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The AI marketing landscape just shifted in a major way, and I couldn't wait to share what's happening. We're witnessing the moment conversational commerce moved from "interesting concept" to "you can literally buy groceries inside ChatGPT right now." This is the kind of development that changes everything—and there's so much more to unpack.

In today's newsletter, you'll discover how the biggest platforms are racing to own your customers' conversations, why your attribution models might be lying to you, and what Google's latest algorithm update means for your visibility strategy heading into 2026.

📍 Quick Preview:

• Instacart becomes the first app to enable complete checkout inside ChatGPT

• Disney bets $1 billion on OpenAI and licenses 200+ characters to Sora

• Google's December core update is reshaping how AI surfaces content

• Adobe brings Photoshop, Express, and Acrobat directly into ChatGPT

• Plus: AI tools that are actually worth your attention right now

📈 Today's Top AI Marketing Story

Instacart + ChatGPT: You Can Now Buy Groceries Without Leaving the Chat

This is the one that made me stop scrolling. On December 11th, Instacart launched the first grocery partner integration with complete checkout directly inside ChatGPT. No redirects. No new tabs. Just ask, shop, and buy—all within the conversation.

Here's how it works: You ask ChatGPT something like "Instacart, can you help me shop for apple pie ingredients?" The app pulls real-time inventory and pricing from nearby stores, incorporates your existing Instacart preferences (past orders, favorite brands), and lets you complete the entire purchase using Stripe, Apple Pay, or Google Pay. Orders get fulfilled through Instacart's network of nearly 100,000 stores across North America.

Why This Matters: We've been talking about conversational commerce for years. Now it's actually here. Adobe's data shows traffic from AI-driven sources to ecommerce sites surged 758% year-over-year between November 1 and December 1. Shopping queries in ChatGPT doubled in the first half of 2025. This isn't a trend—it's a fundamental shift in how people discover and buy products.

⚡ QUICK WIN

Start thinking about how your products or services get discovered in conversational contexts. The question isn't "how do I rank on Google?" anymore—it's "how do I get selected by AI when someone asks for recommendations?"

🚀 AI Marketing Quick Hits

Adobe Brings Creative Tools Into ChatGPT

Photoshop, Adobe Express, and Acrobat are now integrated directly into ChatGPT, reaching its 800+ million weekly active users. You can edit images, remove backgrounds, adjust lighting, animate designs, and merge PDFs—all through natural language.

Why This Matters: Context-switching between tools kills productivity. Adobe isn't replacing their apps—they're creating frictionless entry points through the world's most-used AI assistant. This reflects a broader industry shift toward embedding tools into conversational AI rather than forcing users to bounce between applications.

Google's December Core Update Is Rolling Out

Google launched its third core algorithm update of 2025 on December 11th, rolling out over three weeks through January 1, 2026. The algorithm increasingly favors AI Overviews and AI Mode in Search, with AI reducing traditional web clicks by an estimated 34.5%.

Why This Matters: The game is no longer about ranking—it's about being selected by AI. Multi-platform presence is becoming critical. Your content needs to be structured, trustworthy, and comprehensive enough that AI systems confidently surface it as authoritative. Traditional SEO is evolving into something closer to "AI Optimization."

✅ ACTION ITEM

Document any site changes you make during this rollout period. Core updates create noise in your dashboards, and you'll want to distinguish between algorithm effects and your own optimizations when analyzing performance in January.

Pinterest Acquires tvScientific for CTV Expansion

Pinterest announced the acquisition of tvScientific, bringing connected TV performance advertising to their 600 million monthly active users. The deal closes in H1 2026.

Why This Matters: Advertisers will soon be able to buy TV ads with the same performance metrics they expect from social and search. Pinterest is positioning itself as a unified "search, social, and CTV performance solution." This could democratize CTV advertising for brands of any size.

