Adobe's Semrush Gamble, BFCM Enters the Upside Down, & AI-Washed Earnings

"Adobe didn't just buy an SEO tool – it bought a negotiating position with the AI overlords of discovery." – Juan

Jacqueline and Juan unpack what "more human" marketing actually looks like when AI is mediating everything from search to Black Friday deals. They break down Adobe's acquisition of Semrush, quarterly Martech earnings, the Black Friday/Cyber Monday shift toward mobile-plus-AI shopping, BNPL's surge, and ChatGPT's three-year impact on how people search, think, and buy.

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Timestamps

00:04 – MWF NYC debrief and why this year felt like a turning point for Martech

05:10 – Stranger Things and what "good" co-marketing actually looks like

10:30 – Woo-Woo vs data: how much of marketing is still intuition dressed up in dashboards

16:20 – Adobe buys Semrush: GEO data, media consolidation, and why Adobe blinked on AI search

24:40 – Quarterly Martech earnings: mid-market outpaces the enterprise and AI narratives without ROI

33:30 – BFCM early numbers: mobile-plus-AI shopping, BNPL growth, and fewer margin-killing discounts

36:56 – ChatGPT's third anniversary: national rollbacks and the societal risks of AI

42:15 – Subscriber question: How to drive change inside organizations when tooling and incentives clash?

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