Many ecommerce businesses are adopting an AI and automation culture that encourages experimentation and problem-solving.
The effect is a renaissance of do-it-yourself projects reminiscent of the ecommerce industry’s early innovations. It is a test-and-see attitude.
AI Trend
LinkedIn’s 2025 “Work Change Report” foretells a more innovative, AI-driven workplace.
Myriad surveys and reports point to the emerging DIY shift.
A 2025 LinkedIn study found that 80% of C-suite executives believe AI adoption is important and will foster a more innovative workplace culture. Gartner reported in December 2025 that 65% of employees said they are excited to use AI at work.
The trend suggests a convergence of three priorities.
Management fears their companies will fall behind if they don’t adopt AI and automation.
Employees use AI because it makes their jobs easier, and the knowledge gained is an important career skill.
The cost of off-the-shelf software and development makes AI an attractive alternative.
Old Is New Again
Here is an example. I interacted with a business in the northwest U.S. that gave nearly every employee access to premium accounts with OpenAI, Gemini, and the workflow automation platform n8n.
Management encouraged employees to tackle problems with AI. I reviewed examples and found the staff had built a simple n8n-driven tool to monitor competitors’ prices.
It was relatively basic. It gathered prices, used an AI agent to compare them against its own data, and added them to a Google Sheet each week. That weekly update fed a pivot table that the marketer used to identify changes.
It was similar to my 2015 article, “Monitor Competitor Prices with Python and Scrapy,” which described a simplified price-checker from a regional retailer that was less expensive and less functional, yet still a functional problem-solver.
DIY
A boiled-down version of the n8n price checker does not even require AI, and might have just four steps.
The n8n workflow fetches prices weekly and appends the results to a Google Sheet.
Here is how it would work.
Use an n8n cron node ( a scheduler) to run the automation once per week.
An HTTP Get request node fetches competitors’ products and prices. In some cases, collecting the data could be as simple as adding /products.json to a shop’s URL.
A code step uses JavaScript to find the lowest price in a set of product variants.
A Google Sheets integration captures the data.
Merchants may not even need to assemble the workflow manually. Generative AI tools can produce n8n-importable JSON files from simple prompts.
Culture
The importance of the price-monitoring example lies not in the workflow but in the attitude it fosters. A member of the marketing team with almost no programming background built a problem-solving automation.
Ultimately, a developer might improve the workflow or clean up the code. Nonetheless, the shift toward building something reduces the friction between operational problems and solutions.
The DIY attitude that drove ecommerce entrepreneurs years ago is reborn with this new set of tools.
With an AI and automation-first culture, a team could build custom workflows, such as:
Inventory monitoring. An AI agent watches stock levels and sales velocity. The tool warns when inventory is low and suggests promotions when it is high.
Review sentiment extraction. AI analyzes each new product review, deducing its sentiment and theme. Insights feed support prioritization or marketing content without manual sorting.
FAQ chatbot. Using n8n, a frequently-asked-questions database, and ChatGPT, a merchant builds a custom chatbot to answer shoppers’ questions.
Customer-service email filter. Connected to Gmail, Slack, and a customer-service ticketing system, an AI agent monitors the customer-service inbox, sorting messages into tickets or sending Slack messages in an emergency.
3D video generation. This workflow uses Google Drive, Remove.bg, and Fal.ai to convert product videos for a Shopify store.
Opportunity
The DIY trend is an opportunity wherein AI and workflow needs converge. Executives seek competitive protection, employees pursue efficiency and skills, and budget constraints limit software and development.
The boom of a calving glacier. The crackling rumble of a wildfire. The roar of a surging storm front. They’re the noises of the living Earth, music of this one particular sphere and clues to the true nature of these dramatic events. But as loud as all these things are, they emit even more acoustic energy below the threshold of human hearing, at frequencies of 20 hertz or lower. These “infrasounds” have such long wavelengths that they can travel around the globe as churning emanations of distant events. But humans have never been able to hear them.
Until now, that is. Everyday Infrasound in an Uncertain World, a new album by the musician and artist Brian House, condenses 24 hours of these rumbles into 24 minutes of the most basic of bass lines, putting a new spin on the idea of ambient music. Sound, even infrasound, is really just variations in air pressure. So House built a set of three “macrophones,” tubes that funnel air into a barometer capable of taking readings 100 times a second. From the quiet woods of western Massachusetts, House can pick up what the planet is laying down. Then he speeds the recording up by a factor of 60 so that it’s audible to the wee ears of humans. “I am really interested in the layers of perception that we can’t access,” he says. “It’s not only low sound, but it’s also distant sound. That kind of blew my mind.”
House’s album is art, but scientists made it possible. Barometers picked up the 1883 eruption of the South Pacific volcano Krakatoa as far away as London. And today, a global network of infrasound sensors helps enforce the nuclear test ban treaty. A few infrasound experts—like Leif Karlstrom, a volcanologist at the University of Oregon who uses infrasound to study Mount Kilauea in Hawaii—helped House set up his music-gathering array and better understand what he was hearing. “He’s highlighting interesting phenomena,” Karlstrom says, even though it’s impossible to tell exactly what is making each specific sound.
So how’s the actual music? It’s 24 minutes of an otherworldly chorus, alternating between low grumbling vibrations and soft ghostlike whispers. A high-pitched whistle? Could be a train, House says. An intense low-octave rattle? Maybe a distant thunderstorm or a shifting ocean current. “For me, it’s about the mystery of it,” he says. “I hope that’s a little bit unsettling.” But it also might connect someone listening to a wider—and deeper—world.
