Hi Shopifreaks
Two weeks ago I introduced my new video series 90 Second Pitches — an entertaining way to discover innovative e-commerce technology from the industry's most promising startups. Please subscribe to the channel on LinkedIn and YouTube if you haven't already done so.
Today I'm excited to share the second pitch in our series from Sam Ayre, head of marketing at Cuttable — a creative engine that will change the way you run Meta campaigns forever.
Cuttable turns your existing e-commerce website and product content into high-performing Meta ads, in minutes. It learns your brand, creates dozens of creatives for your ad campaigns, and then publishes them to your Meta ad manager in one click. It's without a doubt the fastest way I've ever seen anyone conceptualize, design, and publish Meta campaigns! It would literally take me days to do what Cuttable does in minutes.
Watch Sam's 90 Second Pitch on LinkedIn or YouTube and then let them him know in the comments if you'll be adding Cuttable to your tech stack. Afterwards check out my full interview with Sam to learn more about how the tech works, see a live action demo, and dive deeper into Cuttable's startup story.
Watch On LinkedIn | Watch On YouTube
If you're interested in giving Cuttable a try, they're currently offering 1,000 free ads to e-commerce brands as part of their U.S. launch. Start your free trial, connect Cuttable to your store, generate your first set of ad creatives, and judge for yourself how they stack up against your own. It's risk-free to try, so what are you waiting for?
And now onto our regularly scheduled programming.
In this week's edition I cover:
- Amazon sues Perplexity
- Apple partners with Google to power Siri
- Amazon Bazaar launches in 14 countries
- Commerce enters the Shopify ecosystem
- Meta knowingly profits from scammers
- The end of free Amazon Selling Partner API
- OpenAI's $38B with Amazon
- OpenAI's geting sued into oblivion
- Shopify's new Offers Feed
- Walmart adds AI-generated audio summaries
- Shopify joins Substack
- Target makes employees smile
All this and more in this week's 251st Edition of Shopifreaks. Thanks for subscribing and sharing!
Stat of the Week
TikTok Shop is now the size of eBay in terms of total sales after selling an estimated $19B worth of products globally from July though September this year compared to eBay's $20.1B in sales during the same period. The United States, which is TikTok Shop's largest market, accounted for almost $4.5B in sales, marking an increase of about 125% compared to the previous quarter. TikTok Shop only launched in the U.S. in September 2023, while eBay has been around for over 30 years.
1. Battle of the Year: Amazon vs Perplexity
For a deeper dive into this story, watch my video on LinkedIn where I breakdown the merits of Amazon's lawsuit and share why I originally thought Amazon and Perplexity were BOTH in the wrong, but later changed my opinion to side completely with Amazon.
Last week Amazon filed a lawsuit against Perplexity after sending a cease and desist letter demanding that they block their AI browser Comet from shopping on Amazon.com or its mobile app. Following receipt of the letter, Perplexity released a public statement in which they called it Amazon's “first legal salvo against an AI company” and a “threat to all Internet users.”
Perplexity went on to compare software to a tool “like a wrench,” and then compared agentic AI to labor — trying to draw the comparison that Amazon doesn't have the right to stop you from owning wrenches or hiring labor to act as an assistant on your behalf. They wrote:
“The law is clear that large corporations have no right to stop you from owning wrenches. Today, Amazon announced it does not believe in your right to hire labor, to have an assistant or an employee acting on your behalf. This isn’t a reasonable legal position, it’s a bully tactic to scare disruptive companies like Perplexity out of making life better for people. “
They went on to claim that Amazon's sole motivation is to keep you shopping directly on their website or mobile app so that they can continue to serve you ads, which is a logical accusation to make, given Amazon's $60B advertising business that it needs to protect.
Initially after reading the post, I related with some of Perplexity's arguments, especially the part about how “large corporations use legal threats and intimidation to block innovation and make life worse for people.” It happens all the time in Big Tech to the detriment of the industry and consumers. They pulled on my emotional strings with that one.
However I disagreed with Perplexity's stance on “AI rights” when they wrote:
“Your AI assistant must be indistinguishable from you. When Comet Assistant visits a website, it does so with your credentials, your permissions, and your rights… Publishers and corporations have no right to discriminate against users based on which AI they've chosen to represent them.”
That's where I called bullshit. AI has no rights.
If Amazon wants to block Perplexity from accessing their website, that's 100% their prerogative. Every marketplace, store, and website should have the same “rights” to block non-human users. Websites can already choose to function or not function on certain browsers, so why can't they choose not to function for certain AI?
AI shopping is unproven. For all we know it leads to more erroneous purchases and higher return rates. Amazon doesn't want to be the Guinea pig and beta test your error-prone AI shopping feature, nor should they have to.
Perplexity is acting like AI is a protected class, as if Amazon was like “NO JEWS CAN SHOP AT AMAZON!” — but AI doesn't have any rights and doesn't deserve any protections.
