Google And Meta Turbocharge AI Ad Creative

Plus: Meta Rolls Out AI-Powered Holiday Ad Features

Author

Avinash Duggempudi
October 08, 2025

ClickZ Indie Agency News

Here's what's happening this week in the world of agency and performance marketing:
- Google’s Asset Studio goes generative for holiday creative
- Meta auto-merchandises Reels, expands omnichannel ads
- Meta Rolls Out AI-Powered Holiday Ad Features
- Ad Week: AI compresses production, elevates creators
- ONAR adds a NY growth shop amid roll-up risk

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📌WEEKLY MUST-KNOWS

Google integrated generative AI into Asset Studio, letting advertisers generate, edit and review image and video assets inside Google Ads, powered by Imagen 4 with video from text and images coming soon. This compresses creative production cycles and reduces reliance on third-party tools as brands ramp up holiday campaigns. Impacted: performance marketers, creative ops teams and agencies managing Google Ads at scale.

Meta introduced creator marketplace filters, auto-merchandised Reels via Show Products, Flexible media placement, and global omnichannel ads. The updates shift more optimization to AI, blend creator and catalog ads, and aim to lift CTR and conversions during peak season. Impacted: brands, creators and paid social teams aligning creative supply with Meta’s automated distribution.

The Independent is pivoting off reach toward talent and IP-led verticals, U.S. expansion, e-commerce and internal AI products like Bulletin to counter zero-click search and display headwinds. Revenues rose 15 percent YoY, with U.S. revenue up 50 percent, and a Bulletin app is coming. Impacted: publishers diversifying revenue and advertisers recalibrating inventory and commerce partnerships.

PayPal launched Ads Manager to let merchants operate as retail media networks, targeting with PayPal purchase data from more than 430 million consumers. Rolling out in the US early next year, the SDK-based tool centralizes campaign management, offers AI creative, and enables Storefront Ads with embedded PayPal/Venmo checkout, with ad revenues paid to the merchant’s PayPal account. This expands commerce-grade intent signals and monetization for SMBs, pressuring incumbents like Amazon Ads and Walmart Connect.

⚡QUICK READS

Advertising Week: AI Shifts Talent And Creative Ops: At Advertising Week New York, brands and agencies reoriented hiring and processes toward creator fluency and AI-native production as on-demand video compresses time to market.(More)

TikTok Introduces Travel Ads Format: TikTok rolled out Travel Ads with dynamic travel cards and intent-based models for hotels, flights and destinations, creating a new lower-funnel path from discovery to booking.(More)

Agency Reviews: 17-Week Timelines Face Pushback: Ad Age spotlights the bloated 17-week pitch cycle, intensifying calls to shorten timelines and compensate participants or risk excluding indie shops from enterprise rosters.(More)

Creative AI: Bias Risks Demand Governance: Campaign Asia warns generative AI often mirrors historic bias in datasets, requiring diverse training inputs, strict QA and clear brand safety guardrails to avoid reputational harm.(More)

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