On September 23 Amazon released the Selling Partner plugin. US sellers can now check data, adjust prices, and update listings from Amazon Quick or Claude (beta), with human approval before each action and a full audit trail. It is a second official channel alongside SP-API. Managing a store through Claude via this plugin is compliant; scripted clicking in Seller Central is still a violation.
Amazon updated its Sponsored Products AI bidding algorithm in June 2026, adding real-time bid adjustments based on conversion probability. This article reflects the update.
On June 22, Amazon Ads announced a major Responsive eCommerce Creative (REC) upgrade: in-banner video in the US, plus AI that animates static product images and generates product-in-use video; from July, conversational prompts extend to third-party display placements off Amazon. REC is now a second, fully automated path besides Creative Agent for turning one product image into a full ad set — worth testing both.
Since May 6, 2026, Veo 3 image-to-video is built into every active Google Ads account for free inside Asset Studio. Upload product photos, get a 10-second HD video with ambient audio. Here is the full workflow and what it actually produces.
Kling AI 3.0 launched February 5, 2026 with two features that matter most for cross-border sellers: reference-based product consistency across shots, and native lip-sync across English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish. Here is how to put both to work.
At Google Marketing Live 2026, Google embedded Affirm and Klarna inside Google Pay, brought UCP checkout to YouTube Shopping Ads, and started a Universal Cart rollout across Canada and Australia. Here is what the new checkout path means for conversion on Shopping and Demand Gen.
Pacvue Agent, launched April 14 2026, moves Amazon retail media from analysis to recommendation to governed execution in one workflow. This guide covers how sellers set guardrails, run plain-language AMC queries, and decide what to delegate.
On May 18 Meta stretched the purchase-audience lookback from 180 to 730 days, more than doubling remarketing pools for high-ticket, seasonal cross-border categories. The same window brought an AI business assistant for all advertisers and Perplexity into the official connectors. Bigger pools help, but Advantage+ defaults and auto-catalog-add need watching first.
Google launched Ask Advisor at Google Marketing Live on May 21, 2026 — a Gemini-powered agent that spans Google Ads, Analytics, Merchant Center, and Google Marketing Platform. It retains goals across sessions and lets marketers act without switching between dashboards.
Google Marketing Live 2026 turned Asset Studio into a multimodal creative factory — drop in a URL plus a brief, and Gemini, Veo 3.1, and Nano Banana generate copy, images, and video from storyboard to finished cut, with one-click A/B testing. For small DTC teams without a creative studio, it's a sharp drop in PMax and Demand Gen production cost.
TikTok integrated Dreamina Seedance 2.0 into Symphony Creative Studio at TikTok World on May 13, 2026. The new Reference to Video feature locks product appearance at specific moments in generated video — no more products morphing between scenes. Smart+ Auto Selection and Asset Manager round out the update.
Google Marketing Live 2026 launched two AI Mode ad formats — Conversational Discovery ads, where Gemini builds creative for each shopper's question, and Highlighted Answers, where strong ads enter recommendation lists. Both carry a Sponsored label. Accuracy depends on the structured product data in your feed.
Amazon's May 11 Upfront launched three things at once: Video Generator OLV produces video ads from any ASIN at no added cost, Dynamic TV Creative swaps Prime Video creative based on viewer journey stage, and Rufus ad placements show 2x purchase conversion. Upper-funnel Amazon advertising just got cheaper to test.
Meta cut the ASC weekly conversion floor from 50 to 25 and sunset Marketing API V25 on May 19, 2026. Stores doing 3-4 sales/day can finally use ASC. But a lower entry bar does not equal a working campaign — CAPI quality, creative count, and conversion stability still gate performance.
On May 13, TikTok World launched three things at once: GMV Max Pro factors commissions and coupon costs into ROI, Search Hubs places ads inside Search results (36x in-feed engagement), and Seedance 2.0 generates product video ads from images. Which one should DTC sellers move on first?