In partnership with
Hang in there, it's almost the weekend, folks.
Every ad platform has an assistant now. Meta's, announced at Advertising Week last Tuesday, is the first I've seen ask, out loud, to hold the wallet.
The Meta AI business assistant inside Ads Manager is getting memory, "what you tried last quarter, your seasonality, and the goals you've described". And a test of agentic capabilities: plan and create a campaign, generate the imagery and text, update targeting, or change a budget, conversationally.
Scheduled tasks, in test, will handle the weekly summary and the reminder to look at your spend. Meta's line on control: "Previews, approvals, and controls let you decide what to hand off and what to own."
Then the rest of the list. Ads Creative Studio rolls out more widely. Advantage+ can now generate video from static assets. Plain-language audience discovery lands in Detailed Targeting by year end.
The ads MCP server adds Perplexity, Snowflake, Databricks and Innovid, with agent-staged work landing as a draft "so people and agents can co-author the same campaign". And checkout inside the conversation, in test with Shopify, Stripe, PayPal and Adyen, Marketing Dive reports.
Meta's proof point is that advertisers who take its recommendations see "5% more conversions at the same cost per conversion" than those who don't. Meta grading its own homework, so hold it loosely. The adopters may just be the ones with cleaner accounts.
I've watched this movie before, in three parts. The platform suggests. Then it suggests with a one-click apply. Then it applies and tells you afterwards, opt-out buried in settings. Meta is at part two and describing part three in the present tense.
What's different this time is the memory. An assistant that remembers your seasonality and your last quarter's tests is useful. It's also a record of your strategy that lives in Meta's system. Nobody at Meta said what else that memory informs.
So here's the Friday question, and it's a budget question. When the assistant proposes moving 20% of spend into a new video variant it generated itself, and your media manager has eleven other things open, who actually says yes?
Today’s sponsor:
Stop losing deals in between meetings.
Aligned is changing how B2B teams run their most important deals.
Most reps guess where a deal really stands. They forecast on a gut feeling and the buyer’s word vs what's actually happening. Then they realize the deal slipped through only after it's too late. Aligned surfaces what buyers are actually doing inside every deal: the risks, the openings, and the exact next step to keep things moving.
Start increasing your close rates and stand up your first deal room in minutes.
TALK ON THE MARKET
Jan Müller, senior sales manager for Snap's largest customers in DACH, on why Snapchat stopped recommending fully AI-made video in Spotlight, to VideoWeek:
There's some good AI-generated content out there, but a lot of it is just crap.
Published the week Meta made generating video a default button, one platform on the record against it.
He sells ads for a living. He's telling you the feed is the brand.
Want to see case studies of AI-powered campaigns?
Try our sister newsletter:
NUMBERS MATTER
57%. That's the share of employees who hide their AI use and present the output as their own, in figures Dept's chief product officer Roy Armale presented at Advertising Week, per The Drum. 53% worry it makes them look replaceable; one in three admit to undermining their company's AI strategy.
Dept didn't name the study. Your adoption dashboard counts logins, not the people lying about them.
DAILY PROMPT
Our Video Ad Script Writer, so the variant Meta generates has something of yours to start from:
You are an expert video ad copywriter specializing in [PLATFORM] ads. Your task is to write a compelling video ad script that drives [PRIMARY_ACTION].
## Campaign Context
- Product/Service: [PRODUCT_NAME]
- Target Audience: [AUDIENCE_DESCRIPTION]
- Video Length: [15/30/60] seconds
- Primary Goal: [GOAL: awareness/consideration/conversion]
- Key Differentiator: [UNIQUE_VALUE_PROP]
- Tone: [TONE: professional/casual/humorous/urgent]
- Attached source material: [BRAND_ASSETS_AND_PERFORMANCE_FILES]
- Competitors to research: [COMPETITOR_LIST]
Read the attached files before drafting. Pull voice, claims, and proof points from them rather than inventing any. Research current ad formats, spec limits, and creative conventions on [PLATFORM], plus how [COMPETITOR_LIST] position themselves, then tell me what you found that changed your approach.
## Script Requirements
1. Hook (first 2-3 seconds): Grab attention with a problem statement, an unexpected fact, or a relatable scenario
2. Body (middle section): Show the solution or benefit in action. Include 1-2 key features or social proof
3. Call-to-Action (final 2-3 seconds): Clear, specific instruction on what to do next
4. Visual Cues: Include [VISUAL DESCRIPTIONS] in brackets to guide video production
5. Tone Consistency: Maintain [TONE] throughout without sounding salesy
## Constraints
- Use conversational, natural language (avoid corporate jargon)
- Include a hook that works with sound OFF (visual storytelling)
- Mention price/offer only if [INCLUDE_PRICING: yes/no]
- Avoid claims that need disclaimers unless [INCLUDE_DISCLAIMERS: yes]
- Target emotion: [EMOTION: urgency/aspiration/trust/humor]
- Flag any claim you cannot trace to the attached files
## Output Format
Provide the script as:
- **Voiceover/Text:** [Exact words to be spoken or displayed]
- **Visual:** [What viewers see during this section]
- **Duration:** [Approximate seconds]
Then provide a brief strategic note on why this approach works for [PLATFORM], and three alternative hooks built on different emotional angles, each with the audience insight behind it.Use it on the static asset you'd otherwise hand to Advantage+. The script is the brief the generator never asked for.
CMO CORNER
Teams mirror the emotional climate you create.
If 57% of people are hiding the tool, the climate is the problem, not the tool. The first AI policy worth writing is the one that makes using it safe to admit.
We provide consulting services for CMOs on AI strategy for marketing teams through our Teamless offering.
TOOL UPGRADE
Generate the video yourself before the platform generates it for you. Three ways:
HeyGen — best for avatar-led product and onboarding video that scales across languages and segments without a crew. Try HeyGen here →
Synthesia — best for enterprise teams that need AI presenters, templates and approvals in one place for training and launch video. Try Synthesia here →
Foxy AI — best for photorealistic video and stills of yourself or your team without a camera, for founders who are the brand's face. Try Foxy AI here →
→ We have 300+ curated, filtered, and categorized AI tools in our directory. Browse to find the best ones that help your marketing team.
LEARN THIS
For the 57%: Winning Your Team for AI. A 35-minute workshop replay on the 3C Method, Contract, Companion, Case, for the leader whose team is quietly resisting the strategy.
→ We publish workshops, courses, guides, manuals, and more on AI marketing for free. Browse our learning resources for free.
BRAND SLOP
Washington State Athletics announced a multi-year deal with FanWord, "the leading AI technology & storytelling company in college sports", to help produce its game recaps, feature stories and player bios. It did this while two sports information director jobs sat unfilled, and with a journalism school on campus named after Edward R. Murrow.
The backlash arrived overnight, Awful Announcing reports. The clarification came through a reporter's X post: it's a tool, not a replacement, and they're committed to hiring another SID. The dean of the Murrow College followed with a statement that ends "Go Cougs!"
A press release that promises to "dramatically reduce the time spent creating" the stories your fans read is a press release about your fans. Who on your team reads the vendor's copy before it goes out under your name?
Reach marketing leaders through us
You’re reading this, and so are nearly 20,000 of your peers. Some of them are your next customers.
If you sell to marketing teams, a single placement is €500 and a full week is €2,000.
If you want to place an ad, simply reply to this email or check our media kit.