Monique Brouillette is a freelance writer based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City is one of the best shows on television right now. Not one of the best reality TV shows, but one of the best TV shows, period. Chronicling a shifting group of wealthy women in and around Salt Lake, the show has featured a convicted felon whom federal agents came looking for while cameras were rolling, a church leader married to her step-grandfather, and a single mom in an exhausting on-again, off-again relationship with an Osmond. In one season, there was an ongoing argument between two cast members after one told the other that she “smelled like hospital.” Later, one woman was secretly running an anonymous gossip Instagram about her fellow housewives. We can debate the “reality” of reality television, and it’s certainly true that these characters and scenarios are far-fetched. But every single person is dealing with something relatable—difficult marriages, failing businesses, strained relationships with children, addiction. It’s entertainment, and high camp, but I find that I still have a lot of empathy for these people.
The last good place(s) on Facebook
Facebook sucks. That’s not controversial to say, right? But there is one reason I still have a Facebook account: my neighborhood Buy Nothing group. The spirit of community and camaraderie is alive and well there—and probably in yours, too. A non-exhaustive list of things I have given away: empty candle jars, a bookcase, used lightbulbs, unopened toiletries, bubble wrap. I’ve scored a few good things as well: a gorgeous antique dresser that I refinished, some over-the-door hooks, and brand-new jeans. It makes me happy to know that stuff that would’ve otherwise ended up in a landfill is bringing one of my neighbors joy.
Going analog
I used to wear an Apple Watch a lot. I’m a pretty active person, and I liked tracking my workouts and my steps. But after I’d had it for a while, my watch started dying in the middle of a 30-minute run; it became useless to me, and I gave it up completely. Guess what? I’m happier. I feel more present when I’m not checking how much time is left in a yoga class or reading texts during a long run. The amount of data it gathered about me was also stressing me out, and it wasn’t useful. And I don’t need a wearable to tell me how poorly I slept! Trust me, I already know.
Eons ago, in 2012, I had a weird experience. My iPhone suddenly shut down. When I restarted it, I found it was totally reset—clean, like a new device. This was the early days of iOS, so I wasn’t too concerned until I went to connect it to my computer to restore it from a backup. But when I flipped open the lid of my laptop, it too was mid-restart. And then, suddenly, the screen went gray. It was being remotely wiped. I turned on my iPad. It, too, had been wiped. I was being hacked.
Frantically, I shut down all my devices, unplugged everything connected to the internet in my house, turned off my router, and went next door to use my neighbors’ computer and find out what was going on. Deepening my panic, I realized hackers had also gained control of, and nuked, my Google account. Worse, they were in control of my Twitter, which they were gleefully using to spew all sorts of vile comments. It was nasty.
You have to remember, this was before all of us lived with a constant rain of text messages and emails designed to elicit the information necessary to pull something like this off. These crooks hadn’t brute-forced their way in, or used any sort of sophisticated techniques to gain access to my accounts. Instead, they had relied on publicly available information, and a fake credit card number, to socially engineer their way into my Amazon account, where they looked up the last four digits of my real credit card number. Then they used that information to get into Apple. And because that account was linked to my Gmail, and that to my Twitter, it gave them the keys to everything.
But what really troubled me was what I learned as I followed up on my hack over the ensuing weeks and months: This kind of thing was, while still novel, becoming more common. Some version of what happened to me had happened to lots of other people. The kids who were responsible—it was a couple of kids—weren’t criminal masterminds. They had just found a gap, a place where a technology was now commonplace but its risks and exploitable surface areas weren’t yet fully understood. I just happened to have all my stuff in the gap. Today that gap might feature a crypto wallet or a deepfake of a loved one’s voice. (Or both.)
Crime changes.
The goals stay the same—pursuit of value, pursuit of power—but new technologies create new vulnerabilities, new tactics, and new ways for perpetrators to evade discovery or capture. And the law necessarily lags behind. Relying not on innovation but on precedent, it is intentionally backward-looking and slow. That plodding consideration used to be how we protected our shared democratic society, how we protected each other from each other.
But those same new technologies that have allowed crime to outpace law have also reenergized law enforcement and government—offering new ways to root out crime, to gather evidence, to surveil people. Think, for example, of how cold-case investigators tracked down the Golden State Killer years after his murders, using DNA samples and genealogy databases—launching a new era of DNA-powered investigations.
Technology has long made crime and its prosecution a game of cat and mouse. It sometimes calls into question the nature of crime itself. Unregulated behaviors, facilitated by technology, can exist in murky zones of dubious legality. (Until TikTok announced its new ownership structure, Apple and Google were both technically breaking the law by allowing the app to stay on their platforms, under the provisions of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. Ah! Well. Nevertheless.)
That tension is the key to our March/April issue. Thanks to technologies like cryptocurrency and off-the-shelf autonomous autopilots, there’s never been a better time to do crime. Thanks to pervasive surveillance and digital infrastructure, there’s never been a better time to fight it—sometimes at the expense of what we used to think of as fundamental civil rights.
I never pressed charges against the kids who hacked me. The biggest consequence of the hack was that Apple set up two-factor authentication in the following months, which felt like a win. Now I’m not sure anyone expects their personal data to be secure in any meaningful way. I’m certain, though, that somewhere on the net, a new generation of kids is coming up with another novel crime.
