Many users experience AI chats as closer to therapy than search, so ads can feel acceptable in transactional moments but aggressive in reflective or emotional ones. Imagine your therapist taking a break from listening to sell you a supplement.
You don't need to pay for expensive software tools in order to analyze what people are saying about your brand online, according to Jazmin Griffith, the founder of social listening agency Que Lo Que. Social listening, or the act of tracking customer sentiment through social media comments and posts, is an important practice for any business with an online presence. "There's a lot of data out there," John Box, the CEO of Meltwater, a SaaS platform that provides social listening services, previously told Inc.
In a new analysis of a survey published by the National Bureau of Economic Research and highlighted by Fortune, around 90 percent of the nearly 6,000 interviewed CEOs, chief financial officers, and other top executives at firms across the US, UK, Germany, and Australia, said that AI has had no impact on productivity or employment at their business. To be clear, the question was about AI's impact generally, and not just from implementing it in the workplace. But around 70 percent of the firms reported actively using AI, meaning the vast majority of them are admitting that adopting the tech hasn't budged the needle for them yet.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark-(BUSINESS WIRE)- Caliber, a stakeholder intelligence platform helping organizations build and protect trust, released its inaugural Stakeholder Intelligence Report, revealing global trends in brand, reputation, and data-driven communications. As economic anxiety, AI disruption, and geopolitical uncertainty intensify, leaders across industries are making higher-stakes decisions under conditions of compressed trust and heightened reputational risk. This report equips executives with data and actionable insights to support decision-making in 2026 and beyond.
The number of Americans who anticipate they will have "high-quality lives" in five years' time has dropped to a nearly two-decade low, according to a poll released Tuesday. Around 6 in 10 people surveyed said they expected their lives would be significantly better in the future than today. That is about nine percentage points lower than during the height of the covid-19 pandemic, according to Gallup, which began measuring Americans' sense of optimism in 2008.
Americans from across the political spectrum say the U.S. should be the moral leader of the world, but far fewer believe that it actually is today, according to a new NPR/Ipsos poll. In the nationwide survey, 61% of respondents said that the U.S. should be a moral leader, but only 39% say it actually is one. That latter figure is sharply down from 60% in 2017 in a similar survey of American attitudes. The latest survey also shows that nearly half the country prefers Washington to stay out of the affairs of other countries.
The consulting giant questioned 4,454 chief executives across 95 countries and territories about their strategic priorities and outlook in the year up to November 2025. More than half of the CEOs surveyed, 56%, said AI hasn't produced revenue or cost benefits for their businesses to date. Some reported benefits for either revenue or costs: around a third said their revenue was up in the last year, and 26% said they were seeing lower costs from AI.
They were trying to get to the bottom of how to diminish catalogue distribution without having a negative impact on store and online sales. They were also keen to define the geographic areas where digital content would work best and how to profile those areas to classify digital purchase behaviour. Together with Analytic Partners they were able to uncover opportunities to eliminate 22% of catalogues with negligible sales impact and increasing digital support in high-performing topologies, preserving€ 294 million in sales.
Just under half, 45%, of U.S. adults now identify as independents, a new Gallup survey found. That's a substantial shift from 20 years ago, when closer to one-third of Americans said they didn't identify with the Democrats or Republicans. This group appears, increasingly, to be driven by their unhappiness with the party in power, according to Gallup's analysis. That's a dynamic that could be good for Democrats in this year's midterm elections, but doesn't promise lasting loyalty.
Imagine you're selecting an influencer to work with on your new campaign. You've narrowed it down to two, both in the right area, both creating the right sort of content. One has 24.6 million subscribers, the other 1.4 million. Which do you choose? Now imagine you could find out the first had 8.7 million unique viewers last month, while the second had 9.9 million. Do you want to change your mind?
On the economic outlook front, inflation remains high and consumer confidence is wavering amidst discussion of a possible recession. The forecasted pullback in discretionary consumer spending after several volatile pandemic years has many brands hedging their bets and looking to limit investment to tried-and-true tactics. However, the ad tech landscape is experiencing a monumental shift that's directly impacting the efficacy of those proven historical efforts.
Established in 2003, Leapfrogg is an award-winning, retail marketing agency specialising in the premium / luxury sector. We help our clients craft game-changing digital experiences; the kind of experiences that make customers happy - increasing loyalty, profitability and market share in today's consumer-led world. Our expertise lies in customer insight, experience design, retail strategy and digital marketing (content, search, social media and online PR).
In the first two weeks of January 2026, overall spend on health and wellbeing rose by 3.9% year-on-year, despite customer numbers falling by 2.8%. Spend per customer increased by 6.8%, showing that those who continue to prioritise health are committing more of their budget to it. The data suggests that January is no longer viewed as a reset period, reflecting how health and wellbeing is now prioritised within household budgets throughout the year rather than treated as discretionary spend.
