From Cracker Barrel’s logo miss to Starbucks attempted turnaround, Mini MBA founder Mark Ritson breaks down his annual top 10 Marketing Moments of 2025.
https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/mark-ritsons-top-10-marketing-moments-of-2025/
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For every big screen TV and head-turning AI model that emerged out of CES this year, there was a company trying to find a market for something that was just plain odd — at best. Part of the joy of walking the Consumer Electronics Show’s increasingly large floor is stumbling across gadgets that make you stop, stare and, ask “whut??”
https://qz.com/ces-2026-weird-tech-robots-ai-knife-companion
Google is adding several Gemini 3-powered features to the free version of Gmail, including a new AI Inbox that promises to filter out clutter and AI Overviews of your messages. "Email has changed considerably since Gmail launched in 2004," Google says. "With email volume at an all-time high, managing your inbox and the flow of information has become as important as the emails themselves."
https://www.pcmag.com/news/google-adding-gmail-ai-inbox-ai-overviews-does-anybody-want-this
You can’t shake a stick without hitting an AI gadget at CES this year, with artificial smarts now embedded in just about every wearable, screen, and appliance across the show floor, not to mention the armies of AI companions, toys, and robots. But those are just the beginning. We’ve seen AI pop up in much stranger places too, from hair clippers to stick vacs, and at least one case where even the manufacturer itself seemed unsure what made its products “AI.”
https://www.theverge.com/tech/858315/most-dubious-ai-tech-ces-2026
Threads is exploring games in chats, beginning with a basketball game. Launching in-message games would give Threads an edge over competitors like X and Bluesky, which don’t offer built-in games. It’s also worth noting this isn’t the first time Meta has explored in-message gaming, as Instagram launched a hidden emoji game in DMs last year.
https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/06/threads-is-developing-in-message-games/
If you’ve been saddled with some awful Gmail address you chose in high school (looking at you, LazySexyCool3030), help appears to be on the way. According to a Google account support page in Hindi the company is allowing some people to change their email address. The updated support page isn’t showing up in English, and the option to change your Gmail address hasn’t appeared for any Verge staffers yet. According to 9to5Google the feature is “gradually rolling out to all users.”
https://www.theverge.com/news/850237/google-change-your-gmail-address
Microsoft has cut its sales targets for its agentic AI software after struggling to find buyers interested in using it. In some cases, targets have been slashed by up to 50%, suggesting Microsoft overestimated the potential of its new AI tools. Indeed, compared with ChatGPT and Google's Gemini, Copilot is falling behind, raising concerns about Microsoft's substantial AI investment. "The Information’s story inaccurately combines the concepts of growth and sales quotas," Microsoft said in a very defensive statement (via Futurism), adding that "aggregate sales quotas for AI products have not been lowered."
https://www.extremetech.com/computing/microsoft-scales-back-ai-goals-because-almost-nobody-is-using-copilot