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.
Introducing: the Crime issue
Technology has long made crime and its prosecution a game of cat and mouse. But those same new technologies that have allowed crime to outpace law have also reenergized law enforcement and government—offering new ways to root out crime, to gather evidence, to surveil people.
That tension is the key to our new March/April issue. Thanks to technologies like cryptocurrency and off-the-shelf autonomous autopilots, there’s never been a better time to do crime. And thanks to pervasive surveillance and digital infrastructure, there’s never been a better time to fight it—sometimes at the expense of what we used to think of as fundamental civil rights.
Here’s a sneak peek at what you can expect:
+ The fascinating story of what happened when cyber security researcher Allison Nixon decided to track down the mysterious online figures threatening to kill her. Read the full story.
+ AI is already making online crimes easier, but those reports of AI-powered superhacks are seriously overblown. Here’s why.
+ Chicago is home to a vast monitoring system to track its residents, including tens of thousands of surveillance cameras. But while law enforcement claims it’s necessary to protect public safety, privacy activists have likened it to a surveillance panopticon. Read the full story.
+ Modern thieves are stealing luxury cars right from under their manufacturers’ and owners’ noses. But how are they doing it?
+ How innovative conservationists are using tech to fight back against wildlife traffickers—including by turning rhinos radioactive.
Why 2026 is the year for sodium-ion batteries
Sodium-based batteries could be a cheaper, safer alternative to lithium-ion, and the technology is finally making its way into cars—and energy storage arrays on the grid.
They’re also one of MIT Technology Review‘s 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2026, and we’re holding a subscriber-only Roundtables discussion to explain why. Join our science editor Mary Beth Griggs, senior climate reporter Casey Crownhart and China reporter Caiwei Chen to explore the present moment for sodium-ion batteries—and what’s coming next.
We’ll be going live at 1pm ET this afternoon—register now!
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 The Pentagon has given Anthropic an ultimatum Either provide the US military with full access to Claude, or face the consequences. (Axios) + Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has threatened to cut ties. (WSJ $) + In turn, Anthropic has allegedly refused to ease military restrictions. (Reuters)
2 Meta has signed a major chip deal with AMD Just days after it committed to using millions of Nvidia chips to power its AI ambitions. (CNBC)
3 How Jeffrey Epstein infiltrated Microsoft’s upper ranks He was privy to confidential insider discussions about internal politics and gave advice on the line of CEO succession. (NYT $) + A smash-hit podcast about the Epstein files is entirely AI-generated. (Fast Company $)
4 Chatbot-assisted cheating is just a part of student life Teenagers are regularly asking for—and may grow dependent on—AI’s assistance. (WP $) + You need to talk to your kid about AI. Here are 6 things you should say. (MIT Technology Review)
5 How Ukraine built an entire drone industry from scratch And hopes to sell its expertise to Western allies once the war is over. (New Scientist $) + Europe’s drone-filled vision for the future of war. (MIT Technology Review)
6 The FDA has removed a warning against ineffective autism treatments The page urged Americans not to fall for alternative remedies including chlorine dioxide. (Undark)
7 Solar power is going from strength to strength in the US Usage was up 35% last year in comparison to the previous year. (Ars Technica)
8 How big is infinity? Maybe one size doesn’t fit all. (Quanta Magazine)
9 Warning: someone near you is wearing smartglasses That’s the premise behind new app Nearby Glasses, which detects the devices’ Bluetooth signals. (404 Media)
10 Uber employees run ideas past an AI version of their CEO Very good, very normal. (Insider $) + Synthesia’s AI clones are more expressive than ever. Soon they’ll be able to talk back. (MIT Technology Review)
Quote of the day
“This has nothing to do with mass surveillance and autonomous weapons being used.”
—A senior defense official tells the Washington Post that the Pentagon hasn’t proposed using any of Anthropic’s AI tools in ways that aren’t lawful, after the department threatened to force the company to share its technology.
One more thing
These scientists are working to extend the life span of pet dogs—and their owners
Matt Kaeberlein is what you might call a dog person. He has grown up with dogs and describes his German shepherd, Dobby, as “really special.” But Dobby is 14 years old—around 98 in dog years.
Kaeberlein is co-director of the Dog Aging Project, an ambitious research effort to track the aging process of tens of thousands of companion dogs across the US. He is one of a handful of scientists on a mission to improve, delay, and possibly reverse that process to help them live longer, healthier lives.
And dogs are just the beginning. One day, this research could help to prolong the lives of humans. Read the full story.
—Jessica Hamzelou
We can still have nice things
A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)
+ As if dinosaur eggs weren’t cool enough, it turns out they’re also a pretty handy aging indicator for other fossils. + This week would have marked Steve Jobs’ 71st birthday. His Stanford Commencement Address is still one of the best. + I need to play Capybara Simulator immediately: a game in which you can become a capybara. + Good news everyone—it looks like we’ve avoided a bananapocalypse
Sodium-based batteries could be a cheaper, safer alternative to lithium-ion, and the technology is finally making its way into cars—and energy storage arrays on the grid. Sodium-ion batteries are one of MIT Technology Review’s 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2026 list, and this subscriber-only discussion explains why.
Watch a discussion exploring the present moment for sodium-ion batteries—and what’s coming next.
