Here’s a new episode of The Reddy Rundown, crafted so you don’t have to frantically follow everything in the AI news space wondering what you are missing as an exec in 2025 trying to keep up.

At my core, I’m a marketing systems architect. Now as CEO, my job is to connect the dots between AI breakthroughs, the tools at our disposal, and the way businesses actually acquire and keep customers. This week’s news isn’t just noise—it shows us where the ground is shifting in marketing.

Ad Agencies: Cracking Under AI Pressure

The headlines say ad agencies are struggling. WPP cut 5% of its workforce. Publicis lost a quarter of its market cap. Even S4 Capital is weighing a merger to stay afloat.

The marketing lesson: legacy players are showing us what happens when efficiency is an afterthought. AI-native firms, or those that move fast on adoption, will set the pace. If you run campaigns today, the expectation is not “big ideas” alone—it’s ideas delivered faster, cheaper, and scaled by systems.

Creative AI is Just Warming Up

Freepik’s CEO said it well: generative AI is still Act One. The upside is efficiency in creative workflows. The downside? Energy usage, IP headaches, and regulatory drag (especially in Europe).

My take: the creative gap is where smaller firms can now leapfrog. A few years ago, only the big brands could afford to run ten creative variants at scale. Today, a lean team with the right AI stack can.

Perplexity Wants Chrome

Perplexity just put down a $34.5B offer to buy Google Chrome. Whether it lands or not doesn’t matter as much as what it signals—AI players want to own distribution.

For marketers, this is the real drama. If browsing itself tilts toward AI-navigated experiences, your funnel is no longer built on traditional SEO alone. Think less “rank on Google,” more “be recognized by AI assistants as the trusted source.”

HubSpot Gets Agentic

HubSpot quietly integrated Claude into its CRM. This is more than summaries—it’s AI shaping how your team interprets customer data in real time.

As someone who obsesses over marketing systems, I see this as a line in the sand: CRMs are evolving into AI-driven strategy engines. The companies who lean in will pull ahead on personalization and pipeline velocity.

Search is Becoming AI-SEO

Organic search is now mediated by AI. If your site isn’t structured, attributed, and crawlable for bots like GPTBot or PerplexityBot, you’re invisible.

The playbook is shifting. Authorship, real visuals, schema, and multi-channel reinforcement (site, socials, PR, video) are no longer “nice to haves.” They’re what makes your brand discoverable by the AI layer that customers now rely on.

From Tools to Agents

We’re past the stage of sprinkling AI tools into the workflow. The future is agentic—systems that don’t just advise but actually act. Agencies that build their stack this way will run circles around those who treat AI like a sidekick.

Tools Worth Your Attention

Here are a few practical tools and why they matter for marketers this week:

• HubSpot x Claude → Use it to cut through CRM noise and surface patterns in deal flow faster than your analysts can.

• Perplexity Search → Position your content to be favored by AI engines, not just Google search crawlers.

• Freepik AI Creative Suite → A practical way to scale design tests without adding headcount.

• Agentic Marketing Frameworks → Structure your marketing ops so AI can run campaign testing loops, not just give suggestions.

Bottom line: Marketing is no longer about staying “creative enough.” It’s about being system-driven, AI-ready, and bold enough to act before the old guard catches up.

Looking for a community of like-minded individuals who are interested in AI and Entrepreneurship? Join our free community here to get started: The AI Advantage Community Thank you for reading! -Shawn