Influencer marketing now takes 20-30% of wedding-season media budgets
India’s wedding season is now a commercial ecosystem of its own, and influencers sit at the heart of it. With brands shifting aggressively toward digital-first communication, creators today drive not just awareness but discovery, aspiration, credibility and purchase.
This trend reveals itself across categories. Content Creator Prachi Arora, for instance, recently walked her audience through wedding-function jewellery looks for GIVA.
Deeksha Khurana highlighted how a travel bag brand helps her move smoothly through back-to-back celebrations.
OpenAI announces shopping research tool in latest e-commerce push
OpenAI announced a new tool called “shopping research” on Monday, right as consumers will be ramping up spending ahead of the holiday season.
The startup said the tool is designed for ChatGPT users who are looking for detailed, well-researched shopping guides. The guides include top products, key differences between the products and the latest information from retailers, according to a blog.
Users will be able to tailor their guides based on their budget, what features they care about and who they are shopping for. OpenAI said it will take a couple of minutes to generate answers with shopping research, so users who are looking for simple answers like a price check can still rely on a regular ChatGPT response.
Google Launches Gemini 3: The Most Intelligent AI Model Yet
On November 18, 2025, Google officially launched Gemini 3, its most intelligent and powerful AI model to date. Developed by Google DeepMind, Gemini 3 represents a major leap in artificial intelligence, combining multimodal understanding, agentic behavior, and state-of-the-art reasoning into a single unified system. The model builds on the legacy of Gemini 1 and 2 and is now available across Google’s ecosystem — including Search, the Gemini app, AI Studio, Vertex AI, and Google Antigravity. According to Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, this release signifies Google’s commitment to making AI “truly helpful for everyone,” bringing advanced capabilities closer to users, developers, and enterprises worldwide.
Zepto pilots Super Mall for high-value orders, launches diagnostics service
In a move to broaden its portfolio and enter different categories, quick commerce (qcom) platform Zepto has kicked off pilot testing of two new offerings. It is currently trialling Super Mall, a new vertical for high-value and premium products, and Zepto Diagnostics, an in-app diagnostics service under its pharma category.
Through these pilots, the company aims to gauge customer stickiness and measure the uptake of such services before launching them in a full-fledged manner. Currently, they are available to a limited number of cities and customers.
What is Zepto aiming to achieve with its Super Mall pilot?
According to sources in the know, with the Super Mall vertical, the qcom firm aims to tap into higher-margin categories in the face of rising competition while also striving to acquire new customers and retain the existing ones. The vertical includes non-grocery items such as home decor, electronics, and fashion.
Anthropic launches Claude Opus 4.5 to take on ChatGPT and Gemini
Soon after the GPT-5.1 and Gemini 3 launch, Anthropic has launched its Claude Opus 4.5 model. The AI startup claims that its new model is the best in the world for coding, agents, and computer-use-related tasks.
Where does it rank?
Claude Opus 4.5 achieves an 80.9% score on SWE-bench Verified, a real-world software engineering benchmark. Notably, Opus 4.5 is the first-ever model to breach the 80% mark on SWE-bench Verified. In comparison, Google’s newly released Gemini 3 Pro got a score of 76.2%, while OpenAI’s GPT-5.1 Codex Max got a score of 77.9%.
The new model also ranks higher than any human candidate on Anthropic’s 2-hour time limit test which is given to prospective performance engineering candidates.
Meta is bringing its new smart glasses with Oakley to India next month
Meta is finally bringing its new smart glasses with Oakley to India. Similar to Meta’s partnership with Ray-Ban, the new Meta–Oakley smart glasses will feature Meta’s hardware combined with Oakley’s frame aesthetics. The smart glasses will come with a built-in camera, open-ear speakers, Ultra HD 3K video recording, and several India-specific additions such as Hindi support, fitness integrations and hands-free video capture.
And from BC Web Wise:
We’re proud to announce that Sonali Banerji, Jinal Dave, Bhakti Vaza, and Joshua Krish Carvalho Baradhwaaj have been recognized with the Millennial Achievers Award! Special congratulations to Joshua for being recognized as a Rising Star. You can read more about their achievements here and here.