Speakers:Mary Beth Griggs, Science Editor; Casey Crownhart, Senior Climate Reporter; and Caiwei Chen, China Reporter
This week’s rundown of new services for ecommerce merchants includes rollouts for third-party fulfillment, AI assistants, agentic commerce, omnichannel retail, social commerce, Shopify vendors, live-streaming, and AI fraud prevention.
Got an ecommerce product release? Email updates@practicalecommerce.com.
New Tools for Merchants
Worldline launches One Commerce for omnichannel retail.Worldline, a Europe-based provider of payment services, has launched One Commerce to position merchants to integrate new payment methods, value-added services, and shopping models. Worldline will also launch its à-la-carte acquiring model in Europe, allowing merchants to choose their preferred multi-payments setup.
Worldline One Commerce
eBay to acquire Depop from Etsy.eBay has announced its acquisition of Depop, an Etsy-owned recommerce fashion marketplace, for approximately $1.2 billion in cash. The addition of Depop will accelerate eBay’s consumer-to-consumer strategy, deepening its reach with younger buyers. Depop will benefit from eBay’s global scale and capabilities. eBay will also expand Depop’s inventory visibility, including cross-listing opportunities.
Paysafe partners with open payments platform Spreedly. Payment platforms Paysafe and Spreedly have partnered. Spreedly’s global payments orchestration platform has integrated Paysafe as an acquirer to process credit and debit card payments for online merchants operating worldwide. Spreedly’s open payments platform, connecting 140 payment gateways and 40 unique payment methods, now includes the Paysafe gateway.
Akeneo partners with Stripe to help businesses sell on AI agents.Akeneo, a provider of product information management tools, has partnered with Stripe and its Agentic Commerce Suite. Through this partnership, Akeneo focuses on the product experience layer, enabling businesses to enrich, validate, and activate their product data for AI-driven channels. Stripe remains responsible for checkout, payments, fraud protection, and merchant-of-record capabilities, allowing businesses to retain control of their customer relationships, refunds, and disputes.
Akeneo
Badge raises $17.1 million for Apple and Google wallets.Badge, an operating platform for Apple and Google wallets, has raised $17.1 million to provide the infrastructure businesses need to add the payment method at scale. The funding includes a $13.8 million round led by TTV Capital with participation from Stripe, Synchrony Ventures, and Infinity Ventures. Badge will use the capital to accelerate go-to-market efforts, expand product capabilities, and deepen partnerships to help enterprise brands and platforms adopt Apple and Google wallets as a core customer interface.
Reddit tests a shopping product experience in search.Reddit is testing an AI-powered search feature that turns community recommendations into action using the product catalogs from select shopping and Dynamic Product Ads partners. Users may see search results that include interactive product carousels with pricing, images, and where-to-buy links. The carousel highlights products mentioned in real conversations on related posts and comments, and it includes details such as pricing and images.
TikTok Shop releases new tools, including expanded chatbot access.TikTok has released new features for TikTok Shop sellers. The features include (i) the availability of the Seller Assistant tool in the Seller Center, (ii) a new auto-approval workflow for product samples, (iii) highlights on creator profiles for recommended brand collaborations, and (iv) for live-streams, the automated posting of clips auto-generated from user broadcasts.
TikTok Shop
WordPress.com releases AI assistant. The WordPress AI Assistant is now available on WordPress.com. Within the WordPress editor, site personnel can (i) get help with structure, design, content editing, and refinement, (ii) create and edit images in the media library, and (iii) ask questions of the AI assistant in block notes and get answers.
True Fit launches agentic AI shopping powered by 20 years of data.True Fit, a provider of fit and fashion intelligence, has launched a shopping agent for retail. According to True Fit, the agent is powered by shopper profiles and 20 years of purchase and returns data. The technology identifies ‘Will this fit?’ moments in real time, guiding shoppers to appropriate sizes and styles. True Fit’s shopping agent is available beginning March 2026 for select retailers and brands, with a broader release in April 2026.
Metapack launches AI-powered tools for control over delivery data.Metapack, a shipping platform, has announced AI-powered capabilities to predict and prevent delivery problems before they affect customers. “Ask Metapack” provides a fast way to understand delivery performance by asking questions and receiving instant answers. “Predict with AI” identifies deliveries that are likely to miss expected arrival times. “Build with AI” creates reports and visualisations on demand using prompts. “Intelligent Checkout” is an embeddable component that presents validated delivery options.
Metapack
Rakuten Ichiba partners with Google on shopping via YouTube.Rakuten Ichiba, a Japan-based online marketplace, has partnered with Google in Japan to enable users to purchase products through YouTube videos and affiliates. YouTube viewers can explore Rakuten Ichiba products featured by creators by tapping the View Products button during a video. Product names and prices are displayed, and users can then navigate directly to the product page on Rakuten Ichiba to view details or continue watching the video.
Avenue Z acquires Shopify design and development partner Varfaj.Avenue Z, a marketing agency, has acquired Varfaj, a Shopify development and optimization partner. Avenue Z says the acquisition positions it for the next evolution in commerce: AI-powered, agent-led buying experiences. Varfaj will rebrand under the Avenue Z name. The acquisition also brings Varfaj’s proprietary development framework and conversion rate optimization technologies into Avenue Z’s performance marketing infrastructure.
Radial launches Commerce Solutions with AI-driven fraud prevention.Radial, a third-party logistics company, has launched Commerce Solutions, enabling payment orchestration and AI-driven fraud prevention at scale. Per Radial, the key functions of Commerce Solutions include provider-agnostic payment orchestration, centralized tokenization, fraud decisioning that eliminates manual review, and chargeback protection and resolution covering fraud and non-fraud disputes.
