AI Engineer

In case you missed it... Big ideas, industry shifts and rising young chefs! 03.09.2026 AI advertising advances Just 200 days after launching its self-serve advertising platform to brands worldwide, ChatGPT has already reached an annualised advertising run rate of US$1 billion. OpenAI reports tens of thousands of brands worldwide have adopted the platform. It works by letting companies place targeted ads directly within ChatGPT conversations. Advertisers provide topic descriptions that help determine when their products or services are relevant to a user's query, ensuring placements appear in appropriate contexts. The rapid growth of ChatGPT's advertising business highlights the increasing interest from brands looking to connect with consumers in conversational environments, as AI-powered platforms continue to become a larger part of everyday online activity. However, it's important to remember that while paid ads can accelerate brand awareness, they won't improve search citation rates. Long-term visibility in AI search still depends on strong content, consistent messaging, and third-party validation. Ads currently only appear to users on ChatGPT's Free and Go plans, while premium subscription tiers remain ad-free. A festival with purpose This past weekend, Olivia Rodrigo's Daisy Chain Fields Festival made a powerful debut, bringing together music, activism and advocacy in a celebration of women's voices and achievements. Held in Irvine, California, the festival was created to honour the artistry and influence of women in music while supporting causes that impact females around the world. The event raised awareness and funds for a range of issues, including reproductive rights, maternal health, economic empowerment, domestic violence prevention and gender equality. All net proceeds were directed to the Daisy Chain Fields Fund, which supports 10 nonprofit organisations, including Planned Parenthood, Baby2Baby, Black Mamas Matter Alliance and the National Women's Law Centre. The all-female lineup featured some of the industry's biggest names, including Olivia Rodrigo, Chappell Roan, Doechii, Stevie Nicks, Garbage, Die Spitz and Not For Radio. Each artist performed without pay, ensuring that more funds could be directed towards charity. The festival initially raised $10 million, with philanthropist Melinda French Gates pledging to match the amount, doubling the total to $20 million. At a time when women's rights are facing growing challenges globally, the festival brought people together for important conversations, creating a powerful platform for women's voices, stories and advocacy. Seeing women use their platforms to drive meaningful change is a powerful reminder that progress happens when women support, advocate for and invest in one another. A new player in media monitoring Former Isentia leader, John Croll, has officially brought his own media intelligence platform to Australia. Founded seven years ago, the software has already established a presence in Singapore, New Zealand and the United States. However, it previously avoided the Australian market due to the high costs associated with accessing copyrighted media content. The platform is designed to help PR, communications, marketing and government teams monitor and analyse media coverage in real time. Using artificial intelligence, Truescope offers sentiment analysis, competitive benchmarking, custom reporting and instant alerts, providing organisations with valuable insights into public perception and media performance. Speaking to Mumbrella, John said growing demand from Australian clients ultimately drove the decision to launch locally. Confident in the company's position, he noted that Truescope understands the industry well and is focused on delivering high-quality media intelligence solutions. With its arrival, Truescope becomes the fourth major player in Australia's media monitoring sector, joining established competitors such as Streem, Meltwater and Cision. As competition in the space continues to grow, it will be interesting to see how Truescope's capabilities compare and what new opportunities it may bring to communications and marketing teams. Melbourne turns up the heat with a week of culinary action IMPACTers Trish McGee and Eva Macquet were on the ground in Melbourne this week, soaking up all the energy and excitement at the 2026 Nestlé Golden Chef's Hat Award grand finals. Held as part of Fine Food Australia, the two-day live cook-off saw 11 of Australia's brightest emerging chefs battle it out for one of the industry's most coveted titles. With standout dishes on the pass and plenty of support from the sidelines, the atmosphere was electric. The celebrations wrapped up in style last night at Melbourne's trendy Half Acre, where chefs, mentors and foodservice leaders came together to recognise the passion, creativity and hard work of the next generation of culinary stars. A huge congratulations to all finalists and winners who proved the future of Australia's culinary industry is in very good hands. Nestlé Professional is an IMPACT client.