After reading Perplexity's post, at first I thought:
“Amazon is right that they should be able to block any AI bots they want, but this isn't a battle for the court room. If Amazon wants to block Perplexity from shopping on their website, they need to figure out how to do so with technology.”
Then I read Amazon's cease and desist letter and completely changed my tune.
As it turns out, Amazon tried to block Perplexity's AI agents with technology, and even spoke to the company about its wishes to do so, but instead of complying, Perplexity took concerted effort to disguise Comet as a Google Chrome browser, which Amazon claims is in violation of multiple Internet and computer fraud laws.
Amazon says it “shares the industry's excitement about AI innovations,” but “transparency is critical because it protects a service provider's right to monitor AI agents and restrict conduct that degrades the customer shopping experience, erodes customer trust, and creates security risks for our customers' private data.”
The letter goes on to say that “Perplexity has refused to operate transparently” despite multiple requests by Amazon to stop its undisclosed agentic activities, which violate Amazon's Conditions of Use.
Throughout the letter, Amazon references the risks that third-party AI agents bring to the customer experience and security of their shoppers, as well as multiple laws that Perplexity is breaking by not abiding my Amazon's request and attempting to circumvent its firewalls.
Amazon isn't the only company that wants to protect its business model against AI.
Businesses across all types of industries want the same, including myself and other publishers. We don't want AI scraping our content and bypassing our websites or newsletter subscriptions. That means less traffic and ad revenue — no different than a retail site.
Everyone's got a business model that they should be able to defend against AI if they so choose. And that's ultimately where Perplexity gets it all wrong. AI doesn't have any rights that need protecting… we the people do.
What are your thoughts? Hit reply and let me know or join the conversation on LinkedIn.
2. Apple partners with Google to power its Siri voice assistant
Apple is planning to pay Google about $1B a year for an ultrapowerful AI model to help overhaul its Siri voice assistant, according to Bloomberg sources.
Well that one definitely wasn't on my 2025 Bingo Card!
Apple had previously considered using other third-party models like ChatGPT and Claude, but ultimately decided that Google's 1.2 trillion parameter custom Gemini model would best serve its users, at least as an interim solution until Apple's own models are powerful enough, which could be years from now or never. The custom Gemini model is a major advancement over the 150 billion parameter model that Apple currently uses today for its cloud-based version of Apple Intelligence.
Still though, tapping into your biggest competitor for help with AI? That's like Meta adding a Grok chatbot to its mobile apps!
Here's how the arrangement will work:
- Gemini will handle Siri's summarizer and planner functions, which help it synthesize information and decide how to execute complex tasks.
- Some Siri features will continue to use Apple's in-house models. LOL, like “Turn on Flashlight”? Is Apple sure their AI models can handle that one?
- The Gemini model will run on Apple's own Private Cloud Compute servers to ensure that user data remains walled off from Google.
- The partnership won't be visible to Apple users, but will instead be a fully white label solution, unlike the two companies' Safari browser deal, which made Google the default search engine.
Bloomberg notes that the move for Apple “marks an acknowledgement that it has fallen behind on AI — and is now willing to rely on outside technology to catch up.”
As much as I'd like to say something snarky like, “Well iPhone users… might as well switch to Android then!” — I wouldn't bet against Apple in the long run. They've not successfully pioneered any new technology category in decades, but somehow always manage to enter the game late and land on top. Without a doubt, we'll be having a different conversation about Apple's in-house AI efforts within just a few years.
3. Amazon launches Haul as “Bazaar” in 14 countries
Remember Amazon Haul — the low-cost direct-from-China marketplace it launched in November 2024 to compete with Temu and Shein? After piloting the budget marketplace in the US one year ago, Amazon subsequently launched Haul in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan and Australia.
Amazon then took its budget marketplace model to Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, this time launching under the name Bazaar to better resonate with local languages and cultures.
Now, the Bazaar marketplace is expanding to 14 additional countries with a new mobile app including Hong Kong, Philippines, Taiwan, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Peru, Ecuador, Argentina, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Nigeria.
Here's what we know about Bazaar:
- Most items on Bazaar are priced under $10, with many as low as $2.
- Product categories range from fashion and apparel to home and lifestyle goods.
- Customers can use their existing Amazon credentials to shop on the app.
- Free shipping is available in all regions by hitting local minimum purchase amounts, with a flat rate delivery charge for smaller orders.
- New customers receive 50% off their first order.
- Deliveries typically arrive in two weeks or less.
- All products sold on Bazaar undergo Amazon's compliance checks before being listed for sale.
- Bazaar offers free returns within 15 days of receipt.
- Bazaar supports six languages including English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, and Chinese.
- Payment options include Visa, Mastercard, and American Express cards. (No BNPL? I want to split my $14 purchase into four interest-free installments.)
- The Bazaar mobile app is available for both iOS and Android.
