The AI marketing world just took a massive leap forward, and I'm genuinely excited to break down what's happening. We're witnessing something significant: the shift from "AI as a tool" to "AI as your autonomous marketing teammate." And honestly? It's happening faster than most of us anticipated.

This week, major players like Google, Ant International, Rakuten, and Walmart made moves that signal where marketing is heading—and it's all about agentic AI systems that can handle entire customer journeys without human intervention.

📍 Quick Preview:

Let's dive in.

Here's the development that caught my attention most: Ant International and Google announced they're jointly promoting the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP)—an open standard designed to enable AI-driven commerce at scale.

What makes this fascinating is the concept of Agentic Commerce. We're talking about AI agents that can autonomously assist customers through the entire shopping process—browsing, purchasing, and even after-sales service. No human intervention required.

💡 PRO INSIGHT

This isn't just another tech announcement. When Google and a major fintech player collaborate on open standards, it signals industry-wide infrastructure is being built. The brands that prepare their data and systems for AI agent accessibility now will have a significant advantage when this becomes mainstream.

⚡ QUICK ACTION TIP

Start thinking about how your product information is structured. AI agents need clean, machine-readable data to recommend your products. Consider implementing schema markup and ensuring your inventory feeds are API-accessible.

Rakuten Advertising unveiled Innovation Labs on January 12—a dedicated AI collaboration hub within their Insights & Analytics portal.

What it does: The platform introduces AI Recommendations that analyze multidimensional attributes to identify new publisher types and categories for advertisers, while helping publishers discover trending products from both partnered and non-partnered brands.

Why This Matters: Affiliate marketers can now let AI handle the heavy lifting of partner discovery and trend identification, significantly reducing research time while potentially uncovering opportunities human analysis might miss.

✅ Action Item: If you're running affiliate programs, explore how AI-powered partner recommendations could expand your reach into publisher categories you haven't considered.

Walmart Connect is pushing hard into the agentic AI space. Their shopping agent Sparky now features integrated advertising placements, and Marty (their super agent) is in beta for Sponsored Search campaigns with AI-driven billing and bidding optimization.

Why This Matters: Walmart Connect grew 33% in Q3 2025 in the U.S. alone. As AI agents become the interface between shoppers and products, advertising is being woven directly into the AI's recommendation process. This is the future of retail media.

✅ Action Item: If you're selling on Walmart, keep an eye on their agentic AI advertising options—early adopters often benefit from less competition and better rates.

At CES 2026, the conversation shifted dramatically from "what can AI do?" to "how do we make AI products profitable globally?" Industry panels emphasized that competitive advantages are now moving toward operational efficiency, user experience design, and monetization strategies.

Why This Matters: Technical capability alone isn't enough anymore. The winners in AI marketing will be those who can navigate commercialization challenges—payment reliability, subscription maintenance, regulatory compliance—across different markets.

I'm genuinely intrigued by Fliz AI's latest release. Version 3.0 introduces a pay-as-you-go model starting at less than $3 per video, which eliminates the subscription fatigue so many marketers experience.

What You Can Do With It:

The platform offers 50+ distinct visual styles—everything from cinematic and corporate to neon/cyberpunk and watercolor aesthetics. You can choose between AI-Generated Images Mode (custom images per scene) or Full Video Mode (actual video clips).

The 16 specialized script templates are particularly useful:

Automation Capabilities: REST API, n8n integration, Make (Integromat), Zapier, and a WordPress plugin for auto-generating videos from blog posts.

Languages: 27+ languages with high-quality AI voiceovers and 15+ ultra-realistic AI voices per language.

Output Formats: 1:1 (Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn), 9:16 (TikTok, Reels, Shorts), and 16:9 (YouTube, presentations, ads).

🎯 KEY TAKEAWAY

The pay-per-video model is brilliant for agencies and small businesses who need video content but can't justify another monthly subscription. Being able to scale up during campaigns and scale down during quiet periods offers genuine flexibility.

Explore Fliz AI →

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.

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.

A collaborative AI workspace that just got a significant upgrade.

Built for streaming transcription with ultra-low latency.

Two new creation tools for designers and content creators.

A prompt library that now shows real conversation examples before you buy.

AI gets smarter when your input is complete. Wispr Flow helps you think out loud and capture full context by voice, then turns that speech into a clean, structured prompt you can paste into ChatGPT, Claude, or any assistant. No more chopping up thoughts into typed paragraphs. Preserve constraints, examples, edge cases, and tone by speaking them once. The result is faster iteration, more precise outputs, and less time re-prompting. Try Wispr Flow for AI or see a 30-second demo.

Start flowing free

Here's a strategic shift worth considering: brands are increasingly focusing on AI Engine Optimization (AEO) alongside traditional SEO.

The Reality: Research suggests up to 25% of search volume could shift to AI agents by the end of 2026. That means securing brand mentions within AI-generated answers—across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Google's AI Overviews—is becoming as important as ranking in traditional search.

Implementation Steps:

📊 Success Metric: Track your brand mentions in AI responses using tools that monitor AI visibility across platforms. Compare month-over-month to measure progress.

Speaking of preparing for an AI-driven future—if you're running Google or YouTube ads, this is where KeywordSearch.com can help.

While AI agents are changing how customers discover products, you still need to reach the right audiences today. KeywordSearch's AI Audience Builder creates laser-focused audience segments in minutes, with one-click sync directly to your Google and YouTube ad campaigns.

What makes it valuable:

→ Start Your Free 5-Day Unlimited Trial

Microsoft & Adobe AI Marketing Integration

Announced at the National Retail Federation conference (January 12-14), Microsoft and Adobe are expanding their partnership to integrate the Adobe Marketing Agent with Microsoft 365 Copilot. Expected in Q2 2026, this will enable automated campaign creation using natural language commands, cross-platform analytics unification, and AI-powered creative asset generation.

This is worth watching—it signals that enterprise marketing workflows are about to get significantly more automated.

The theme this week is clear: agentic AI is becoming marketing infrastructure. From Google and Ant International building commerce protocols, to Walmart integrating ads into AI shopping agents, to Rakuten automating affiliate partner discovery—we're watching the foundation of a new marketing landscape being built.

The brands that will thrive are those preparing their data, content, and systems to be accessible and understandable by AI agents. It's not about replacing your current marketing efforts—it's about ensuring your brand is visible and compelling to both human and AI decision-makers.

Until next time,

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.

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