More U.S. consumers in an Adobe Express survey said they’ve used TikTok for search than in the company’s 2024 survey. But the platform’s position as a Google challenger may be weaker than the headline numbers suggest.
An updated report from Adobe Express, published February 17, surveyed 807 consumers and 200 small business owners in the US about their search habits across platforms. Adobe says the data was collected in January 2026, and that the SurveyMonkey survey was conducted in February 2026.
Forty-nine percent of consumers surveyed said they have used TikTok as a search engine, up 8 percentage points from 41% in Adobe’s 2024 report.
Gen Z Is Pulling Back
Among Gen Z respondents, the share who said they are more likely to rely on TikTok than Google fell from 8% in 2024 to 4% in 2026.
Sixty-five percent of Gen Z still said they’ve used TikTok as a search engine, and 25% found it effective for finding information. But that usage isn’t translating into preference over Google the way it did two years ago.
That tracks with separate reporting from Axios in 2024. The Axios data showed Google still held the top spot as Gen Z’s preferred search starting point, with 46% of users aged 18-24 beginning their queries there.
ChatGPT Pulls Ahead As A Google Alternative
14% of consumers said they are more likely to rely on ChatGPT than on Google as a search engine. That’s double the 7% who said the same about TikTok.
The ChatGPT figure was consistent across age groups, with 12% of Gen Z, 15% of millennials, 15% of Gen X, and 14% of baby boomers. TikTok-over-Google numbers were low across every group and lowest among baby boomers (2%), with millennials (8%) actually higher than Gen Z (4%).
When asked which platforms they found most helpful for search, consumers ranked Google first at 85%, followed by Reddit (29%), ChatGPT (26%), YouTube (24%), and TikTok (16%).
Business Investment Is Cooling
Among the 200 business owners surveyed, 58% had used TikTok for promotions. They allocated an average of 16% of their marketing budget to TikTok content creation and 15% of their SEO budget to TikTok search optimization.
Only 38% said they plan to increase investment in TikTok affiliate marketing, down from 53% who said the same in 2024.
The top challenge business owners reported was converting TikTok engagement into sales (38%), followed by growing follower counts and engagement rates (36%).
Influencer marketing use grew, with 38% of small business owners using TikTok influencers for product sales or promotions, up from 25% in 2024.
Why This Matters
The “TikTok is replacing Google” narrative has been a recurring theme since at least 2022. This data complicates that story. Optimizing for TikTok search still makes sense if your audience skews younger, but the data suggests Gen Z may be settling into a multi-platform pattern rather than abandoning Google.
The ChatGPT numbers are worth watching more closely. If 14% of consumers across all age groups say they’re more likely to rely on ChatGPT than Google, that’s a broader competitive signal than TikTok’s Gen Z niche.
Looking Ahead
Adobe’s report is vendor-funded and conducted via SurveyMonkey with 1,007 respondents (807 consumers and 200 business owners). Adobe says data was collected in January 2026. The sample skews millennial-heavy (53%), with Gen Z making up only 15% of consumers surveyed. No margin of error was disclosed.
The year-over-year comparisons are based on Adobe’s own prior data, not an independently replicated sample. The generational trends are directional rather than definitive.
Still, the direction in the data aligns with broader industry observations. Consumers are using more platforms for search-like behavior, but Google remains dominant. The real competition for Google’s search role, based on this survey at least, may be coming from AI chatbots rather than social video.
Anthropic updated its crawler documentation this week with a formal breakdown of its three web crawlers and their individual purposes.
The page now lists ClaudeBot (training data collection), Claude-User (fetching pages when Claude users ask questions), and Claude-SearchBot (indexing content for search results) as separate bots, each with its own robots.txt user-agent string.
Each bot gets a “What happens when you disable it” explanation. For Claude-SearchBot, Anthropic wrote that blocking it “prevents our system from indexing your content for search optimization, which may reduce your site’s visibility and accuracy in user search results.”
For Claude-User, the language is similar. Blocking it “prevents our system from retrieving your content in response to a user query, which may reduce your site’s visibility for user-directed web search.”
The update formalizes a pattern that’s becoming more common among AI search products. OpenAI runs the same three-tier structure with GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, and ChatGPT-User. Perplexity operates a two-tier version with PerplexityBot for indexing and Perplexity-User for retrieval.
Anthropic says all three of its bots honor robots.txt, including Claude-User. OpenAI and Perplexity draw a sharper line for user-initiated fetchers, warning that robots.txt rules may not apply to ChatGPT-User and generally don’t apply to Perplexity-User. For Anthropic and OpenAI, blocking the training bot does not block the search bot or the user-requested fetcher.
What Changed From The Old Page
The previous version of Anthropic’s crawler page referenced only ClaudeBot and used broader language about data collection for model development. Before ClaudeBot, Anthropic operated under the Claude-Web and Anthropic-AI user agents, both now deprecated.
The move from one listed crawler to three mirrors what OpenAI did in late 2024 when it separated GPTBot from OAI-SearchBot and ChatGPT-User. OpenAI updated that documentation again in December, adding a note that GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot share information to avoid duplicate crawling when both are allowed.
OpenAI also noted in that December update that ChatGPT-User, which handles user-initiated browsing, may not be governed by robots.txt in the same way as its automated crawlers. Anthropic’s documentation does not make a similar distinction for Claude-User.