Marketbridge and Meltwater team up for B2B GEO services. Article by Christopher Wood | Jul 28, 2026 Today, Marketbridge and Meltwater announced a partnership to sell B2B go-to-market strategies and intelligence for generative engine optimization (GEO). * Some 32% of B2B buyers worldwide use generative AI chatbots to discover new vendors, nearly matching web search and peer recommendations at 33% each, according to a July 2025 Responsive survey reported in EMARKETER. * Among US B2B buyers who use AI, 35% use it for discovery, 43% for consideration, and 31% for purchase decisions, per Google and National Research Group's June-July 2025 survey. Marketbridge will fold Meltwater's intelligence on GEO, and on how B2B brands show up across other channels, into its own go-to-market services. Combining services and intelligence Under the new partnership, Meltwater provides intelligence from its analysis of 1.3 billion pieces of content across the web daily, which Marketbridge then integrates with go-to-market strategy and content workflow for B2B clients. The B2B buyer's journey has changed, and the combined offering is built for it. Buyers now use large language models (LLMs) to discover and research products and services, and the joint strategies are designed around that behavior. Marketbridge and Meltwater clients can use many of the combined capabilities now. The companies expect to launch a broader integrated solution in Q4 2026. Shifting B2B strategies A segment of buyers now turns to generative AI chatbots to search for products and services, which makes chatbot influence one more thing marketers have to measure alongside social media, online discussion forums, influencers, and traditional search engines. Marketbridge and Meltwater are rebuilding workflows around that, delivering intelligence on how brands and their competitors appear in LLM searches. "The biggest shift that is happening, especially in B2B, is that the decision-making and buying committees are researching products through LLMs," said Geoffrey Sidari, chief innovation officer and head of AI at Marketbridge. The joint offering could help businesses use the intelligence (how their brand shows up in LLMs and other channels) to apply it to business functions beyond communications, including sales, marketing, customer success, product, and supply chain, according to Sidari. "There's information that sits in those discussions that is valuable to a lot of different use cases, and wasn't really easily unpackable, even three years ago," he said. LLM shifts give CMOs two challenges. First, they need to understand how LLMs digest content about their brand and present it in conversations with users. Second, they need to understand how customers and prospects respond when they encounter the brand in an LLM response. "As [marketing leads] leave the LLM and enter the rest of the marketing funnel, and the different tools that are traditionally set up to capture marketing leads or sales intent, we're able to see how one is impacting the other," said Sidari. "And this change has happened so fast in the last 12 months that I think it caught B2B marketers off guard. I think B2C marketers were probably first to catch on that LLMs were impacting the buying journey." Easier access to intelligence The partnership aims for Meltwater's clients to more easily share Meltwater's intelligence on LLMs and other channels with teams that can use this data in their day-to-day functions. "If we know what the earned media is saying and what the LLMs are saying, it puts us in a unique position to be able to drive insights from that, rather than having to go to six different places to do that," said Mark Arduino, partner director, agency and consulting, for Meltwater. "But then combine that with the ability Marketbridge has, which is to connect this into a bigger go-to-market strategy." He added, "What our clients will benefit from is [Marketbridge's expertise] on how to build a strong data foundation, and the ability to synthesize [Meltwater's] insights across other data sources and use cases." This was originally featured in the EMARKETER Daily newsletter. For more marketing insights, statistics, and trends, subscribe here. You've read 1 of 2 free articles this month. Get more articles - create your free account today!

Meltwater expands MCP for real-time alerts & reports. Published on: 9th July 2026 at 12:35 PM Meltwater has expanded its Model Context Protocol (MCP) to add a new set of tools that allow AI assistants to take action inside the Meltwater platform. The expansion aims to help teams access insights, create reports, and track alerts in real time. Meltwater has hosted MCP natively since June 2025. This allowed users to ask questions in plain language and receive trusted answers grounded in Meltwater's licensed data which analyses 1.3 billion-plus documents a day. Meltwater MCP aims to move beyond simply answering questions to allow AI tools to build on existing projects within the Meltwater platform. Teams can ask their preferred AI tool for an overview of breaking news coverage, a brand health report, or a brief on trending social media topics, without having to log in to Meltwater and start a search from scratch. The results can be saved, re-used and referenced again by an AI agent that knows the purpose behind them. Meltwater MCP is a single, governed connector that brings Meltwater's licensed data into any compatible AI assistant, letting teams ask questions in plain language and get cited, verifiable answers without a custom integration or specialist help. "Intelligence shouldn't require a specialist to unlock it. Meltwater MCP means the analyst, the executive, and the intern can all ask the same question and get the same quality of answer, grounded in real Meltwater data, right inside the AI tools they already use every day," said Meltwater chief product officer Chris Hackney. "Teams shouldn't have to pick between the AI tool they already love using and the data they actually trust, but that's the tradeoff most integrations force on them. Meltwater MCP means they don't have to. It's one connector, fully governed, bringing real Meltwater intelligence into whichever assistant a team is already using. And now, they can act on it too, not just ask about it," said Meltwater chief technology officer Aditya Jami. Meltwater MCP is available to Meltwater customers. Join more than 30,000 advertising industry experts Get all the latest advertising and media news direct to your inbox from B&T.