This week, AI continued to reshape shopping, advertising and data management, while regulators and technology companies clashed over privacy, platform responsibility and the future of digital competition. In today’s MadTech Daily, we cover Netflix expanding its ad measurement capabilities, Spotify reaching 306 million paid subscribers in Q3, and Meta growing revenue by 26% as Muse costs mount.

Google kicked off the week with the rollout of Universal Cart, a new shopping feature that allows US users to save products from multiple retailers in one place through the Gemini app and Search’s AI Mode.

Meanwhile, Apple and Meta have joined forces on Muse Spark Open, a downloadable open-weight AI model optimised for Apple’s Mac Studio desktops. Designed for coding and autonomous AI agents, the model offers developers another option for building AI-powered applications, with many users able to access it free of charge under its limited commercial terms.

The advertising industry also saw significant developments. Publicis Groupe reached a settlement with the US Federal Trade Commission over its planned acquisition of LiveRamp, which it expects to complete before the end of the year. Elsewhere, retail media infrastructure provider Kevel raised USD$52m (£39.3m)  in Series D funding, bringing its total funding to more than USD$100m (£75.5m). 

However, the week was not without regulatory friction. Australia is preparing legal action against Meta, TikTok, Snap and Google over alleged failures to enforce its ban on social media access for under-16s, following concerns that weak age-verification measures have allowed children to retain or create accounts. In a separate development, Apple defended its expanded WebKit tracking restrictions, arguing that blocking cookies alone is no longer sufficient to protect users from increasingly sophisticated data collection practices.

Data privacy concerns also resurfaced at Meta, which removed wording from its commercial terms that appeared to permit the use of content from business websites to develop and train its products. The clause had raised concerns among publishers and legal experts about the potential scope of web scraping and the use of third-party content in AI training.

Finally, new research from Spark Foundry UK suggests brands face a particular challenge when trying to retain consumers aged 25 to 34. Dubbed the “Milestone Generation”, this group is especially likely to reassess brand relationships following major life events, with 64.8% saying such milestones prompt them to reconsider the brands they use.