Ann Gehan

Google is leveraging AI features as a negotiating tool with news publishers, offering promotion in AI-powered article overviews and its Gemini chatbot through a pilot program announced in December with partners including The Washington Post and The Guardian. The move comes as publishers face significant traffic declines from traditional search, with some reporting drops of up to 50 percent. Google's approach signals a shift toward using AI distribution as a bargaining chip in licensing negotiations with content creators.

DoorDash has launched Ask DoorDash, a conversational AI assistant integrated into its app that lets customers search for restaurants, shop for groceries, and place orders through natural language queries. The company plans to add restaurant reservation functionality in the coming weeks. The move represents DoorDash's effort to streamline the user experience through AI-driven interfaces.

OpenAI has launched a new advertising product that allows advertisers to create ads for specific products on ChatGPT by sharing product information feeds with the company. For now, the product feed data will only be used to generate ads and will not inform ChatGPT's responses or training. This represents OpenAI's expansion into product-specific advertising on its platform.

OpenAI is expanding its advertising business beyond major brands to target small local businesses like car washes and dry cleaners, directly competing with Meta. The company is launching new ad features designed for smaller advertisers, including action-oriented ads for purchases, appointments, and contact form submissions. This shift represents OpenAI's strategy to scale its ad business by capturing the broader small-business advertising market.

Thrive Capital, Joshua Kushner's investment firm, has purchased approximately $100 million in Shopify shares, according to Bloomberg reporting on Thursday. The investment is framed as a bet on how artificial intelligence will drive gains in e-commerce. While Thrive is primarily known for early-stage startup investing, this move reflects broader confidence in AI's potential to reshape commerce platforms.

Google is integrating buy now, pay later services Affirm and Klarna into its Gemini app and AI search mode, expanding both fintechs' existing partnerships with the search giant. The move enables users to split purchases across multiple payments directly within Google's AI shopping interfaces. This represents a deepening of Google's commerce capabilities within its generative AI products and signals growing integration between BNPL providers and AI-driven shopping workflows.

Shopify is pursuing money transmitter licenses across all U.S. states to deepen its role in financial services for merchants. The company has already secured licenses in more than a dozen states, allowing it to hold and move funds directly. Nationwide approval would give Shopify greater control over transaction flows on its platform and unlock new revenue streams from the hundreds of billions in annual transaction volume it processes.

OpenAI has launched cost-per-click pricing for ChatGPT ad campaigns, allowing advertisers to pay only when users click on their ads. Screenshots from OpenAI's ad manager confirm the rollout, which expands the company's advertising offerings beyond its initial ad products. This represents a shift toward more performance-based pricing models as OpenAI builds out its ads business alongside its core AI services.

OpenAI is launching a cost-per-click (CPC) pricing model for ChatGPT ads in the coming days, according to information shared with some advertisers. The new model will coexist with OpenAI's existing ad pricing structure, giving advertisers more flexibility in how they pay for campaigns. This represents OpenAI's continued expansion into the advertising business as it seeks new revenue streams beyond its core subscription and API offerings.