Microsoft Clarity introduces a beta feature called AI Bot Activity, revealing how AI assistants, search crawlers, and automated agents interact with your site. It shows which bots access your content, how often they crawl, and which pages get the most automated visits. This feature aims to provide visibility into automated web activity, helping teams make informed decisions. Available now in Dashboards → AI Visibility → Bot Activity.
Google Ads' Campaign Mix Experiments (beta) lets advertisers test multiple campaign types, budgets, and settings in one experiment with up to 5 arms. It supports Search, Performance Max, Shopping, Demand Gen, Video, and App campaigns, excluding Hotel campaigns. This helps optimize budget allocation, test strategies, and improve performance by analyzing detailed data and campaign interactions.
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Google is expanding Demand Gen features, making them generally available to enhance its role across YouTube and Google. New tools include Shoppable CTV for buying products via YouTube ads on TVs, Attributed Branded Searches to track brand search impact, and Travel Feeds for dynamic hotel ads. Demand Gen drives 7% more conversions with TV screens and helped LG Electronics achieve 24% higher conversion rates and 91% lower CPA than paid social campaigns.
Starting January 2026, the 'Instagram Explore' ad placement will be removed. Clicking tiles in the Explore grid will open a Reels viewer instead of the Explore feed. Ads targeting 'Instagram Reels' will now appear in the former Explore feed area, providing the same Reels experience. Ad sets targeting 'Instagram Explore' will shift to other placements, but 'Instagram Explore home' remains available.
Smart+ is TikTok's automation solution designed to optimize ad campaigns by targeting the right audiences, automating workflows, and enhancing creatives using AI. It offers benefits like improved ROI, time savings, and creative optimization. Features include Creative for Smart+, ad preview, upgraded efficiency tools, and Symphony Automation. Smart+ supports sales, app installs, and lead generation campaigns, helping businesses grow efficiently.
TikTok is expanding ad options for streaming services and highlighting film fandom at Sundance 2026. Millions of daily posts show deep fan engagement. TikTok hosts creators and industry leaders to explore storytelling and fandom. New ad solutions target engaged users to boost subscriptions and sales. Creators will share real-time festival content, while TikTok shapes film culture and discovery through #FilmTok and #MovieTok communities.
Meta is expanding ads on Threads to all global users next week after initial rollout last spring. Threads has 400M+ monthly users and offers new ad formats, controls, and brand safety features. Ads use Meta’s AI and integrate with existing campaigns, appearing natively in Threads feeds. Account management is simplified, and third-party brand safety verification is available, helping businesses connect with engaged communities.
Campaign and Insertion Order targeting in the Display & Video 360 API and Structured Data Files will be discontinued on February 23, 2026, aligning with its removal from the Display & Video 360 UI. After this date, API requests related to these targeting options will return 404 errors, and targeting columns in related files will be empty or cause upload failures if populated. Documentation and support are available for these changes.
Elon Musk published X's AI-driven "For You" feed algorithm code to boost user engagement by personalizing content. The feed combines posts from followed accounts and AI-recommended posts based on recent activity. The algorithm limits repeated posts from the same creators and penalizes excessive posting. While new user time spent is up, Musk admits the algorithm "sucks," and usage is declining amid competition from Meta's Threads.
