Morning, marketers. Marketing is entering a new phase where AI search, privacy shifts, and autonomous tools are quietly rewriting how growth actually happens. The timelines may be fuzzy, but the direction isn’t.
The old playbooks are losing power, and new ones are forming fast.
What’s clear is that the brands pulling ahead aren’t reacting to change but designing for it. Data ownership, predictive systems, and real-world signals are becoming the new competitive edge.
In Today’s Edge:
The rise of GEO and how AI is reshaping search visibility
Meta’s EU privacy shift and what it means for performance marketing
Why BTL is becoming the new performance lever
Google’s Meridian and the future of measurement
Agentforce and the move toward autonomous marketing systems
🗞️ NEWS
Search behavior is shifting fast. With tools like ChatGPT reaching 800M weekly users and Perplexity becoming a go-to source for quick answers, marketers can no longer rely solely on traditional SEO.
This change has led to the rise of Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). Instead of ranking blue links, the goal is to be recommended by AI systems.
GEO focuses on modular, well-structured, high-authority content that AI agents can easily understand, quote, and surface.
During the holiday season, this matters even more because users ask intent-heavy questions like “best gift under $50” or “quick fixes before year-end.”
Brands winning in GEO are creating reusable content blocks, building strong topical authority, and providing clear answers instead of lengthy, bloated articles. Visibility now depends on how AI reads your content.
Meta introduced a major shift in the EU with its “Privacy-Protected Ad Experience.” Users can now choose to see less personalized ads, limiting cross-app and cross-platform tracking.
This move shows a deeper push toward user data dominance and tighter privacy expectations. For marketers, this changes the rules of performance advertising. Strategies built on heavy retargeting, third-party data, and behavioral profiling are losing reliability.
Instead, brands are being pushed toward consent-based models that rely on first-party data, direct relationships, and value-driven opt-ins.
Email lists, loyalty programs, on-site behavior, and owned communities are becoming critical data moats. Measurement is also getting harder, forcing teams to rethink attribution and optimization.
It doesn’t kill advertising, but it clearly rewards brands that earn trust, collect data transparently, and design experiences users willingly participate in.
💡 STRATEGIES
Leading brands are moving beyond basic segmentation. Companies such as Grammarly and Myntra are using unified identity graphs to connect behavior across channels into one live customer view.
This allows “predictive orchestration,” where systems anticipate what a user needs next instead of reacting after the fact.
During the holidays, this results in messaging that is both emotional and useful, described as “tender and tactical.”
For example, a brand might combine warmth, timing, and urgency in one message rather than running separate brand and sales campaigns.
The big shift here is speed and relevance. Decisions happen in real time, powered by AI models that read signals instantly. Personalization is no longer about customization but about anticipation.
As digital ads become more crowded and costly during the holiday season, brands are rediscovering the power of Below-the-Line (BTL) marketing.
In 2025, high-impact offline activations such as IRL Instagram walls, pop-up booths, and UGC studios are outperforming many paid digital campaigns.
These physical experiences are designed to be filmed, shared, and amplified through Reels and TikTok. The result is a hybrid model where one offline moment fuels weeks of online content.
Compared to large digital ad blitzes, these activations often cost less and drive higher engagement and conversion. They also feel more authentic in a time when users are tired of polished ads.
The key insight is that performance is no longer limited to dashboards and clicks. Real-world moments, when engineered for social distribution, are becoming one of the most effective growth levers during peak seasons.
🛠️ RESOURCES & TOOLS
Google introduced Meridian, an open-source Marketing Mix Model designed to help brands understand true incrementality.
Instead of relying on last-click attribution, Meridian focuses on causal impact, showing what actually drove results versus what merely captured demand. This is especially useful as privacy changes reduce signal clarity.
Alongside Meridian, Google launched AI Max, which automates creative optimization across Search, YouTube, Display, and Performance Max. AI Max tests, adapts, and scales creatives based on real-time performance signals.
Together, these tools signal Google’s push toward smarter measurement and automation at scale. For marketers, this means less manual guesswork and more confidence in budget allocation.
The broader shift is clear: measurement is becoming more statistical and model-driven, while execution is handled more by AI systems.
In 2025, Salesforce launched Agentforce, marking a shift from automation to true agentic marketing.
Unlike traditional workflows that follow fixed rules, Agentforce allows marketers to deploy autonomous agents that can analyze data, generate insights, direct journeys, and create content with minimal human input.
These agents can monitor audience behavior, adjust messaging, and optimize campaigns continuously. This reduces execution lag and frees teams to focus on strategy rather than operations.
Agentforce also integrates deeply with Salesforce’s CRM ecosystem, giving agents access to rich first-party data. The bigger implication is structural: marketing teams no longer need large execution layers to scale.
Instead, small teams can run complex, multi-channel programs with AI agents acting as always-on operators. Marketing is moving from manual coordination to system-led decision-making.