Nearly 98% of smartphone users (255.8 million people) will use apps this year. Although all major app categories will continue to gain users—and 11 will surpass 100 million users apiece—the average user will download and regularly open fewer apps as they settle on favorites in each category.
Macy’s pivots away from malls: The retailer plans to open as many as 30 new small-format locations in the next two years.
Marketers are the masters of the portmanteau—a combination of two existing words into a new concept. Words like “phygital,” “fediverse,” and “edutainment” are tossed around, but what do they actually mean? Here are a few of our favorites.
Amazon’s search capabilities are set for an AI-powered upgrade: The retailer will incorporate a chatbot to offer customers personalized suggestions based on their queries and shopping history.
TikTok Shop halts sales in Indonesia in response to government social commerce crackdown: The move could seriously hamper the company’s ecommerce ambitions as it tries to reach $20 billion in global sales this year.
LinkedIn debuts campaign-creation tool powered by generative AI: Platform is out to address unique challenges in reaching B2B decision-makers.
Krispy Kreme doubles down on doughnuts: The company aims to seize the moment by selling Insomnia Cookies at a time when consumer appetite for snacks shows no sign of abating.
Supermodel shows off Humane’s AI techie broach: A wearable, screenless AI assistant could merge high tech with high fashion. But will average consumers go for it?
Digital health investments near rock bottom: Investors shifted funding from on-demand and life science R&D sectors to patient- and provider-focused areas like disease treatment and non-clinical workflow.
Therapists are burned out, too: The surge in requests for mental health treatments has exacerbated burnout for mental and behavioral health workers. Health plans and paperwork are causing many to leave the field.
Working women pay billions more than men for healthcare: US employers may lose female talent if they don’t address gender gaps in out-of-pocket medical spending.
Can Activision repair mobile-game advertising’s reputation? The gaming giant is launching a measurement tool to increase advertiser faith.
The DOJ uses testimonies from Microsoft and DuckDuckGo to challenge Google’s search dominance. A loss could force Google to restructure high-value default search deals.
Visa will invest $100M in smaller AI players. The move aligns with rising investments to combat fraud and optimize payments and could help fund AI startups.
Millions of customer service jobs could be lost to AI: Companies globally are embracing AI chatbots for customer service. But there’s an opportunity to augment, not replace, human workers.
Medium blocks GPTBot from content scraping: Creator-driven platform aligns with CNN, New York Times in defending rights against unsanctioned AI use.
Most industries still use cookies in the majority of their programmatic ad buying process, according to data from 33Across. Insurance is the outlier, with half of its buys coming from cookies and half coming from cookie alternatives.
While these consumers are getting access to needed credit, providers must consider the risks of overextension
New regulations let other FIs become e-Transfer participants, which may shake up the digital payments landscape in Canada
The new digital remittance and business payment services can help unbanked consumers and businesses access digital payments, improving financial inclusion