I am currently living in Ecuador, one of the new countries that Bazaar expanded to, but I wasn't able to download Bazaar because my Google Play account is tied to the U.S. However tomorrow I'm going to download Bazaar to my wife's phone and see how good the deals are.
If you're living in a country where Bazaar just launched, what do you think about the marketplace? Hit reply and let me know.
4. Commerce unveils two new Shopify apps for Feedonomics
Commerce, the newly rebranded parent company of BigCommerce, Feedonomics, and Makeswift, launched two apps for Shopify merchants to help maximize reach, enhance data, simplify operations and scale.
Yes, you read that correctly… BigCommerce Commerce is now building Shopify apps! The apps include:
- Feedonomics for Advertising – an app to sync your Shopify product catalog with Feedonomics and prepare it for advertising across hundreds of channels including Google Shopping, TikTok, Meta, Microsoft, and Pinterest.
- Feedonomics Listing & Orders – an app to syndicate your product catalog, streamline order processing, keep inventory and pricing updated, and optimize product data across your Shopify store and hundreds of other channels with Feedonomics.
Al Williams, general manager of B2C at Commerce, said:
“Merchants today need a unified way to optimize product data and manage orders across multiple channels without sacrificing time or accuracy. Our new capabilities for Shopify simplify complex workflows, enhance data integrity and empower brands and agencies to scale their operations with confidence.”
Why are they two separate apps? Wouldn't it make more sense just to have one single “Feedonomics” app for Shopify that handles everything? After all, product feeds, pricing, inventory, and advertising go hand-in-hand. Williams even used the words “unified way” in his quote, but unified means “one” not “two.”
Plus aren't the Shopify apps just a bridge to connect a merchant's product catalog, orders, and other store data to the Feedonomics platform, which then does all the heavy lifting? I'm curious why Commerce needed to build two bridges to the same island.
If you know the answer, please let me know.
Either way, I think it's smart for Commerce to move towards better serving the Shopify ecosystem, and Feedonomics is their best play at doing so.
Tim Richard, co-founder at Factory, asked me a few months ago:
“What's your thesis on how Big Commerce (or Commerce) is positioning for the agentic evolution. You reckon they'll be the platform of choice for pure agentic shopping (eg, humans outsource this to agents)? As opposed to Shopify who might make it difficult for bots to interact with their platform?”
My answer at the time was:
“I actually think the bigger play is with Feedonomics in that area. If they can position themselves to be an agentic commerce reach platform, that helps merchants get their products discovered by all agentic agents regardless of what platform they start on, then I think it would be a great way to serve an upcoming need by an established player. And then it could work in conjunction with the BigCommerce platform the same way it does with Shopify and every other CMS.”
I later added:
“I think it makes the most sense to offer AI reach through their feed management tool instead of their CMS so that it's platform agnostic and opens up a bigger market for them. Then they can more heavily target B2B through BigC and focus D2C efforts through Feedo. I don't mean to insinuate that they should give up on D2C with BigCommerce, but locking all their agentic AI offering into their CMS doesn't seem like a great long term move when the greater D2C market is happening off of the BigCommerce platform.”
Although Feedonomics could previously integrate with Shopify via API connections, these new dedicated Shopify apps should help streamline the process for merchants, as well as offer a new discovery channel for Feedonomics through the Shopify App Store.
5. Meta knowingly makes billions of dollars a year selling ads to scammers
Meta knowingly serves users 15 billion ads for scams every day and earns about 10% of is annual revenue from the scam ads, according to internal documents viewed by Reuters. The documents reveal that for at least three years, Meta failed to identify and stop ads that exposed Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp users to fraudulent e-commerce and investment schemes, illegal online casinos, and the sale of banned medical products, resulting in the company earning $7 billion each year from these scam ads.
Holy shit, can this company get any worse? Yes, they can. Keep reading…
The documents revealed that Meta only bans advertisers if its automated systems predict the marketers are at least 95% certain to be committing fraud. If their algorithms are less certain, but the advertiser is still flagged as a likely scammer, Meta simply charges higher ad rates as a penalty.
So basically if Meta has any plausible deniability that it's working with a scammer, rather than investigate the situation further, Meta instead gouges the scammers, who will likely pay the higher rates because they don't have many options of other platforms to advertise on (because those other platforms don't allow scams).
But wait, it gets EVEN WORSE!
At one point, Meta even placed restrictions on how much revenue it is willing to lose from acting against suspected scammers, stating that it wasn't willing to take actions that could cost the company more than 0.15% of the its total revenue, or about $135M.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said the documents seen by Reuters “present a selective view that distorts Meta's approach to fraud and scams.” He also said that the company's internal estimate that it would earn 10% of its 2024 revenue from scam ads was “rough and overly-inclusive” and that Meta later determined that the number was lower, but declined to provide an updated figure.