Why This Matters
The blanket “block AI crawlers” strategy that many sites adopted in 2024 no longer works the way it did. Blocking ClaudeBot stops training data collection but does nothing about Claude-SearchBot or Claude-User. The same is true on OpenAI’s side.
A BuzzStream study we covered in January found that 79% of top news sites block at least one AI training bot. But 71% also block at least one retrieval or search bot, potentially removing themselves from AI-powered search citations in the process.
That matters more now than it did a year ago. Hostinger’s analysis of 66.7 billion bot requests showed OpenAI’s search crawler coverage growing from 4.7% to over 55% of sites in their sample, even as its training crawler coverage dropped from 84% to 12%. Websites are allowing search bots while blocking training bots, and the gap is widening.
The visibility warnings differ by company. Anthropic says blocking Claude-SearchBot “may reduce” visibility. OpenAI is more direct, telling publishers that sites opted out of OAI-SearchBot won’t appear in ChatGPT search answers, though navigational links may still show up. Both are positioning their search crawlers alongside Googlebot and Bingbot, not alongside their own training crawlers.
What This Means
When managing robots.txt files, the old copy-paste block list needs an audit. SEJ’s complete AI crawler list includes verified user-agent strings across every company.
A strategic robots.txt now requires separate entries for training and search bots at minimum, with the understanding that user-initiated fetchers may not follow the same rules.
Looking Ahead
The three-tier split creates a new category of publisher decision that parallels what Google did years ago with Google-Extended. That user-agent lets sites opt out of Gemini training while staying in Google Search results. Now Anthropic and OpenAI offer the same separation for their platforms.
As AI-powered search grows its share of referral traffic, the cost of blocking search crawlers increases. The Cloudflare Year in Review data we reported in December showed AI crawlers already account for a measurable share of web traffic, and the gap between crawling volume and referral traffic remains wide. How publishers navigate these three-way decisions will shape how much of the web AI search tools can actually surface.
Choosing the right pay-per-click (PPC) ad network is a core strategy impacting the success of your advertising program.
Each network reaches distinct audiences, offers different ad formats, and suits different campaign objectives, from capturing high-intent search demand to driving awareness through video and social feeds. With AI-powered automation now embedded across most major platforms, understanding what each network does well (and where it falls short) matters more than ever.
In this article, we compare 10 of the leading PPC ad networks available today, covering each platform’s reach, audience demographics, ad formats, unique features, AI integration, and advertiser best fit to help you decide where to invest your budget.
Note: While we refer to the following as “PPC” ad networks, each offers multiple pricing options for pay-per-click, impressions, video views, or conversions. We are exploring popular paid media ads.
1. Google Ads
Google Ads is the most popular ad network due to the immense reach of its ads and its broad range of users. As the world’s leading search engine, Google offers a variety of opportunities for advertisers.
It uses search and the power of the websites on the Google Display Network (GDN), which consists of more than 2 million websites, videos, and apps on which display ads can appear.
Audience targeting on the display network is commonly used for brand awareness, retargeting, and top-of-funnel lead generation.
Both search and display campaigns allow demographic targeting by age, gender, parental status, and household income.
Adding in demographic targeting narrows the available reach for ads, but makes the targeting more relevant.
Reach: Largest PPC network with billions of daily searches and extensive reach through Google Search, YouTube, Discover, Maps, and the Google Display Network.
Demographics: Broad and diverse, all-age groups, genders, and interests globally.
Ad Formats: Text ads, Responsive ads, Image ads, App Promotion ads, Video ads, Product Shopping ads, and Call-only ads.
Unique Features: Extensive reach through Google Search, YouTube, and Google Display Network, robust targeting and analytics, deep AI integration, and optimizations.
The Microsoft Audience Network serves display and native ads. You’ll find remarketing, in-market, customer match, similar audiences, LinkedIn audiences, and more opportunities in the Microsoft Audience Network.
Through its partnership with Yahoo, Microsoft Advertising powers search ads across Bing, Yahoo, and other syndicated partners. Its search network also extends to Microsoft-owned properties such as Edge, Windows, and Ouredtlook, and it supports LinkedIn-based audience targeting, including company, industry, and job function data. Bing also powers web results for some voice assistants.
Microsoft Ads offers advertisers campaign import capabilities from Google Ads, simplifying the process of getting started and managing campaigns across platforms while maintaining consistency.
Reach: Significant volume through Bing, Yahoo and AOL search engines, reaching users across Microsoft-owned and partner properties.
Demographics: Microsoft Advertising reports a broad search audience, with a large share of users (73%) under 45 and a relatively balanced gender split. According to Microsoft, over one-third of users hold a college degree, more than one-third fall into the top household income quartile, and many are part of family households.
Ad Formats: App Install ads, Expanded Text ads, Dynamic Search ads, Microsoft Advertising in Bing Smart Search, Audience ads, Multimedia ads, Product ads, Responsive Search ads, and Vertical ads.
Unique Features: Integration with Bing, Yahoo, and AOL, competitive cost-per-click rates, and LinkedIn profile targeting.
AI Integration: Machine learning supports automated bidding, audience expansion, and delivery optimization across Search and the Microsoft Audience Network, with Copilot assisting campaign creation and optimization workflows.
