Platform pulse: June 2026

June's been quite the month. If you joined us at SXSW London in Shoreditch, you'll have heard many of these themes debated in real time, and we came back with plenty to think about. As it turns out, the rest of the industry's been busy too.

Google has reshaped how advertising works inside Search, quietly folding paid content into AI-generated answers whilst removing keyword control from advertisers. Bots have overtaken human traffic online for the first time in internet history. OpenAI has filed for its IPO. And the US government ordered Anthropic to pull its most advanced AI models from global access, with less than a few hours' notice.

​There's a lot to get into this month, so we've done the reading so you don't have to. Grab a coffee and scroll on.

META

Take Control of Ad Delivery With 'Push Delivery to This Ad'

Meta's new 'Push Delivery to This Ad' feature lets you ringfence a set percentage of your daily campaign budget for a specific creative, for between one and 30 days. It's designed to give newer or untested ads a guaranteed runway to generate meaningful data, rather than being starved of spend by the algorithm early on. Read more

Audience Exclusions Get a Rebrand

Meta has moved custom audience exclusion controls into a new section called 'Customer Lifecycle Strategy.' The core functionality remains the same, but selecting 'Acquire New Customers' now activates a strict audience reach control that Meta commits not to go beyond. If your team manages exclusions regularly, expect a short period of reorientation. Read more

Cross-Web Data Now Powers Your Entire Feed

From July, the activity signals advertisers share via the Meta Pixel will also shape users' Feed content and AI responses, not just ad targeting. No new data is being collected. Meta is simply unlocking greater utility from existing signals, meaning a well-configured Pixel now influences how 3.5 billion users experience the platform daily. Read More

GOOGLE & YOUTUBE

Google's Universal Cart: What It Means for Your Brand

Google's Universal Cart allows users to save, compare, and buy items across Search, Gemini, YouTube, and Gmail without leaving Google's ecosystem. Rushi Pandya breaks down what this means for brands, and why better product data, structured content, and useful FAQs are now the baseline for being considered at the point of AI-assisted purchase decisions. Read More​

Google's New AI-Powered Ad Formats

Google has introduced Gemini-powered ad formats that integrate directly into AI Mode Search, including Conversational Discovery Ads, Highlighted Answers, AI-powered Shopping Ads, and Business Agent for Leads. The strategic shift is significant: keyword control is gone for certain campaign types (AI Max), and creative is now generated by the same model producing organic results. Campaigns structured around Performance Max and AI Max now are best placed for the rollout ahead, but the opportunity to appear in AI placements may outweigh the loss of keyword control. Read more here and detailed info ​here.

Search Console Gets AI Performance Report

Google is rolling out a dedicated AI Performance Report in Search Console, covering impressions within AI Overviews and other generative AI surfaces across both Search and Discover. The initial rollout is limited to a subset of websites, with query-level data not yet available. It's an incomplete picture for now, but the first native tool to start closing the gap between traditional search and AI-driven discovery. Read More

​GA4 Now Tracks Traffic From AI Chatbots

Google Analytics is introducing automated AI Assistant traffic measurement, enabling marketers to track visits from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and others directly within GA4 reports. For teams investing in AEO or GEO strategies, this is the first native way to quantify whether your content is earning AI referrals where it matters most. Read More

YouTube Gets Conversational Search

YouTube has launched Ask YouTube, a conversational search experience for Premium users that returns structured results across long-form and Shorts. Gemini Omni is also now available in YouTube Shorts Remix, allowing users to transform existing content using text prompts and images. All remixed Shorts carry digital watermarks, with creators able to opt out at any time. Read More​

NETFLIX

Netflix Ads Hits 15 Million UK Reach

April was Netflix Ads' biggest-ever month in the UK, reaching 15 million viewers, one in four people nationwide, and claiming the top spot for both daily VOD/BVOD reach and commercial TV share amongst young people. This September, Netflix hosts its first-ever UK Upfront in London, headlined by President of Advertising Amy Reinhard. For brands yet to test the platform, the window of competitive pricing is narrowing. Read More

A Third of Netflix Subscribers Use Accessibility Tools

Netflix has revealed that one in three global subscribers regularly uses subtitles, audio descriptions, or dubbing. With 70% of viewing hours now coming from content produced outside a subscriber's home country, accessibility has quietly become central to reach. For brands running ads or producing content on the platform, subtitles and multilingual support are no longer optional extras. Read More

PLAUSIBLE

Plausible Adds Dedicated AI Assistant Traffic Channel

Plausible has introduced a dedicated AI Assistants channel, breaking out traffic from ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, DeepSeek, Phind, and Grok, previously buried within organic search. The update works retroactively with no configuration required. Taken alongside the GA4 update above, AI referral traffic is fast becoming a channel in its own right. Read More

THE BIGGER PICTURE

OpenAI Files for IPO

OpenAI has confidentially submitted its S-1 to the SEC, just a week after rival Anthropic did the same. The company is expected to debut at a valuation approaching $1 trillion. For marketers, the significance is less about the stock and more about what follows: a publicly accountable OpenAI will face pressure to accelerate its advertising products. Read More

Bots Now Outnumber Humans Online

For the first time in internet history, automated bot requests now account for more than half of all HTTP traffic, according to Cloudflare data. The driving force isn't traditional scrapers but agentic AI, autonomous agents performing tasks on behalf of users. For advertisers, the implications are significant: the internet your analytics describe may not be the one your customers are actually using. Read More

How Would You Spend £400K at the World Cup?

With broadcast slots dominated by official partners, where does a smart mid-market budget go during the World Cup? The smartest media buyers are skipping the main stage and heading for shoulder content, second-screen social, creator reactions, and Reddit communities where passionate fans are already gathered and CPMs remain competitive. Read More

AI Wins a Literary Prize

A prizewinning entry in the 2026 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, subsequently published in Granta, is suspected to have been written entirely by AI. The story was flagged for telltale language patterns common to large language models, and an AI detection tool returned 100% red flags. The Commonwealth Foundation is now reviewing its selection process. Read More

REGULATION & POLICY

How EU Regulation Handed Firefox 6 Million New Users

Since browser choice screens were mandated under the EU's Digital Markets Act, Firefox has gained more than 6 million new users, with someone choosing Firefox every 10 seconds. Daily active users in the EU are 113% higher than they would have been without the screens. Mozilla is now pushing for equivalent measures in the UK. Read More

US Government Orders Anthropic to Disable Its Most Advanced AI Models

The US government issued an export control directive on 13 June ordering Anthropic to suspend access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models for all foreign nationals, citing national security concerns over a suspected jailbreak. With no way to selectively restrict access, Anthropic was forced to disable both models for all customers at short notice. It's one of the most aggressive steps yet to bring frontier AI within the scope of export controls. Read More