Stone also said that Meta has “reduced user reports of scam ads globally by 58%” during the past 18 months and “removed more than 134 million pieces of scam ad content” since the beginning of the year. (While probably hiking up the rates for the rest of the scammers on their platform to keep revenue the same. LOL)
6. Amazon Selling Partner API is no longer free
Amazon is introducing a new fee structure for its Selling Partner API (SP-API), marking the end of the free access that developers have enjoyed since introduction of the API in 2009 (formerly called Marketplace Web Services).
- Starting January 31, 2026, all developers will be charged an annual subscription fee of $1400, which includes access to the Solution Provider Portal, support services, and production usage of SP-API.
- New developers to sign up before then will be charged after their first production SP-API service call, while existing third-party developers will see charges begin on this date.
- Starting April 30, 2026, Amazon will implement a monthly API usage fee based on your GET API call volume. Developers can choose from four tiers — Basic, Pro, Plus, and Enterprise — which range from an additional $0 to $10,000 per month and include packages of GET Calls ranging from 2.5M to 250M.
- Additional API calls beyond those packages will cost $0.40 per thousand calls.
- Amazon published a Call Optimization Guidance Page with best practices and tools to help developers make more efficient API calls.
- All developers are required to activate their subscription by Feb 16, 2026, or risk losing access to SP-API until they have provided payment and tax information.
PPC Land notes that sellers and vendors using SP-API directly for only their own businesses will not face additional SP-API fees. The new API fees apply exclusively to third-party developers who build applications serving other selling partners.
Third-party software companies that build applications serving Amazon sellers will initially bear these costs, but it's expected that eventually they'll be passed on to sellers through higher SaaS fees.
The changes are expected to force developers of third-party tools to optimize their API calls for efficiency, and of course, make Amazon some money!
7. OpenAI and Amazon make a $38B cloud computing deal
Speaking of making Amazon more money… OpenAI reached a deal with Amazon to buy $38B in cloud computing services over the next seven years, with plans to immediately start using AWS compute and all capacity targeted to be deployed before the end of 2026.
The deal follows OpenAI's restructuring last week, which opened the company up to be able to buy computing services from other firms besides Microsoft without their permission.
Okay, so how many multi-billion dollar future-dated checks has OpenAI written at this point?
- OpenAI promised a total of $22.4B to CoreWeave to secure computational power.
- Then there's its $300B deal with Oracle.
- The $250B deal with Microsoft Azure.
- A six gigawatt deal with AMD worth tens of billions.
- Also a ten gigawatt deal with Broadcam worth even more.
- And let's not forget OpenAI's $100B circular deal with Nvidia.
OpenAI is currently on an unsustainable spending spree. In 2024, the company burned through $5 billion, and during the first nine months of this year, has already lost over $25.5 billion. No tech company has ever burned through so much cash in this little amount of time. And yet ChatGPT still can't commit any instruction to memory for more than a few prompts! Another $300B in computing power should fix that issue though, right?
I'm starting to think that OpenAI's goal is to position themselves as the financial glue that props up the entire AI market, all part of a master plan to make themselves too big to fail so that they get government and institutional bail outs when they do inevitably go bust.
8. OpenAI facing seven lawsuits for driving users to suicide
OpenAI is facing seven new lawsuits claiming that ChatGPT drove people to suicide and harmful delusions even when they had no prior mental health issues. The lawsuits filed Thursday in California on behalf of six adults and one teenager allege wrongful death, assisted suicide, involuntary manslaughter, and negligence.
One lawsuit filed by the family of a 17-year-old who committed suicide says ChatGPT advised the boy on the most effective way to tie a noose and how long he would be able to “live without breathing.”
OpenAI called the situations “incredibly heartbreaking” and said it was reviewing the court filings to understand the details.
And just in case those lawsuits aren't costly enough for the company…
OpenAI is also potentially facing billions in damages and sanctions after authors and publishers suing the company secured access to Slack messages and e-mails discussing the deletion of a dataset containing pirated books. If they succeed, the communications could demonstrate willful infringement, resulting in enhanced damages of as much as $150,000 per work.
Additionally if the court finds that OpenAI destroyed evidence anticipating litigations, the judge could issue monetary penalties, limit OpenAI's defenses, or issue a default judgement in the plaintiffs' favor. The ruling follows a $1.5B settlement by Anthropic in a similar case.
9. Other e-commerce news of interest
Shopify introduced an Offers Feed into its Shop App, giving shoppers a dedicated space to browse discounts, price drops, and other promotional offers from brands. Merchant promotions will now show up in a banner on top of their Shop storefront, on product detail pages, and in the new Offers Feed. Shop App currently supports percentage discounts, fixed-amount discounts, free shipping offers, and BOGO deals.
Walmart added AI-generated audio summaries to product pages on its app for more than 1,000 premium beauty products, offering short, conversational soundbites that help customers compare items and make purchase decisions by summarizing product details and reviews. You can see examples in action by navigating to a beauty product, such as Paul Mitchell Original Shampoo, within your mobile app and then clicking the “Hear the Summary” button below the image gallery. The move follows a similar feature launched this past May by Amazon called “Hear the Highlights” that lets shoppers listen to AI-generated audio clips in which two virtual hosts discuss a product's features and reviews.