🔍 Featured AI Tool Spotlight

Surfn: Turn Every Link Into a Conversion Machine

Here's something that caught my attention this week: Surfn is a no-code AI agent builder that lets you create beautiful, branded AI pages designed specifically to boost conversions. The premise is simple but powerful—instead of sending people to static landing pages where they bounce if they don't find immediate answers, you send them to an AI-powered page that engages them in conversation.

What Makes It Different:

Surfn addresses a problem most of us know too well: you work hard to drive traffic, but visitors leave because they're "not sure yet." They have questions, and if they don't get answers fast enough, they bounce. Surfn creates conversational AI links that can generate up to 30% more leads, bookings, and sales by engaging visitors the moment they arrive.

The setup is genuinely no-code and takes minutes. You train your AI on your website, FAQs, pricing, services, PDFs, even YouTube videos—and it learns to answer questions in your brand voice. Then you share that link anywhere: emails, DMs, social bios, QR codes, or embed it directly on your website.

Key Capabilities:

• AI Tasks: Assign specific actions—show videos, surface testimonials, capture lead info, book calls—all triggered naturally within the conversation flow

• Lead Qualification: Your AI asks about budget, goals, or timeline, then routes qualified prospects to your calendar and others to appropriate next steps

• Full Customization: Design, voice, actions, and goals all reflect your brand

• Multiple Deployment Options: Shareable links, website embeds (popups, sliders, inline), and even QR codes for offline touchpoints

Use Cases That Stand Out:

• Interactive lead magnets that actually engage (train AI on your whitepaper, let visitors ask questions)

• Automated prospect qualification and booking

• Follow-up and nurture emails with an AI link for continued engagement

• In-app support that reduces tickets while keeping users engaged

• Members-only AI coaches gated for paying subscribers

Pricing: Free tier available with paid plans for additional features.

🔗 surfn.ai

The AI YouTube ThumbnailCreator.com

A Full AI YouTube Thumbnail Creation Studio (Trained on 3 Million Thumbnails!)

If you've been following the AI Marketing Newsletter, you know how powerful the right strategies can be. And you know we love leveraging the power of AI to amplify them!

Now imagine having AI that's been trained on 3 MILLION+ viral thumbnails creating your designs – guaranteeing thumbnails that stop the scroll and demand clicks.

Key Features of ThumbnailCreator.com

As you'd expect from someone who's generated 150M+ YouTube views, we've built ThumbnailCreator.com with practical, results-oriented features:

1. AI-Powered Design Generation Input your video topic, and get professional thumbnails based on proven viral formulas.

2. Trained on 3M+ Viral Thumbnails Our AI knows exactly what makes people click because it's studied millions of successful examples.

3. Zero Design Skills Required If you can type a description, you can create pro-level thumbnails in 60 seconds.

4. Style Matching Upload examples of thumbnails you like, and the AI will match that style for consistency.

5. A/B Testing Templates Generate multiple versions instantly to test what resonates with your audience.

6. Time-Saving Workflow Cut thumbnail creation from hours to minutes so you can focus on content creation.

🛠️ More AI Tools Worth Exploring

• Bolt AI — AI-Powered Web App Builder Build full-stack web applications using natural language prompts. Describe what you want—"Build a CRM with contact notes and a Kanban board"—and Bolt generates frontend, backend, and database structure in seconds. Includes a visual editor, live preview, and one-click deployment. Free tier available with daily token limits.

• 🔗 boltai.dev

• VSub — Faceless Video Content Factory Create faceless short-form videos for YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram in seconds. Multiple AI-generated visual styles (Pixar, anime, cinematic, comic) with auto-captions and animated emojis. Particularly useful for Reddit stories, quiz videos, and AI-generated content at scale. Used by 500,000+ creators.

• 🔗 vsub.io

• Rompolo — QR Code Photo Sharing for Events Create digital photo albums with QR codes for weddings, corporate events, and celebrations. Guests scan and upload without downloading apps or signing up. Features include live photo walls for event displays, instant downloads, password protection, and greeting walls. One-time pricing starting at $19.99 per album.

