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Marketing

Aug 18, 2026

Astute Raises $1.2M to Automate B2B Creator Partnerships

Astute, a platform that automates creator partnerships for B2B companies, has closed an oversubscribed $1.2M pre-seed round backed by Flyer One Ventures, Silicon Gardens, Marathon Fund, and ERA. The company uses two AI agents to match businesses with newsletter, podcast, and social media creators — and monitors over one million creator posts per minute to surface partnership opportunities.

B2B

AI Agents

Marketing

Aug 10, 2026

Why Website Growth Teams Are Now Reporting to the CFO

The "growth at all costs" era is over. Economic uncertainty and AI disruption are pulling CFOs into marketing conversations earlier than ever before — and website growth teams are feeling it most acutely. Here's what's driving the shift and what it means for how growth is planned, measured, and justified.

Marketing

Web

Aug 5, 2026

Reddit Is Losing the War Against AI-Generated SEO Spam

Brands and agencies are deploying AI to seed Reddit threads with fake product recommendations, exploiting the platform's growing influence on search results. As Reddit's authenticity becomes a target, the spam problem is getting harder to detect — and harder to stop.

SEO

Marketing

Aug 5, 2026

OpenAI's Influencer Brand Trip Sparked More Backlash

OpenAI flew a group of social media influencers on an all-expenses-paid brand trip — a tactic borrowed straight from the fast fashion playbook. The move drew swift criticism online, raising questions about whether AI companies should be leaning on lifestyle marketing to shape public perception.

Marketing

OpenAI

Jul 28, 2026

AI Overviews Now Appear in 43% of Google Searches

New data shows Google's AI Overviews are surfacing in nearly half of all searches, signaling a fundamental shift in how people find information online. For marketers and founders, the implications for organic visibility are hard to overstate.

Google

Jul 24, 2026

Meta's AI Ad Reveals a Marketing Strategy in Crisis

Meta's new AI ad uses David Bowie's 'Five Years' — a song literally about Earth's final days — to argue that AI will bring people closer together. The choice is either tone-deaf or weirdly inspired, and it says a lot about where Big Tech's PR strategy currently stands.

Marketing

Passionfroot Raises $15M Series A for US Expansion

Berlin-based Passionfroot has closed a $15M Series A led by Insight Partners to expand its B2B creator marketplace into the US market. The platform connects brand sponsors with business-focused creators across newsletters, podcasts, and LinkedIn. The raise signals growing investor appetite for creator economy infrastructure targeting professional audiences.

Startups

Creator Economy

Venture Capital

Jul 15, 2026

Anthropic's Latest Ad Is Deliberately Unsettling

Anthropic's newest advertisement is generating strong emotional reactions online, dividing viewers between admiration and discomfort. The campaign appears engineered to provoke exactly this kind of response. Here's what's driving the conversation.

Marketing

Startups

Jul 2, 2026

AI Won't Save Advertising, Says Digitas' Amy Lanzi

Digitas North America CEO Amy Lanzi sat down with Nilay Patel at Cannes Lions to cut through the AI hype flooding the ad industry. She compares today's AI promises to the programmatic advertising bubble — and warns the real danger isn't automation, it's bad commercial deals dressed up as innovation.

Advertising

Cannes Lions