Issue 80  October 15th 2026

Retailers whipsaw on AI Agent Strategy

Retailers still haven’t settled on a consolidated plan for dealing with AI agents. Amazon blocks them all, eBay doles out permissions, and Gap allows agent browsing but blocks buying. QVC is all in, going as far as sending digital catalogs directly to LLMs.

Even worse, the vast majority of retailers block agents by accident. It’s reminiscent of when retailers realized they were accidentally blocking LLM bot traffic and had to scramble to unwind outdated security measures.

Even the most stolid advertising analyst has swayed in opinion. Eric Seufert firmly planted his flag, declaring agentic commerce a mirage, well, except for travel. The truth is we’re incredibly early, and that leaves the burden of choice and experimentation on already-stretched retail marketing teams. That’s the bad news. The good news is that every new technology brings the incredible opportunity to find outsized return on your investments. As with early search, social, and DTC performance advertising, bold marketers willing to experiment will uncover new opportunities.

ChatGPT has tripled the number of advertisers in a month

At the end of August, ChatGPT boasted 20,000 advertisers. By early October, it’s now at 60,000.

A rough linear projection of its run rate puts that at more than $3 billion in revenue, all in less than a year. Given how quickly and aggressively ChatGPT built out its measurement integration with Branch, all signs point to ChatGPT becoming a highly valuable performance channel.

Walmart’s CTV bet turns it into an ad tech company

When Walmart spent billions on its CTV platform, Vibe.co, in June, I didn’t get the connection. Walmart buying ad tech? I figured it was a play to unlock more CTV reach. Walmart filled in the rest of the picture at its recent Partner Connect conference, where it announced that advertisers can now buy against Walmart audiences across all the major CTV exchanges.

That means retailers can use segments like Young Family, or Recent Grad, to better target their advertising. And since better targeting means better performance while Walmart earns on every ad buy, the retailer has effectively become an ad tech company.

But that doesn’t mean retailers can just flip on the CTV ads and count the conversions. It’s notoriously hard to drive action directly from CTV and even harder to understand true ROI. In a recent conversation, Angela Humphrey, GM at YouAppi, told me marketers need to learn how to factor in household assists to understand true downstream ROAS.

That would explain why Branch’s recent CTV study found that 98% of marketers are confident in their ability to measure CTV, and 87% are increasing budgets, but they all flip-flop on whether it’s a performance or a brand play.

CTV is growing, and you can measure it, provided that measurement actually connects to your bottom line.

Apple’s Home Collection might solve problems you didn’t know you had

Apparently you can hack refrigerators now. In an attempt to win jerk of the year (lots of contenders), someone hacked into hundreds of European supermarket refrigerators for the sole purpose of spoiling food.

Mean-spirited and pointless as the attack was, IoT-expert Sy Bohy raises a great point about how woefully unprepared IoT devices are for agentic offensive capabilities. AI opens up a huge new threat vector into your home.

Here’s where Apple comes in: By partnering with Samsung and other manufacturers, Apple can create a more secure (and hopefully better functioning) home IoT ecosystem. The lineup only includes cameras, thermostats, and smart door locks today, but hopefully Apple's oversight will keep malcontents from taking over your smart home.

Maybe that’s the justification you need to buy the whole suite of Apple's Home Collection products. You’re welcome.