Author: Geek Planet

As more vendors rebrand automation as agents, established giants and startups alike are challenged to show agentic AI delivers real business value — not just hype.Among the most ambitious is Salesforce, which aims to do for AI what it did for enterprise software.  Last week, Salesforce highlighted growth for its Data Cloud and Agentforce platforms, reporting $900 million in annual recurring revenue for fiscal 2025 and 3,000 net-new Agentforce deals in the fourth quarter. The company is pitching these tools as the foundation tapping into what it sees as a potential $6 trillion “digital labor market” — which comprises AI…

The digital advertising industry has spent the last five years preparing for a cookieless future. This week, they’re looking for ways to make that feel less like a wasted effort, following Google’s latest policy reversal.Facing legal challenges and industry pushback, Google has opted to retain the cookie in its popular Chrome browser after all, instead allowing users to manage settings through its existing privacy tools. Google’s own Privacy Sandbox initiative, which aimed to enhance privacy while supporting digital advertising, will stick around, at least for now. The decision has prompted a collective eye-roll from media experts. “It’s a little disappointing…

If you shoot video on your iPhone and care about color grading, you will be happy to know that the award-winning camera app Kino just received a meaningful upgrade. Lux Camera has released Kino 1.4, adding support for Apple Log 2, the improved video format that launched with the iPhone 17 Pro. It’s an update that quietly makes a difference for serious video creators. What’s new in Kino 1.4 The headlining addition is Apple Log 2 support. According to Kino’s developers, getting there wasn’t as simple as flipping a switch. The Lux team had to expand Kino’s internals to handle…

When major marketers like Unilever are saying they’re dramatically increasing their ad spending on influencer marketing, the agencies who manage influencer marketing are, naturally, chomping at the bit to get those ad dollars. But when everyone, even more traditional ad agencies, are after brand dollars — in a market where most ad budgets are tightening — what separates the best when it comes to influencer marketing agencies from the rest? How do marketers and creators sort through the ever-expanding list of influencer marketing agencies and figure out who to work with? “I look for a team that’s flexible, collaborative and…

The long saga of Google’s third-party cookie crumble has come to an end. The tech behemoth has stopped kicking the can down the road when it comes to removing third-party cookies from Chrome and, instead, reversed course.For media buyers, it’s been a wild time filled with false starts, urgency and many delays to an ever-extending deadline. For one media buyer at a media agency, this week’s announcement that Google had called the whole thing off was met with laughter. In the latest edition of our Confessions series, in which we trade anonymity for candor, we talked with this buyer to…

Previous reports had already indicated that Apple was discussing a Gemini partnership with Google to improve Siri’s AI capabilities. Now it’s official. Apple has confirmed that Google’s Gemini will power the next-generation version of Siri, marking one of the biggest changes to Apple’s voice assistant since its launch. Apple confirmed the partnership in a statement shared with CNBC, saying it chose Google after weighing multiple options. “After careful evaluation, we determined that Google’s technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models and we’re excited about the innovative new experiences it will unlock for our users,” the company said.…

For years, privacy was treated as advertising’s great reckoning. The introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation in 2018, Apple’s crackdown on mobile identifiers and the slow death march of third-party cookies in the largest browser — it all painted a picture of a future where platforms would be reined in, marketers would be forced to adapt and users would finally gain some measure of control over their data.That future never quite arrived. What followed instead was a slower, stranger drift: enforcement grew spotty. Regulatory efforts stalled and the largest platforms — Google, Meta, Amazon — emerged with even more…

After a mere three months of testing, Meta announced on Wednesday that ads on Threads are now available to all eligible advertisers globally. So what’s on offer and how does it work? Since Threads is a text-based app, the new image ad placement is in the Threads feed. And as predicted by most advertisers Digiday caught up with during the short testing window, Meta stated that advertisers can access it via the Advantage+ platform whereby advertisers leave it up to Meta’s algorithm to determine where their ads show up, or via manual placements, where marketers purposefully select which placements they…

It’s difficult to know how marketers should manage this current moment. It’s not just a matter of a potential economic downturn that could hurt consumer sentiment and ultimately consumer spending. It’s not just tariffs and the topsy-turvy nature of the Trump administration. It’s a lot for marketers to manage. Even though they expect chaos, they need guidance.To get a sense of how some marketers, agency execs and industry analysts are figuring out this moment, we asked them for their dos and don’ts. Here’s what they’re thinking from industry players who’ve managed the chaos before:  Kerri Kauffman, CMO of Willow Innovations…

Microsoft is quietly killing one of the best features in Edge, and if you’ve ever relied on it to stay organized online, this one hurts. Collections, the built-in tool that lets you save, group, and revisit webpages in a clean, visual way, is officially being retired. Edge has started showing a warning telling users to move or export their Collections before the feature is removed, which is usually the clearest sign that the end is near. Introduced with Chromium-based Edge in 2020, Collections allow you to save webpages, images, and notes into grouped cards that sync across devices. You can…