Shopify is now the biggest company to launch a Substack newsletter after publishing the first installment of its brand new newsletter called “In Stock,” which aims to feel more “unbuttoned” than the company's other communication channels, while also complementing Shopify's existing newsroom. The newsletter will offer recurring features like “Decoded,” a series about the real life strategies powering the businesses of various Shopify merchants, as well as editions featuring Q&As with brand founders. ModernRetail's Allison Smith writes, “Shopify’s entrance is the latest sign that brands, including large, publicly traded companies, are taking Substack seriously as a marketing channel.”
Amazon prices have risen 12.8% this year on average as of the end of September, while Target and Walmart prices were up 5.5% and 5.3% respectively, according to a DataWeave study that reviewed 16,000 items on each retailer's website. The sharpest increase came from Amazon between January and February, when prices on surveyed SKUS rose 3.7% on its marketplace, ahead of the majority of President Trump's tariffs, which were announced in April. Target and Walmart increased prices by an average of 0.97% and 0.85% during that same time period.
Shopify says that traffic from AI tools like ChatGPT to its online stores is up 7x since January and purchases attributed to AI searches have increased by 11x. Meanwhile Juozas Kaziukėnas reports that Walmart's traffic from ChatGPT has almost doubled in two months, now up to 37% of total referral traffic for the retailer, up from 32% last month and 21% in August, according to SimilarWeb data. He commented, “I don't believe Walmart is doing any SEO-for-AI optimizations yet. They are getting a lot of clicks because Amazon is absent (because they block ChatGPT scrapers), they have a lot of SKUS and people trust Walmart.”
A UPS cargo plane crashed on Tuesday evening, shortly after taking off from the Louisville, KY airport, tragically killing 14 people. After departing the airport in route to Honolulu, the plane's left engine detached after a “large plume of fire” erupted from the plane's left wing. The aircraft's last reported altitude was 475 ft, or about 100 ft above ground level. Following the plane crash, UPS and FedEx are grounding dozens of MD-11 aircrafts at Boeing's recommendation. MD-11s represent about 9% of UPS' air fleet and 4% of FedEx's fleet.
Etsy CEO Kruti Patel Goyal defended the company’s growing use of AI during an Ask Me Anything event, saying it could help “make Etsy feel even more human” by freeing sellers' time and improving product discovery. Many sellers disagreed, expressing frustration in the live chat and on Reddit over AI-generated listings, scams, and the further dilution of handmade goods on the platform, arguing that Etsy is ignoring the platform's core values. (Although I'd argue that those core values were abandoned in 2015 after its IPO.) Patel Goyal compared AI tools to past technological shifts like knitting looms, saying Etsy would remain inclusive of all creators while improving transparency about how products are made — comments that sellers viewed as tone-deaf and investor-focused.
Netflix began testing dynamic ad insertion for live programming in six countries, including the U.S., Brazil, Canada, Germany, Mexico, and the U.K., ahead of its “NFL Christmas Gameday” broadcast, allowing advertisers to deliver different commercials to individual viewers during live events. This type of advertising is par for the course on traditional TV, but relatively new for streaming. Streaming services including Hulu, Peacock, Paramount+, Disney, and others have utilized DAI for several years on live TV streams and other sports casts, but Netflix's upcoming NFL broadcast will be one of the first mass-audience live streaming events to leverage the technology across multiple countries simultaneously. Netflix also introduced a new more accurate ad measurement standard called Monthly Active Viewers (MAV), defined as members who watch at least one minute of ads per month multiplied by household viewership estimates, claiming to have 190M.
Microsoft announced the formation of its new MAI Superintelligence Team, which will focus on developing practical AI applications such as digital companions, medical diagnostics, and renewable energy systems. The group will be led by Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of the Microsoft AI division that includes Bing and the Copilot assistant. The move comes months after Meta spent billions to hire talent for its Meta Superintelligence Labs unit that's working on research and products. Exciting news, but did Microsoft have to follow Meta's rhetoric and use the word “Superintelligence” in its name? It seems like the name draws unnecessary comparison and scrutiny to the stigma surrounding Meta's “superintelligence” team efforts.
Etsy is testing an Instant Transfer feature, giving some U.S. sellers the option to receive their funds within 30 minutes for a 1% fee, initially with a $500 maximum. (Shouldn't they call it “30 Minute Transfer” then?) The move catches them up to PayPal, Shopify, Square, Stripe, eBay, and other marketplaces, e-commerce platforms, and payment processors that have offered similar for many years. Personally, I'm tired of being asked to pay 1% to receive my own funds faster. It's about to be 2026 — instant money transfers should be the free norm across platforms, not an upsell.
