Tristan Dampies
26 February 2026
The last month brought a handful of updates that, individually, might look like routine platform news. A new ad format there, a commerce feature rolling out somewhere else, regulatory enforcement actions, and then some. But when you line them up side by side, a pattern starts to emerge, and it’s one worth paying attention to.
Some of these were already on the industry’s radar. Others landed with less fanfare but carry just as much weight for how brands plan and execute in 2026. This is what changed, why it matters for your brand’s trajectory, and what you can do about it.
TikTok Shop Launches “Smart Promotion”
TikTok has quietly retired its Co-funded Promotion model and replaced it with something far more aggressive: Smart Promotion. The new program is designed to compete head-to-head with Amazon by letting TikTok’s algorithm automatically co-invest in a merchant’s marketing costs.
Here’s how it works: merchants with strong performance scores get access to the program, which guarantees a specific ROI or GMV (Gross Merchandise Value) uplift. TikTok essentially puts skin in the game alongside a seller, simplifying fee structures and removing much of the guesswork from promotion budgets.
For e-commerce brands that are already active on TikTok Shop, this is a no-brainer to explore. For those still on the fence, Smart Promotion lowers the barrier to entry significantly by de-risking your ad spend.
Why This Matters for Brands
Smart Promotion isn’t just a better ad product. It’s a market-share acquisition strategy disguised as a merchant benefit. By guaranteeing ROI, TikTok is absorbing the risk that typically falls to the seller. This is a move borrowed directly from Amazon’s early marketplace playbook of subsidizing growth to build network effects.
The strategic logic is that more merchants with guaranteed returns means more inventory, which means more relevant products surfacing in users’ feeds, which means more purchases, which in turn means more merchants want in. It’s a flywheel, and TikTok is willing to fund the initial rotations.
For brands, the opportunity window matters. Programs like this tend to be most generous during the land-grab phase. Once TikTok has the merchant density it wants, the subsidies will tighten.
What to do now: If you’re selling on TikTok Shop, check your eligibility for the Smart Promotion program immediately, as early access matters. If you’re not on TikTok Shop yet, this is another strong signal that the platform is serious about becoming a major commerce player. Run the numbers on what guaranteed-ROI promotion would mean for your unit economics, and compare that against your current marketplace cost structures.
ChatGPT Ads Cause Disruption to Advertising as We Know It
In last month’s Marketing Digest, we reported on the ongoing traction around the introduction of ads in ChatGPT. On February 9, OpenAI officially began testing ads within ChatGPT for US users on the Free and Go tiers. Ads appear as “Sponsored Blocks” directly below the AI’s response, essentially creating a brand-new paid search inventory that puts OpenAI in direct competition with Google.
This is the moment marketers have been anticipating. AI-powered conversations are no longer just an organic channel. With sponsored placements now live, brands have a new touchpoint to reach users at the exact moment they’re seeking information or making decisions.
It’s early days, but the implications are massive. If ChatGPT ads scale as early signals suggest, we’re looking at a fundamental shift in how paid media budgets are allocated.
The Real Disruption Is in Intent Data
The ad placements themselves are noteworthy, but the bigger story is what sits behind them: conversational intent data. Traditional paid search targets keywords, a rough proxy for what someone wants. ChatGPT ads can potentially target based on the full context of a multi-turn conversation, which is a fundamentally richer signal.
Consider the difference: a Google search for “best CRM for small business” tells you someone is researching CRMs. A ChatGPT conversation in which a user explains their team size, budget constraints, current pain points, and integration needs, and then receives a sponsored recommendation, represents a level of intent clarity that keyword targeting has never matched.
This also raises the stakes for GEO (more on that below). If ChatGPT is now serving both organic AI responses and paid placements, brands need to consider their presence across both layers. Being cited organically in ChatGPT’s response while also appearing in the sponsored block below it could become the AI-era equivalent of owning both the top organic result and the top paid ad on Google; a dominance strategy that early movers will have a window to exploit before costs inevitably rise.
AI Citations Step Out of SEO’s Shadow
New industry data released this month announced that Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is well on its way to becoming a distinct discipline by mid-2026. This means it is now a vital consideration for search, with its own metrics and separate from traditional SEO.
The key takeaway from the latest reports is that “AI Citations,” which are mentions or recommendations by Gemini, ChatGPT, and other AI engines, are now tracked as a standalone metric, independent of traditional search rankings. The data also shows that AI engines consistently favor structured, evidence-based content over keyword-stuffed articles.
This confirms what forward-thinking marketers have been saying for months: optimizing for AI visibility requires a different approach than optimizing for Google’s blue links. It’s about being the most credible, well-structured answer, not just the best-optimized one.
What GEO Actually Demands (and Where Some Brands Are Failing)
The formalization of GEO as a discipline is important, but the gap between acknowledging it and executing on it is where most brands are stuck. Here’s what the data is telling us about what actually drives AI citations:
- Structured, extractable answers win. AI engines don’t just read your content, they parse it. Content that’s organized with clear headers, concise definitions, and logically structured arguments gets cited more often than long-form pieces that bury insights in narrative prose. Think of it this way: if an AI can’t easily extract a clean, quotable answer from your content, it will find one from a competitor who made it easier.
- Original data is the new backlink. In traditional SEO, authority was largely built through backlinks. In GEO, authority is increasingly built through original data, proprietary research, and first-party insights that AI engines can’t find elsewhere. If your content is synthesizing what five other sources already said, you’re a derivative source, and AI engines are getting better at identifying and skipping to the original.
- Entity recognition matters. AI engines are rapidly building knowledge graphs. Being recognized as an authoritative entity in your space—through consistent publishing, being cited by other authoritative sources, and maintaining structured data on your site—directly influences whether AI engines trust your content enough to cite it.
