Tag: financial services
-
Time Is Selling Ads That Only AI Crawlers Can Read
Time is running a second version of its site that only AI crawlers see — and selling ads inside it. Ally Bank’s sponsored copy went to ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot; Google’s search crawler got the page humans get. Nobody has decided yet whether that kind of ad needs a label.
-
xpln.ai Puts a Number on How Much Attention an Ad Actually Needs
Attention intelligence platform xpln.ai launched Ideal Attention Time, a metric that tells advertisers the minimum attention their creative needs to achieve basic business outcomes like product understanding and brand recognition. The startup, founded in 2022 with an attention measurement product and an attention targeting product, is working from a simple premise, per CEO and co-founder…
-
State Farm Uses AI to turn a Static Brand Placement into a Social Media Character
State Farm is using the NBA Finals to test faster social content with a new spokescharacter: Stan the State Farm Stanchion Pad. Yes, the padding behind the hoop. During Game 4 of Knicks vs. Spurs, Stan is set to post real-time commentary on X, attempting to turn a piece of long-standing courtside branding into an…
-
JPMorgan Wants AI Agents That Don’t Need a Bathroom Break
JPMorgan Chase says it plans to deploy “long-running autonomous” AI agents later this year — systems meant to move beyond one-off prompts and instead manage multi-step workflows across different software tools. Derek Waldron, the bank’s chief analytics officer, says these agents can run for “an hour or two,” compared with the “two or three minutes”…
-
Marketers Keep Buying AI. The Skills Part Is Still Loading.
Digiday+ Research’s latest report, based on a survey of 142 brand and agency professionals plus interviews, shows AI investment moving from “nice-to-have” to “budget line item someone now has to explain.” Marketers reporting company investment in AI rose from 44% in 2022 to 57% in 2023, 71% in 2024, and 86% in 2025. The org…
-
Mastercard’s “Test Early, Scale Later” Playbook (No Shiny Objects Required)
Mastercard’s Cheryl Guerin (EVP, global brand strategy and innovation) lays out a simple operating system for emerging tech: get in early, learn fast, and only scale what earns its keep. As she puts it, “We test and learn within almost everything… We want to get in early, understand it, and then decide if it’s something…
-
Why Marketers Hesitate to Fully Embrace Agentic AI
Agentic AI has spent 2025 positioning itself as an all-in-one marketing team—thinking, writing, and executing campaigns with minimal human input. But despite the headlines, marketers aren’t exactly handing over the keys. The concept of agentic AI—AI systems with context, access to tools and decision making authority working cooperatively with little oversight—has intrigued brands, yet hesitation…
-
Flo Who? Progressive Lets AI Animals Take the Wheel
Progressive has momentarily nudged its iconic mascot Flo to the backseat—literally—in a new national TV spot that leans fully into AI-generated imagery. The 30-second ad, titled “Drive Like an Animal,” swaps Flo’s on-screen antics for a parade of digitally conjured creatures, each embodying a particular driving stereotype. A lion and hyenas rage behind the wheel, a sloth…
-
How Visa Wove AI into Its Core Operations
Visa didn’t just dabble in AI—they rebuilt their house around it. With over 2,500 engineers focused solely on AI and more than 100 internal AI apps in production, the company’s approach spans everything from software development to customer dispute resolution. AI is part of the operating system at Visa—literally. Even before large language models became…
-
How Klarna Boosted Revenue with AI-Powered Marketing
Klarna has embedded AI across nearly every marketing function, cutting spend by 12% while producing six times more content without adding staff. Partnering with Google’s Gemini and Veo 3, the company is also hiring prompt engineers and building an AI-powered shopping assistant that can purchase on behalf of customers. With 30 AI-driven campaigns already live,…
-
Driving School, But Make It Fortnite
The General is steering into the world of Fortnite with “Road Test Royale,” a custom gameplay map designed to teach Gen Z players about safe driving—without putting them to sleep. Built with Energy BBDO, Look North World, and Twitch, the map takes players through obstacle-filled versions of Miami, NYC, and San Francisco, where safe driving…
-
Paging Your New Financial BFF: Sam Richardson Takes Over Roku for Experian
Experian and Roku are cozying up just in time for summer viewing—transforming comedian Sam Richardson into your on-screen “Big Financial Friend.” Launched during National Best Friends Day, the campaign leverages Roku’s 90 million active accounts with custom ad creatives, a marquee homepage slot, and full Roku City integrations. Don’t be alarmed when you spot an…
-
AI Got a Promotion: How U.S. Bank Let Tech Shape Its Latest Campaign
U.S. Bank didn’t just dabble in AI for its latest “Power of Us” campaign—it used it like a full creative partner. Working with Supernatural AI’s offshoot agency, Supergood, the bank employed a custom AI platform called Supercharger for everything but the lights-camera-action. It kicked off with a competitive analysis, feeding competitor ads into LLMs tuned…
