📖 What I’ve been reading this week in business, marketing & tech

👇 Tap-worthy reads worth your time.

✨ AI

• OpenAI’s new ChatGPT Agent can control an entire computer and do tasks for you
• Perplexity’s CEO on why the browser is AI’s killer app
• AI start-up Perplexity’s valuation tops $18bn months after latest funding round
• Why “AI Share Buttons” Might Be the Smartest Growth Hack
• Cognition AI Buys Windsurf as A.I. Frenzy Escalates (Sub required)
• Meta’s New Superintelligence Lab Is Discussing Major A.I. Strategy Changes (Sub required)
• Anthropic’s Claude chatbot can now make and edit your Canva designs
• SpaceX to Invest $2 Billion Into Elon Musk’s xAI (Sub required)
• An OpenAI Acquisition Turns Into a Google 'Hackqusition'...
• Tesla debuts hands-free Grok AI with update 2025.26
• Amazon-backed Anthropic rolls out Claude AI for financial services
• Scientists reportedly hiding AI text prompts in academic papers to receive positive peer reviews

🔍 Google & Search

• Google rolls out AI-powered business-calling feature, brings Gemini 2.5 Pro to AI Mode
• AI search is booming, but SEO is still not dead
• A Breakdown of Booking.com’s SEO Strategy

💡 Insights

• Substack Raises $100 Million, Betting on Subscriptions but Coming Around to Ads (Sub required)
• Prime Day event drove over $24B in US e-commerce sales, GenAI traffic was up 3,300%

📹 Video

• The Streaming Wars Come Down to 2: YouTube vs. Netflix (Sub required)
• YouTube Adds Video Title Testing Option in Studio
• OpenAI to take cut of ChatGPT shopping sales in hunt for revenues (Sub required)

What marketing leaders need to know about native in 2025

Native advertising is often misunderstood — lumped in with clickbait or confused with display. But as Anand Sindig explains, native done right is contextually placed, performance-driven, and built for premium environments.

Sindig has been at Dianomi for a decade, operating in a corner of adtech that’s often overlooked but quietly powerful. Native isn’t just about dressing up ads as content — it’s about relevance in premium environments. “It’s contextual, it’s embedded, it’s controlled,” he says — and when done right, it feels less like selling, more like nudging the right thing at the right time.

We kicked off with what native advertising actually is, but quickly moved into terrain that feels more urgent: first-party data, campaign control, and brand safety in a world drowning in clickbait.

Native fits awkwardly in some marketers’ frameworks. It's not search. It’s not social. But it is where high-value readers are still paying attention — across Reuters, The Times, WSJ, BBC, Forbes — the kind of environments where Dianomi has staked its claim.

The difference? Strict quality controls. No race-to-the-bottom programmatic here. They reject 70% of inbound demand partners. The goal isn’t just ad placement - it’s audience integrity. That’s Dianomi's moat.

The pitch that works

We talked sales strategy. How do you pitch native to a fintech brand when the industry is chasing performance, not just placement?

Anand breaks it down: "We talk context. Targeting. Competitive insight. And most of all, performance." Dianomi works with C-suite decision-makers, but the team isn’t just schmoozing with CMOs. They’re plugged into content leaders, growth marketers, media buyers. The people sweating over CAC and real ROI.

One big advantage: control. Dianomi operates in a closed ecosystem, with brand-safe inventory and performance-focused units. Campaigns can be bought on CPC, CPM, or viewable video terms depending on what matters — leads, views, signups. No black box.

And for app brands? They’re one of the few partners Apple has approved to run campaigns inside Apple News — giving them access to iOS users and the flexibility to optimise by publisher. That’s a USP for Dianomi. It means they can test, learn, and move budgets dynamically across markets like the DACH region or the GCC, finding what sticks before going all-in.

Creative still matters. The hook, the image, the CTA. But native lets you A/B test quietly, iterate quickly, and serve the best performer to the right audience without fanfare. AI plays a role here, but the difference is in the feed — Dianomi’s algorithm surfaces winners automatically.

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Shifts in native advertising strategy

When asked how the landscape’s shifted over the past 10 years, Anand doesn’t blink: AI, programmatic growth, and a rising pressure on marketers to do more with less. In times of economic pressure, marketing is usually the first thing to go. And that’s where native gets interesting — especially for brands chasing long-term engagement, not just drive-by clicks.

It’s also why Dianomi is expanding beyond finance. Luxury, commodities, energy, tech — all verticals where the global C-suite audience overlaps. Native’s ability to test interest — not just convert it — makes it a powerful research tool as well as a media channel. One fund client used it to quietly test interest in an ESG ETF before launch. When the data came in strong, they greenlit the product.

That kind of feedback loop is underused. And it points to something bigger: native isn't just a media buy — it’s strategic input.

⏱ Got 30 seconds?

If you’ve got half a minute spare over your morning espresso, I’d really appreciate you taking 30 seconds to fill in this short survey.

No weird questions — just a few quick ones to help me better understand who’s reading this, so I can keep improving and work more efficiently with the right partners.

Bonus: I may run a small prize draw with one respondent chosen at random.

The growing threat of Google AIOs and AI slop

We talked threats — AI Overviews, declining Google traffic, news fatigue, algorithmic content floods. And yes, publishers are nervous.

But Anand sees the shift as a filter. The industry’s full of low-quality ads and thin content, but premium brands don’t want to be next to TikTok trash or under a clickbaity headline. They want safety. Trust. Voice.

Native gives them that. Dianomi is helping publishers recirculate high-end content, monetise existing traffic, and amplify in-house studio work. And while yes, the Google ecosystem still dominates, it’s also excluding huge chunks of audience — iOS users, Firefox browsers, privacy-first markets. Native can reach where cookies can’t.

We’re heading toward a fatigue point. Audiences will eventually tire of synthetic sludge. When that happens — if it hasn’t already — the resurgence of quality journalism will start with intent-driven formats like native. Not in a pop-up. Not behind a paywall. Just contextually present, well-matched, and worth clicking.

And that means more brands will shift spend, not just toward performance — but toward meaningful placement.

Where native goes next

So what’s the CMO playbook from here?

Anand lays it out clean:

• Create high-quality content baked in audience insight
• Test multiple variants – don’t assume you know what will land
• Set clear KPIs (and realistic CPAs)
• Map the post-click journey – what happens after the reader engages?

In a world without cookies, Dianomi already operates cookieless. Their model is built on contextual targeting, not user tracking. It's futureproofed by design.

And for ad fatigue? Native doesn’t interrupt — it blends. Podcasts, video, content hubs, advertorials — these are the formats on the rise. They're additive, not invasive. And they're performing.

Dianomi’s smart content hubs — which allow 100% SOV, mix video, audio, and native content, and auto-optimise by publisher — are worth watching. They feel like what the modern brand newsroom should have been. Adaptable. Responsive. Intelligent.

At a time when media budgets are under the microscope and content quality is more binary than ever (either brilliant or ignored), native might be the only format that actually benefits from the chaos.

Forget mass reach - the premium pitchbook is alive and well, thriving in the right hands.

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