• 🔗 rompolo.com

• RezTune — AI Resume Tailoring Upload your resume and a job description, and RezTune rewrites your resume to match the specific role—optimized for ATS (Applicant Tracking Systems). Includes professional templates, interview preparation insights, and skills gap analysis. Free tier lets you preview tailored resumes; paid plans start at $15 one-time or $29/month.

• 🔗 reztune.com

• Uizard — AI-Powered UI Design Turn product ideas into wireframes and prototypes in minutes using generative AI. Features include Autodesigner 2.0 (generate entire projects from text prompts), Screenshot Scanner (turn screenshots into editable mockups), and Wireframe Scanner (digitize hand-drawn sketches). Trusted by teams at Adidas, IBM, Samsung, and Meta.

• 🔗 uizard.io

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💡 Pro Tip of the Day

Optimize for AI Selection, Not Just Search Ranking

The Instacart integration and Google's algorithm shift point to the same reality: visibility increasingly means being selected by AI, not just ranking on page one.

Here's how to start adapting:

Step 1: Audit your content for AI readability. Is your information structured clearly? Do you use headers, lists, and clear definitions that AI can easily parse and cite?

Step 2: Build topical authority rather than chasing individual keywords. AI systems are getting better at understanding comprehensive expertise. Cover topics thoroughly rather than superficially targeting search terms.

Step 3: Ensure your brand information is consistent everywhere. AI pulls from multiple sources—your website, social profiles, business directories, review sites. Inconsistencies create confusion for AI systems trying to surface accurate information.

Step 4: Think about how your products or services would be described in a conversation. When someone asks ChatGPT "what's a good tool for X," how would your solution be characterized? Make sure that narrative is clear across your content.

🎯 Success Metric: Track not just organic traffic, but referral traffic from AI platforms (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity) and mentions in AI-generated responses. These are early indicators of your AI visibility.

⚡ Supercharge Your Ad Targeting

Speaking of AI-powered optimization—all these developments reinforce something we've been building at KeywordSearch.com: the future belongs to marketers who let AI handle the heavy lifting.

While the industry figures out conversational commerce and AI search optimization, there's one thing you can control right now: making sure your ads reach the right audience in the first place.

KeywordSearch.com's AI Audience Builder analyzes your business and generates laser-focused audience targeting in about 2.6 minutes. No more hours of manual research. No more guessing which keywords or interests to target.

What you get:

• AI-powered audience creation based on your specific business

• One-click sync to Google and YouTube Ads

• Access to 100k+ competitor ad examples for inspiration

• Pre-built targeting templates for virtually every niche

The platform handles the complex targeting work so you can focus on strategy—exactly the kind of human+AI collaboration that's defining successful marketing in 2025.

🔗 Start your free 5-day unlimited trial

🔮 What I'm Watching

The Attribution Problem: With AI compressing buyer journeys into single conversational flows, last-click attribution is increasingly misleading. Marketing teams need multi-touch models that account for how AI mediates discovery. This is going to be a major theme in 2026.

Agentic AI Going Mainstream: Sam Altman called 2025 "the year agentic AI joins the workforce." Capital One's Chat Concierge achieved 55% higher lead-to-buyer conversion. Salesforce closed 18,000 Agentforce deals. These aren't experiments anymore—they're operational systems delivering measurable results.

The Platform Wars: Google, OpenAI, Meta, Pinterest—everyone is racing to embed commerce and measurement into their ecosystems. Distribution and attribution are increasingly controlled by platforms. Smart marketers are building presence across multiple AI touchpoints rather than betting everything on one channel.

That's the landscape heading into the final weeks of 2025. The shifts we're seeing aren't incremental—they're foundational. Brands that adapt early will compound advantages through 2026. Those still optimizing purely for traditional search rankings will struggle with visibility in an AI-mediated commercial landscape.

Here's to staying ahead of the curve.

Aleric & Greg KeywordSearch.com 

P.S. Curious how AI can supercharge your ad targeting? Take KeywordSearch for a test drive with our unlimited 5-day free trial and see for yourself.

This AI Marketing Newsletter is Also Sponsored by:

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