Advertiser best fit: Advertisers targeting working professionals and household decision-makers, including families with higher disposable income. Performs well for B2B, services, and considered purchases, especially in desktop-first environments and Microsoft-owned products.
Screenshot by author, February 2026
3. Meta Ads
Meta Ads allows businesses to reach highly targeted audiences across Facebook and Instagram, using large-scale engagement and intent signals to support precise ad delivery. The platform has increasingly shifted away from manual targeting toward automation that optimizes delivery based on user behavior and conversion likelihood.
Audience targeting includes demographics, interests, behaviors, and engagement signals. Meta supports retargeting through on-platform activity and off-site actions using the Meta Pixel and customer list uploads.
Reach: Meta’s advertising ecosystem spans Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp. Facebook alone reports over 3.07 billion monthly active users, while Instagram reports around 3 billion monthly active users, offering large-scale reach across Meta’s platforms.
Demographics: According to DataReportal, Facebook’s ad audience includes 2.28 billion people globally. The analysis suggests that the average age of Facebook users in 2025 falls between 25 and 34 years old, with male users aged 25-34 representing the largest share of active Facebook users during that period.
Unique Features: Broad placement coverage across Meta properties, creative flexibility designed for mobile-first environments, and automation through Advantage+ Shopping and campaign optimization tools.
AI Integration: Machine learning powers Advantage+ automation, optimizing audience expansion, placements, budget allocation, and creative delivery in real time across Meta properties.
Advertiser Best Fit: Well-suited for ecommerce, direct-to-consumer, and brand-led advertisers seeking scale through short-form video and feed-based experiences, particularly for upper- and mid-funnel demand creation.
Screenshot by author, February 2026
4. LinkedIn Ads
LinkedIn reports that over 1.2 billion professionals use LinkedIn (including 98% of Fortune 500 CEOs) and that 78% of B2B leaders say that “demonstrating ROI is more critical now than ever before.”
LinkedIn reports that 75% of B2B buyers use social media to make purchasing decisions, with 50% using LinkedIn as a trusted source in that process. This provides advertisers with access to a verified professional audience that possesses twice the average web audience’s buying power.
Reach: Global network of professionals across nearly every industry, company size, and seniority level, with strong penetration among decision-makers and influencers.
Demographics: Primarily professional audiences, including business decision-makers.
Ad Formats: Sponsored Content, Sponsored Messaging, Lead Gen Forms, and Text and Dynamic ads.
Unique Features: Professional targeting by job title, company, industry, seniority, and skills, along with native lead generation and account-based marketing capabilities.
AI Integration: Machine learning supports automated bidding, audience expansion, and delivery optimization, with AI-driven relevance scoring and performance prediction across Sponsored Content and Lead Gen campaigns.
Advertiser Best Fit: Best suited for B2B marketers focused on lead generation, account-based marketing, and reaching verified decision-makers for high-consideration products and services.
Screenshot by author, February 2026
5. TikTok Ads
TikTok has quickly become one of the most influential social media platforms, particularly among younger audiences. The short-form video app has reshaped how users discover content and has created new opportunities for brands to reach audiences through immersive, entertainment-driven ads.
With its emphasis on creativity, trends, and algorithmic discovery, TikTok offers advertisers a paid ads platform built around engagement rather than explicit intent.
Volume: Over 1.6 billion monthly active users worldwide.
Demographics: Skews younger, with a strong concentration among Gen Z and Millennials, and a highly engaged, diverse global user base. According to the Pew Research Center, TikTok usage is especially high among younger adults in the United States, with roughly half of 18- to 29-year-olds using the platform daily.
Ad Formats: In-Feed ads, TopView, Branded Mission, Spark Ads, and Promote.
Unique Features: Algorithm-driven content discovery, trend-based ad formats, and native short-form video experiences designed for mobile engagement.
AI Integration: Machine learning drives content recommendation, ad delivery, automated bidding, and Smart Performance Campaigns, optimizing ads based on engagement and conversion signals.
Advertiser Best Fit: Best suited for brands targeting Gen Z and Millennials through awareness and demand creation, especially those able to lean into short-form video, trends, and creator-style creative.
Screenshot by author, February 2026
6. Amazon Advertising
Amazon Advertising is a powerful paid ads platform for ecommerce and retail brands that leverages Amazon’s massive shopping ecosystem. It reaches consumers at the point of purchase, making it especially effective for driving direct sales and product visibility.
Volume: Amazon reported $213.4 billion in net sales in Q4 2025, indicating substantial ecommerce transaction volume. This provides advertisers with access to high-intent shoppers actively researching and comparing products.
Demographics:Gen Z is a key demographic for the platform.
Ad Formats: Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Brand Stores, Amazon Live, Video and Audio ads, Display ads, Out-of-home ads, and Device ads.
Unique Features: Product and keyword-based targeting tied directly to shopping behavior, with ads appearing alongside search results, product detail pages, and related placements.
AI Integration: Machine learning powers automated bidding, shopper relevance modeling, and performance optimization, adjusting bids and delivery in real time based on conversion likelihood and purchase signals.
Advertiser Best Fit: Ideal for ecommerce and retail advertisers focused on driving direct sales, particularly brands with established product listings seeking to capture high-intent shoppers close to purchase.
Screenshot by author, February 2026
7. X Ads (Formerly Twitter Ads)
X Ads provides advertisers with opportunities to reach users through its real-time social platform, which is heavily centered around news, live events, and cultural conversations.