TikTok Shop is fighting a new type of scam where fraudulent sellers use generative AI tools to make fake brands and products in an attempt to get users to pay for goods that don't actually exist, according to Nicolas Waldmann, who leads the platform's governance and experience external affairs team. Waldmann said, “It's organized crime, to be honest. They're trying to basically go through and sell, and of course, never deliver anything, and then run with the money.” This type of scam has existed for years, but generative AI is now making it even easier to do at scale, causing TikTok to have to develop in-house detection tools, as well as partner with third-party firms to fight the fraudsters. TikTok says it has rejected 70M products and removed 700k sellers for policy violations in the first six months of 2025. Wow, that's rampant!
Amazon introduced Kindle Translate, an AI-powered tool that automatically translates books between English, Spanish, and German for self-published authors on Kindle Direct Publishing, with additional languages on the horizon. Books that use the service will have a clear “Kindle Translate” label, which will serve as a warning to customers in case the translations go completely haywire. Amazon says that “all translations are automatically evaluated for accuracy before publication” and that authors can preview the content before publishing it — but what good is showing me a preview of my book in German? I don't speak German. Major literary works often take years to translate into additional languages to properly reflect the nuance, intent, and cultural significance of the author's words, versus producing some literal word-for-word translation. I'm confident this won't end well.
Best Buy is expanding its holiday campaigns this year in a big way to include partnerships with major YouTube creators such as “Hot Ones” host Sean Evans and “Binging with Babish” creator Andrew Rea, alongside over 1,000 influencers in its new Creator Program. The company will feature custom content integrations, influencer-led connected TV ads, and creator storefronts on its website’s holiday Gift Center page, aiming to reach more consumers within the creator economy. Jennie Weber, CMO of Best Buy, said, “We've partnered with influencers in the past, but we're… partnering with them even more this year.”
Anthropic raised its growth forecasts by up to 28%, projecting $70B in revenue and $17B in free cash flow by 2028, compared to OpenAI’s projected $47B cash burn that same year. The company, valued at $170B after a $13B raise in September, could target a $300–$400B valuation in its next funding round. Anthropic expects API sales to businesses to remain its primary driver, which are already double OpenAI’s projected API revenue this year, and to generate over 80% of total revenue through 2028. Its Claude Code assistant is nearing $1B in annualized revenue, with overall annualized revenue at $7B.
The Motion Picture Association is demanding that Meta stop referring to content shown to teen accounts on Instagram as “guided by PG-13 ratings,” claiming that it is misleading and could erode trust in its well established and trusted movie ratings system. A lawyer on behalf of the MPA sent Meta a cease-and-desist letter and says that Meat never contacted them for permission to use the rating system for its content. The letter reads, “Meta’s attempts to restrict teen content literally cannot be ‘guided by’ or ‘aligned with’ the MPA’s PG-13 movie rating because Meta does not follow this curated process. Instead, Meta’s content restrictions appear to rely heavily on artificial intelligence or other automated technology measures.” Meta says it never intended to suggest that it partnered with the MPA or that the material on Instagram had been rated by the movie association, and that it hopes it can work with them to find a resolution.
Shopify released a long-anticipated update to its smart collections, now allowing merchants to exclude products based on tag, whereas previously they could only include them. For example, an apparel merchant can create a Featured Collection that includes the tag “featured” but excludes the tag “womens” so that the collection only shows featured items for men. Thanks Shopify, but now can we please finally have nexted and/or collection logic?!
TikTok is expanding access to its Bulletin Boards feature to more users, allowing brands and creators to share text, image, and video updates directly with followers through a messaging format similar to Instagram’s Broadcast Channels. The tool lets users join a profile’s board to receive notifications for new posts, offering creators another way to share announcements and engage their most active audiences. Bulletin Boards were first tested in June and are now appearing on more profiles, but TikTok hasn’t disclosed eligibility criteria or global rollout details.
Walmart added a new Brand Manager tab in Seller Center, giving trusted sellers the ability to request roles as Authorized Resellers or Acting Brand Owners for specific brands, as spotted by GeekSeller. The feature streamlines brand relationship management by letting sellers upload proof of authorization and track approvals directly within Seller Center, while brand owners can review and approve requests through the Brand Portal. Acting Brand Owners can create brand shops and update product content, while Authorized Resellers have limited editing rights. Walmart emphasized that it remains neutral in reseller disputes and only verifies submitted documentation.
Meta product managers are vibe coding apps to show Mark Zuckerberg and other Meta leadership using internal tools like Metamate and Devmate, rather than waiting on engineers to turn ideas into demos. Joseph Spisak, a product director in Meta's Superintelligence Labs, said, “We can literally vibe code products in a matter of hours, days, and explore the space.” Business Insider says the practice is shedding new light on how Meta and other tech companies are recognizing product development around AI assistants and speeding up the development process of new features.