-
Perks, Promos, and Pro Users: Perplexity’s Take on Search Monetization
Perplexity’s paid users are getting more than just AI-powered answers—they’re now seeing brand promos slipped alongside search results, thanks to a new strategy called Pro Perks. With 650 million monthly search queries flowing through its platform, the company is using its growing traffic to surface discount deals from launch brands like Visa, TurboTax, and Farmers…
-
UBS Gives Its Analysts an AI Clone—Accent (Almost) Included
UBS is stepping into the generative AI spotlight with a new internal tool that turns its financial analysts into digital avatars capable of delivering research insights on-demand. Using a combo of OpenAI’s language models and Synthesia’s avatar tech, the Zurich-based bank now scripts reports and lets analysts approve AI-generated videos that feature surprisingly lifelike versions…
-
Klarna’s CEO Didn’t Show Up—But His AI Twin Did
Klarna just added a new face to its earnings calls—one that doesn’t sweat, blink much, or change his shirt too often. The company released its quarterly earnings via an AI-generated avatar of CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski, in a YouTube video that was equal parts tech flex and IPO teaser. The digital Siemiatkowski looked almost human, aside…
-
More marketers put content – and quality control – in the hands of AI
As AI takes the marketing wheel, big brands like Prudential and Opella are handing over more responsibilities to generative systems, from content creation to compliance checks. Prudential, for example, has “hired” a digital AI co-worker—trained to use behavioral and location data to generate hyper-personalized web pages for millions of users. They’re also deploying AI photo…
-
Amazon Deepens AI Integration in Finance Operations
Amazon is advancing its use of generative AI across its finance operations to enhance efficiency and accuracy in tasks like fraud detection, financial forecasting, and tax-related work. This strategic move aims to harness AI’s potential to streamline complex financial tasks and reduce operational costs. The initiative is part of Amazon’s broader effort to implement AI-driven…
-
Top 5 Metaverse Moments May ’24
AdAge’s latest roundup of metaverse news and examples features TurboTax in Fortnite, platform news from Snap, Meta and Roblox plus more. This month, tax filing comes to the metaverse, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg gets a metaverse “glow up” and Roblox revs up its ad program. No. 5: Snapchat makes augmented reality more accessible to brands Snap has…
-
Four brands and four different strategies for gaming activations
AdAge recently published a great round up of how four different brands chased audience engagement and brand building through various strategies and platforms across multiple different gaming environments. Target audiences varied widely and often dictated the chosen platform. The piece also highlights the “build new vs. integrate with existing” choice that brands must often make…
-
NHL’s LA Kings engage fans with AR activations
Mobile-activated augmented reality experiences excel at engaging fans in new ways, and the NHL’s LA Kings are the latest example of a sports team leaning into the technology to bring a new dimension to home games… The Los Angeles Kings will engage hockey fans in a new way during home games, partnering with Mercury Insurance…
-
AdAge Ranks 2023’s best Web3 moments
The trade publication weighs in on 2023’s top Web3 moments – including some campaigns, some platform news and some employment shifts… We’ll come right out and say it: Web3 did not have the year it had in 2022. The fledgling space entered 2023 like a battered race car heaving into a pit stop, hardly two…
-
Inside Intuit’s GenAI-powered first party data strategy
The financial software company has been engaging younger audiences with GenAI-powered “aura” readings. Users submit a selfie, answer a few questions on their attitudes toward money (i.e. “What is your spending style?”) and out pops a Pixar-like rendition of the user emanating the colors of their “financial aura”—a play on the spiritual belief that a…
-
Mastercard CMO touts Web3 success
Web3 technologies – perhaps most especially NFTs – have gone through the hype cycle wringer over the last 12-18 months. Every new tech presents unique challenges and opportunities – the more disruptive the tech, the wider those peaks and valleys appear. Given that backdrop, it is always interesting to study how major brands leverage emerging…
-
Subway, Other Brands Testing Feature-Rich RCS Texting
RIch Communication Services, or RCS, promises to replace SMS texting with richer and more engaging experiences. Google seems committed to Android support and operators around the world are investing and running pilot programs. Apple is, for now, sitting on the sidelines and positioning iMessage as an alternative. Still, brands continue to experiment, including Subway, Citi…
-
Visa’s sonic branding boosts positive perception by 14%
The rise of podcasting, ad supported streaming audio platforms and smart speakers has brought attention back to the idea of sonic branding. Visa has taken that to the next level with a multi-sensory branding kit first announced a couple of years ago. The complete experience includes sound, animation, and – presumably only on mobile devices…