Campaigns on X are structured around objectives such as awareness, consideration, and conversions, and ads are delivered across both desktop and mobile environments. Targeting includes demographics and audiences, even with the option to target conversion topics.
Promoted ads are highly flexible, supporting combinations of text, images, video, and carousels, with optional calls to action such as app installs or website clicks embedded directly within the ad creative.
Demographics: As of February 2025, X’s global audience skews younger, with 37.5% aged 25-34 and 32.1% aged 18-24.
Ad Formats: Promoted Ads, Vertical Video Ads, X Amplify, X Takeovers, X Live, Dynamic Product Ads, Collection Ads, and X Ad Features.
Unique Features: Real-time conversation targeting, trend-based placements, and the ability to promote posts, accounts, and events as they happen.
AI Integration: Machine learning supports automated bidding, interest and conversation targeting, and delivery optimization to align ads with real-time engagement signals and trending topics.
Advertiser Best Fit: Best suited for brands promoting timely content, live events, launches, and cultural moments, where real-time visibility and conversation-driven engagement are critical.
Screenshot by author, February 2026
8. Pinterest Ads
Pinterest is a visual discovery platform where users actively search for inspiration, ideas, and products. Unlike traditional social networks, Pinterest users often arrive with planning and purchase intent, making it a strong environment for discovery-driven advertising.
Pinterest is a strong performer for lifestyle and planning-focused brands, with success stories from advertisers in home decor, fashion, beauty, and food.
Volume: Over 600 million monthly active users worldwide.
Demographics: Pinterest’s audience is 70% female, with strong representation among 18-44 year-olds and a growing Gen Z segment, which now makes up 42% of users.
Ad Formats: Standard Image ad, Quiz ad, Showcase ad, Premiere Spotlight, Idea ad, Collections, Carousel ad, Max-width Video ad, and Standard Video ad.
Unique Features: Visual search and discovery, intent-driven browsing, and native shopping integrations that surface products during inspiration and planning moments.
AI Integration: Machine learning powers personalized recommendations, automated bidding, and shopping relevance, matching ads to user interests based on search, save, and engagement behavior.
Advertiser Best Fit: Well-suited for brands in lifestyle, retail, and ecommerce categories looking to influence consideration and purchase through visual inspiration and discovery.
Screenshot by author, February 2026
9. Reddit Ads
Reddit Ads allows advertisers to reach highly engaged audiences within over 100,000 topic-specific communities where users actively discuss interests, problems, and purchasing decisions. With subreddits covering nearly every industry and niche, Reddit offers a context-driven environment that is fundamentally different from traditional social platforms.
Rather than passive scrolling, Reddit users participate in conversations, making the platform especially valuable for brands that want to align messaging with authentic discussions and intent signals.
Volume: 116 million daily active unique visitors across thousands of interest-based communities.
Demographics: Reddit’s audience skews younger, with the majority of users aged 18-34. According to Pew Research, adults under 30 are among the platform’s most active users, and its audience is known for strong interest in tech and niche communities.
Ad Formats: Free-form ads, Image ads, Video ads, Carousel ads, Conversation ads, Product ads, and AMA.
Unique Features: Community-based targeting through subreddits, keyword and interest targeting, and placements that blend into discussion feeds.
AI Integration: Machine learning supports automated bidding, contextual ad placement, and delivery optimization by aligning ads with relevant conversations, topics, and engagement patterns.
Advertiser Best Fit: Best suited for brands seeking awareness, consideration, and engagement within specific interest communities, particularly for products or services that benefit from education, discussion, or social proof.
Screenshot by author, February 2026
10. Apple Search Ads
Apple Search Ads allows advertisers to promote apps directly within the App Store, reaching users at the moment they are actively searching for and discovering new apps. The platform is built around high-intent queries, making it especially effective for driving app installs and user acquisition on iOS devices.
Because ads appear natively within App Store search results, Apple Search Ads offers a brand-safe environment with clear user intent and strong performance for mobile-first advertisers.
Volume: Global reach across the App Store, with 800 million weekly visitors searching for apps across iOS devices.
Demographics: iOS users span a broad age range. Apple’s platform policies prevent targeting users under 18, and advertisers often associate iOS users with high mobile engagement and above-average purchasing power.
Ad Formats: Today Tab ads, Search Tab ads, Search Results ads, and Product Pages ads.
Unique Features: Native App Store placements, keyword-based targeting, and direct integration with app metadata and search behavior.
AI Integration: Machine learning supports automated bidding, relevance matching, and Search Match, which uses AI to align ads with relevant search queries based on app metadata and user intent signals.
Advertiser Best Fit: Ideal for app developers and mobile advertisers focused on driving high-quality installs, subscriptions, or in-app actions within the iOS ecosystem.
Screenshot by author, February 2026
Choosing The Best Ad Platforms For Your Business
Choosing the right paid advertising platforms directly impacts business growth. Each of these PPC ad networks we’ve explored in this article offers unique audiences, ad features, and opportunities to engage with your audience across the web. The key is understanding where your audience shows intent, how they engage with content, and what influences their decisions at each stage of the funnel.
The right choice for your business will depend on your business type, target audience, and marketing goals. Some platforms excel at capturing high-intent demand, while others are better suited for discovery, consideration, or demand creation.
As you evaluate your options, focus on matching platforms to user behavior, campaign objectives, and the level of automation you are prepared to manage. Once campaigns are live, ongoing optimization based on performance data is what drives long-term success.