Google, Microsoft, and Meta have abandoned their decade-long practice of publishing diversity data such as the gender and racial makeup of their workforce, according to spokespeople for the companies who spoke to WIRED. Other tech giants including Apple, Amazon, and Nvidia all released new diversity data this year. Google did not comment and a Meta spokesperson confirmed but did not elaborate on the decision. Microsoft chief spokesperson Frank Shaw said that the company is not doing “a traditional report this year as we’ve evolved beyond that to formats that are more dynamic and accessible,” including “stories, videos, and insights that show inclusion in action.”
Male drivers for Uber and Lyft are suing the ride-hailing companies over a feature that lets users request only women drivers, alleging that the functions have limited the economic opportunities for men and discriminated against them because of their gender. Lawyers are arguing that male drivers “receive fewer and different rides than they otherwise would” and that the policy “reinforces the gender stereotype that men are more dangerous than women.” The lawsuit seeks $4,000 in damages per male driver in California for violating the Unruh Act, a law that prohibits sex discrimination by businesses. Uber first introduced the feature in 2019 in Saudi Arabia and later expanded it to San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Detroit earlier this year. Lyft's program launched across the U.S. in 2023.
Four ex-eBay security staffers settled civil claims tied to the 2019 cyberstalking of journalists Ina and David Steiner, while eBay and former executives Devin Wenig, Steve Wymer, and Wendy Jones will move forward in the upcoming 2026 trial. Prior criminal cases resulted in guilty pleas, and eBay entered a deferred prosecution agreement with a $3M fine, but the Steiners’ civil suit continues, with Judge Patti Saris still weighing whether to accept ex-security chief Jim Baugh’s settlement and scheduling motions. If approved, the new deals could leave only David Harville and Brian Gilbert for any second trial, and damages sought have been reduced from an initial $700M to roughly $100M or less. Liz Morton at Value Added Resources has been following this case for years and has the absolute best coverage on it. Check out her case archives for more information. The case is wild!
Spotify is being sued in a new class-action lawsuit for allegedly ignoring widespread fraudulent streaming activity on its platform from the rapper Drake. The suit, filed in California by rapper RBX, alleges that the inflated play counts between 2022 and 2025 diluted royalties for legitimate artists under Spotify's pro-rata payment model and that Spotify “knew or should have known” that a substantial share of Drake's 37B streams were inauthentic, citing irregular VPN patterns, abnormal listening activity, and 24-hour streaming accounts. Spotify denied wrongdoing, saying it invests heavily in detecting fake streams and does not benefit from artificial streaming. I hope Drake or his management company (or whoever else was involved in the stream heist) gets sued too because that's pretty screwed up.
Target has over 200 corporate jobs available, of which 130 have been posted since the company laid off 1,800 corporate employees on October 23rd. The newly posted positions include engineers, product designers, and data analysts. A Target spokesperson confirmed the open positions and told Modern Retail that the roles are important for the company moving forward for various reasons, even though some overlap with departments affected by layoffs. Jeff Sward, founding partner of retail consultancy Merchandising Metrics, notes that while Target may be replacing higher-cost staff with lower-cost new hires, they could also be replacing underperforming staff.
In corporate shakeups this week… Owner.com, an online ordering and restaurant marketing system, appointed Darrin Henein as Chief Design Officer. He previously worked at Shopify for almost 10 years, mostly recently serving as VP of Design. Nostra.ai, an e-commerce intelligence platform, appointed Ray Chau as Head of Marketing, where he will lead brand strategy, communications, and demand generation for the company.
Tesla shareholders approved Elon Musk's almost $1 trillion pay plan, which was introduced in September, with 75% support among voting shares. The pay package for Musk consists of 12 additional awards of shares to be granted if Tesla hits certain milestones over the next decade, increasing his ownership from 13% to 25%, as well as gives Musk increased voting power over the company, which he's been publicly demanding since early 2024. The first tranche of stock gets paid out if Tesla hits a market cap of $2 trillion (it currently sits at $1.54 trillion) and the next nine would be awarded if Tesla's value increased by increments of $500B to $1 trillion, up to $8.5 trillion. I've got to hand it to Elon Musk. Literally no other CEO could pull this off.
Amazon Web Services announced Fastnet, a dedicated high-capacity fiber-optic cable connecting the US and Ireland, marking its first independently built and operated transatlantic fiber-optic cable. The cable system, which is expected to be operational in 2028, provides 320 Tbps of capacity and is designed to deliver fast and reliable data transfer across the Atlantic, supporting Europe's growing demand for cloud computing and AI services on AWS. Talk about same-day delivery!
A German court ruled that Amazon’s 2022 Prime price increase was unlawful, finding that the company’s terms allowing unilateral adjustments violated consumer protection laws. The decision means Amazon may have to reimburse millions of German customers who paid higher fees since the increase from €69 to €89.50 per year, as well as revert back to its old price. The regional consumer protection authority of North Rhine-Westphalia plans to file a class action lawsuit that could result in hundreds of millions of euros in refunds. Amazon said it is reviewing the ruling and may appeal.
