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TODAY’S MAZE
Happy Tuesday! Big Tech’s grip tightens from Google’s EU fight to AI giants hoarding data and cloud. Meanwhile, retail media and agentic tools race ahead, rewriting how brands reach you before you even search.
Maze Focus🌀
🇪🇺 Google’s Last-Minute Deal
🤖 The AI Bubble Is (Probably) Here
Market Briefing📖
🇬🇧 TikTok’s ‘Shop Local’ backs UK SMEs
🇺🇸 Instacart pushes off-platform retail media
🇬🇧 Tesco Media adds AI and on-site video
🇩🇪 PayPal doubles down in Germany
🇺🇸 GoDaddy adds AI-powered ads for SMBs
🇺🇸 Mailchimp ships retail ROI upgrades
+ 10 other handpicked news from the last week you need to know 🔥
LET’S ENTER THE MAZE!
- Artur Stańczuk, MarketMaze Founder
🌀 MAZE STORY
🇪🇺 Google’s Last-Minute Deal
The Briefing: Google is trying to dodge a massive EU fine by tweaking how its search results display rivals. The company hopes small design fixes will keep Brussels from slamming it under the new Digital Markets Act.
The details:
On October 14, 2025, Google offered the EU new “parity boxes” letting rival price and travel sites appear beside Google’s own Shopping and Flights panels.
The move follows a March 2025 warning from the European Commission accusing Google of favoring its services, with fines of up to 10% of global revenue—around $30 billion.
Apple and Meta have already been hit this year with €500 million and €200 million penalties, setting the tone for how hard the EU will enforce the DMA.
Why it matters: Europe’s regulators are finally forcing Big Tech to play by their rules. If Brussels rejects Google’s proposal, it could be the first major DMA fine—and a turning point in how search, ads, and marketplaces operate in the EU.
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🌀 MAZE STORY
🤖 The AI Bubble Is (Probably) Here
The Briefing: The AI boom is starting to look like a financial hall of mirrors. Circular billion-dollar deals between AMD, Nvidia, and OpenAI are inflating valuations, while global economists now warn that AI dominance has pushed market concentration to record highs.
The details:
The IMF’s latest Financial Stability Report shows the Herfindahl-Hirschman index for the S&P 500 at its highest level since records began — above dot-com bubble peaks — with the “Magnificent 7” alone making up 33% of the index.
AI-linked firms drove 80% of U.S. stock gains this year and 92% of GDP growth in H1 2025; without them, growth would have been flat. Gold, a classic hedge, hit $4,000 for the first time ever, up 121% since 2022, as 95% of central banks plan to expand reserves.
OpenAI’s spending on marketing and equity grants already exceeds its revenue, while valuations across tech now rely on expectations that AI will justify trillions in new data-center investment.
Why it matters: The AI economy now underpins America’s markets and, by extension, its politics. A correction wouldn’t just burst a tech bubble — it could shake consumer confidence, global equity markets, and the illusion that this boom can defy gravity forever.
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📣Ecommerce Marketing
🇺🇸 Walmart search leans into ads. Walmart packs search with Sponsored Products; top tiles grab up to a third of conversions as brands boost spend 53% YoY and CPCs rise 51%, pushing pay-to-play ahead of holiday 2025.
🇬🇧 TikTok’s ‘Shop Local’ backs UK SMEs. Launched on Oct 14, 2025, the £750k program will award five winners £150k+ support each, fronted by Jimmy Doherty, with eligibility for firms under 250 staff, as TikTok Shop grows fast in the UK with +131% shoppers, +180% revenue and ~6,000 daily Shop Lives.
🇺🇸 Instacart pushes off-platform retail media. New “Business” features on Oct 15, 2025 and a Oct 7 integration into TikTok Ads Manager extend Carrot Ads beyond Instacart, with added reach via Pinterest and Vroom Delivery’s 3,500 c-stores for a true open-web and social footprint.
🇬🇧 Tesco Media adds AI and on-site video. On Oct 10, 2025, Tesco launched an AI Creative Studio and on-site video ads on Tesco.com, tying storytelling to purchase moments as UK digital ad spend heads toward £45bn in 2026.
🇩🇪 OTTO launches self-serve DSP. On Oct 13, 2025, OTTO debuted an in-house DSP using first-party data from 31M+ accounts for real-time bookings across premium and DOOH, with Mediaplus as an early tester and self-serve conversion tools slated for 2026.
🇫🇮 Wolt Ads goes off-app with five partners. Announced Oct 14–15, 2025, tie-ups with Koddi, Magnite, Skai, StackAdapt and The Better Cities Company extend campaigns to social, search, CTV and hyperlocal offline.
🇺🇸 e.l.f. debuts shoppable Twitch streams. On Oct 16–17, 2025, e.l.f. activated native shoppable moments on Twitch via Amazon Ads, enabling purchases without leaving streams on a channel that has logged 43.3M+ minutes watched since 2020.
🛠️Ecommerce Software & AI
🇺🇸 Visa debuts Trusted Agent Protocol. Visa launches a framework to verify AI agents across browse-to-checkout, aiming to curb bot fraud and enable agentic commerce at scale.
🇩🇪 PayPal doubles down in Germany. PayPal pushes tap-to-pay at Mastercard terminals and expands Offsite Ads to Germany and the UK, pairing in-store acceptance with ads, installments, and anti-fraud AI to defend share through 2026.
🇺🇸 GoDaddy adds AI-powered ads for SMBs. New tools let very small businesses generate creatives, launch Google Ads in minutes, and optimize budgets inside GoDaddy’s growth suite.
🇺🇸 Mailchimp ships retail ROI upgrades. Intuit adds Shopify-focused orchestration, tighter email-plus-SMS, and deeper reporting so product, customer, and revenue data drive creative and send logic for peak season.
🇩🇪 commercetools previews ‘Cora’ AI assistant. Cora is a multimodal shopping companion that persists sessions across web, app, and chat to handle recommendations, bundling, and checkout with enterprise governance.
🇺🇸 Salesforce expands Agentforce 360. Agentforce connects AI agents to Salesforce data and workflows across Slack, Tableau, and commerce, adding larger-model access and Instant Checkout with merchant control.
🇨🇳 Honor phones add shopping discounts. New Magic8 features let the YOYO assistant auto-find lower prices and apply coupons on major marketplaces, making AI a concrete shopping utility on device.
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