAI solidifies free-tier growth as a revenue engine as its self-service ad platform goes global.
TechCrunch – Tim Fernholz, 1st September 2026
OpenAI’s Astra model is on the way — and very good at breaking into computer systems
OpenAI shared new details on its forthcoming Astra model, which the company said is the first large language model to meet its “critical cybersecurity threshold,” in preparation for its imminent release.
FAST Company – Louise Imber, 1st September 2026
AI is making us sound the same—and killing our personal expression
Researchers found that LLMs push writing toward common stylistic norms, reducing linguistic diversity and blurring signals of personality.
DIGEST
ExchangeWire – Sheila Obeng-King, 2nd September 2026
In today’s Digest, we discuss Bailey flagging the risk of an AI slowdown for global markets, OpenAI denying Apple’s trade secret theft claims and calling the lawsuit “a mess of Apple’s own making,” and Anthropic signing a USD$35bn (£26.3bn) cloud deal with Nvidia-backed Lambda for a Texas data center.
PUBLISHERS
Reuters – Foo Yun Chee, 1st September 2026
EU antitrust regulators quiz publishers on Google’s AI search opt-out
EU antitrust regulators are seeking feedback from publishers on Google’s (GOOGL.O), opens new tab proposal to let them opt out of AI search without affecting their rankings in search results, a questionnaire seen by Reuters showed.
InPublishing – 1st September 2026
AdvantageCS and Mather expand partnership
The integration enables publishers to apply individualized renewal pricing recommendations within their existing subscription workflows.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Performance Marketing World – Joseph Arthur, 1st September 2026
‘Brands are stuck in a moral dilemma’: Is Meta’s $18bn settlement a sign to cut adspend on social?
Social media is coming under increasing scrutiny from both regulators and governments, forcing many