Klarna is expanding its debit card offering to 15 new European markets in partnership with Marqeta and Visa's Flexible Credential technology, building on its U.S. launch of the Klarna Card in June 2025, which enables consumers to pay immediately or pay later with the same card. The Klarna Card is currently rolling out in the UK, Denmark, Germany, Norway and Poland, and is already available in Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden.
🏆 This week's most ridiculous story… Target is forcing their employees to smile at you! The company said it is leaning into “Minnesota Nice” and requiring employees to smile, make eye contract with, and greet or wave to customers if they come within 10 feet, as well as ask whether they need help or how their day is going if they come within four feet. This sounds like an introvert shopper's nightmare! Actually it sounds like everyone's nightmare. Can you imagine getting high right before you go shopping at Target and having every employee you walk past look, greet, and wave at you? I'd be paranoid out of my mind and probably abandon my shopping cart mid-store and leave.
10. Seed rounds, IPOs, & acquisitions
Richard Socher, You.com CEO and former chief scientist at Salesforce, is seeking $1B to launch a new AI research startup focused on automating AI research that he plans to oversee, while continuing to lead You.com. The new venture, co-founded with former OpenAI researcher Tim Shi and 5 other co-founders, will focus on developing technology to automate AI research, aiming to build systems that generate and evaluate novel research ideas rather than consumer products. You.com, which is valued at $1.5B and boasts annualized revenue of more than $50M, recently shifted from consumer search to selling AI tools for businesses.
Convesio, a managed WordPress host focused on WooCommerce websites, acquired PeachPay, a one-click checkout and payment solution for WooCommerce, for an undisclosed amount. As part of the deal, the PeachPay team is joining Convesio with plans to integrate its all-in-one WooCommerce payments and checkout solution into ConvesioPay, offering a service that enables merchants to connect multiple payment methods and view all payments through a single dashboard. The move transforms Convesio from a hosting provider into a full payments facilitator supporting onboarding, payouts, risk management, and reporting for more than 10,000 sites.
Glynt, a digital media and technology company focused on commerce and entertainment brands that was formerly known as Tractor Media Holdings, acquired Store (my) Cards, a digital-wallet app that lets users scan and store loyalty, membership, or brick-and-mortar store cards in one place, for an undisclosed amount. Alongside the acquisition, Glynt launched Ignis Labs, a new technology division created to advance innovation, data integration, and AI capabilities across the Group’s portfolio, which will be led by Store (my) Cards creator, Byron Rode.
Immfly, a provider of in-flight digital services and entertainment platforms for airline passengers, reached an agreement to acquire Data Clarity, a provider of data management, analytics, and retail technology solutions for airlines and travel companies, for an undisclosed amount. The deal will create a unified platform that combines passenger engagement, in-flight connectivity, and data-driven retail forecasting, aiming to help airlines improve operational efficiency through integrated solutions.
AppTech, a digital payments and financial technology company specializing in embedded payments, text-to-pay, and mobile commerce solutions, acquired Infinitus Pay, a global payments infrastructure company that provides multi-currency accounts, FX transfers, and embedded payment APIs for businesses, for an undisclosed amount. The deal enhances AppTech’s banking-as-a-service platform by adding multi-currency capabilities, compliance tools, and global reach across ecommerce, while expanding its customer base.
Bonat, a Saudi Arabia-based AI customer engagement platform that enables merchants to convert walk-ins into loyal customers through AI-driven analytics, behavior-based marketing automation, and digital wallet integrations, raised $6M in a Series A round led by Tali Ventures. The company will use the funds for more AI product development, the rollout of personalized campaign automation, expand into new verticals such as retail and services, and growth across Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman.
Groww, India’s largest online brokerage by users, held its IPO last week on the National Stock Exchange and Bombay Stock Exchange, raising around $754M through a combination of fresh shares and an offer for sale at a $7B valuation. Proceeds from the IPO will be used to expand Groww’s product lineup beyond stockbroking into wealth management, mutual funds, and commodities, serving its user base of more than 10M active investors.
Wholesale Payments, a New York-based fintech that provides infrastructure for high-value money movement between banks, businesses, and financial institutions, acquired Strategic Mobile Solutions dba textLIVING, a mobile marketing and customer engagement company specializing in SMS-based loyalty, rewards, and communication platforms for businesses, for an undisclosed “eight-figure” amount. The deal advances Wholesale Payments’ transformation into a full-scale fintech provider by integrating textLIVING’s technology across its 40,000-merchant base and national ISO network and strengthens its goal of offering data-driven tools that help businesses grow, retain customers, and scale through embedded engagement solutions.
Coolmate, a Vietnamese D2C men's apparel brand that offers activewear, casualwear, underwear, raised an undisclosed amount in a Series C round led by Vertex Growth Fund. The funds will be used to expand further into women's fashion, following the company's “Go Women” initiative in March, where it introduced a line of activewear for women. Coolmate shared a 2030 target of generating 40% of its total revenue from women's products.
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PS: How do you save 100% off everything on Black Friday? Don't go shopping…