Google Tests Serving Ads In Third-Party Chatbots

The American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) released the September 2025 Printing-Writing Monthly report. According to the report, total printing-writing paper shipments decreased 9% in September compared to September 2024. Total printing-writing paper inventory levels decreased 6% when compared to August 2025. Total year-to-date (YTD) printing-writing paper shipments decreased by 6.8%. Among the three major printing-writing paper categories — uncoated free sheet (UFS), coated free sheet (CFS), and mechanical (MECH) papers — performance was mixed: with UFS shipments declining 9% YTD, CFS declining 3%, and Mechanical (MECH) papers increasing 2%, albeit from a relatively small base volume.

Despite the fact that the retail landscape continues to undergo massive waves of post-COVID evolution, there are many things that still haven’t changed — like the fact that consumers continue to go to physical stores to shop and that the physical portion of retailers' businesses still command the largest share of their revenues by a very large margin. Despite this, many retailers still only focus on the e-commerce sales impacts of their digital marketing, and ignore the in-store sales impacts because it's “difficult to measure.” This myopic focus is costing them — a lot. Web analytics tools or the measurements provided by the large platforms like Google and Meta have always relied on clicks to tell the story of campaign value. However, with major privacy changes in the market made by Apple and coming soon from Google, any measurement approach that relies on tracking individual consumers has been dying a death of a thousand cuts. Even measuring digital ads’ impact on e-commerce is getting a lot harder.

In a surprise move following a series of consecutive downgrades, Brian Wieser has boosted the outlook for U.S. ad-spending growth this year to 6.0%. That's nearly double the percent change he…