The convergence with ChatGPT’s new ad placements makes this doubly urgent. Brands that build strong organic GEO presence and invest in ChatGPT’s paid placements when they go live will have a compounding advantage that’s difficult for competitors to replicate quickly.
What to do now: Start tracking your AI citation presence alongside your traditional search rankings. Prioritize content that’s structured for easy extraction (clear headers, concise answers, cited data) and backed by original research or authoritative sources. Audit your existing content to identify pieces that contain original data or unique insights, and restructure them for AI extractability, as this is often the fastest path to citation gains. If you’re not sure where your brand currently stands in AI search results, or where the biggest opportunities are, Moburst’s AEO experts can conduct an audit and build a roadmap to get you cited.
Google Discover Gets Its Own Core Update
Google has rolled out the February 2026 Core Update, but this time, it’s not targeting traditional Search. This update focuses on Google Discover, the mobile content feed that delivers billions of impressions daily.
The algorithm now heavily penalizes clickbait and “curiosity gap” headlines; the kind designed to bait a user without delivering any real value. In their place, Google is prioritizing content that demonstrates two things: local relevance (to a user’s country or region) and topical authority.
For marketers, this is a significant move. If your Discover strategy has relied on attention-grabbing headlines to drive traffic, it’s time to rethink. Content that’s deeply relevant to your audience’s geography and backed by genuine subject-matter expertise is what the algorithm now rewards.
Why This Runs Deeper
This is the first time Google has issued a core update exclusively for Discover. Until now, Discover largely inherited ranking logic from Search. That’s all about to change.
The emphasis on locality also hints at where Google sees Discover’s future: as a hyper-personalized content feed that competes less with traditional search and more with social feeds like Instagram Explore or TikTok’s For You Page. The difference is that Google is betting on geographic and topical relevance over engagement bait—a direct counter-programming move against platforms that optimize for time-on-app above all else.
For publishers and brands that have treated Discover as “bonus traffic,” this update forces you to make a strategic choice.
What to do now: Audit your top Discover content. Double down on region-specific angles and make sure your content clearly demonstrates authority in your niche. Think original data, expert quotes, and in-depth analysis over surface-level takes.
The US “Foreign Adversary” Data Crackdown (PADFAA)
The FTC has fired its first real shot under the Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries Act, and it’s aimed squarely at the data supply chain that powers programmatic advertising or ‘automated media buying’.
As of February 9, the FTC sent warning letters to data brokers explicitly prohibiting the sale of sensitive data, such as geolocation, biometric, health, and financial information, to entities in nations that it considers foreign adversaries. This isn’t just a proposed rule; it’s enforcement warnings with real repercussions.
For most marketers, the immediate instinct is to file this under “compliance stuff” and move on. However, that would be a mistake.
The Transparency Problem It Aims to Solve
The reality is that many of the third-party audience segments brands rely on for programmatic targeting have obscured supply chains. Data gets aggregated, repackaged, and resold through layers of middlemen, and at the bottom of that chain, it’s often unclear where the data originated from or where it’s flowing. PADFAA forces that ambiguity into the open.
What this means in practice: data segments that were previously cheap and easy to access may start disappearing or getting significantly more expensive. Brands and providers who can’t demonstrate a clean supply chain will either exit the market or cut off the segments that create liability. If you’re currently running programmatic campaigns, that translates directly into shifts in your audience reach and cost-per-acquisition that could show up with very little warning.
Moburst in the Spotlight:
Award-Winning Work by the Moburst Team
This month, Moburst was named a 2026 AVA Digital Award Gold Winner in the Web & App Design (Creativity) category for our work on the NewDay USA website. The AVA Digital Awards is an international competition judged by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals (AMCP) and drew over 2,600 entries from 33 countries this year.
This says something about the work we do for every brand we partner with. The NewDay USA project was built on the same principles we bring to all of our work: sharp strategy, user-first design, and a focus on results that actually move the needle. For our clients and partners, it’s a reminder that the team behind your digital presence is operating at an internationally recognized level.
Our Clients Stole the Show at CES 2026
Speaking of showing up, our clients had a massive presence at CES 2026. With over 4,000 exhibitors competing for attention in Las Vegas, Uproar by Moburst helped our clients cut through the noise and own the conversation.
The highlights speak for themselves. Euhomy’s Ice Leopard X1 was named “The Coolest Thing at CES” by CNET and took home a “Best of CES 2026” award from Reviewed. Vasco Electronics turned heads with a live AI translation demo that had a CNET editor chatting in Polish. And OLLObot landed coverage in Engadget, The Robb Report, and Associated Press as one of the show’s most fascinating robots. Beyond the headlines, our clients collectively swept awards from the TWICE Picks Awards, TechRadar Pro Picks, and the Future Innovation Awards, and hit broadcast airwaves across major markets, including Philadelphia, Dallas, and Chicago.
Bottom line: our clients didn’t just attend CES—they dominated it. This is a testament to what happens when strong products meet a team that knows how to build a narrative around them.
The Takeaway
Every major platform and regulator is converging on the same message. Depth beats reach, transparency beats shortcuts, and owned assets beat rented ones. The brands that thrive in 2026 will be the ones that lean into this shift early: building genuine authority, investing in owned data and original insights, and showing up with substance wherever their audience is making decisions.
Stay tuned for our next roundup. For more marketing insights, visit the Moburst blog or explore our full range of digital marketing services.
Tristan Dampies
Tristan is a Content Writer at Moburst with a background in journalism and public relations, bringing a strategic, audience-first approach to content across the digital marketing landscape. She enjoys crafting stories that inform, connect, and drive impact. Outside of work, she loves discovering new restaurants and spending quality time with her daughter, family, and friends.
