Study highlights Reddit’s influence on purchase decisions
Users in the U.S. and the U.K. turn to the platform’s communities for advice and recommendations and often trust people on the app more than family or friends.
Reddit published new insights which show that the platform’s communities are increasingly being used to discover new products and validate purchase decisions, underlining the app’s rising value for brand placement.
Reddit’s latest Path to Purchase research study is based on two surveys of around 14,000 respondents in the U.S. and about 6,500 respondents in the U.K. Per the research, half of U.S. shoppers now verify artificial intelligence chatbots product recommendations via Reddit, while in the U.K., more than 1 in 3 shoppers do the same.
AI chatbots have become a key source of referrals for Reddit, with AI chatbots regularly citing Reddit posts and conversations to validate answers, particularly for questions related to products and services.
AI influences 82% smartphone buyers, but battery and performance remain key
Amazon.in’s survey of over 40,000 respondents found 82% considered AI while buying smartphones, but performance, battery, and camera remained stronger purchase drivers
New Delhi: Artificial intelligence emerged as an expected smartphone feature rather than the only factor driving purchases, with buyers continuing to place greater importance on performance, battery life and camera quality, according to Amazon.in’s inaugural Best in Tech Survey.
The survey, conducted on Amazon.in in July 2026, received more than 40,000 responses across consumer electronics categories. It found that AI features influenced the purchase decisions of 82% of smartphone respondents.
However, performance and speed remained the strongest purchase consideration at 87%, followed by battery life at 79% and camera quality at 77%.
The findings suggested that while AI increasingly entered the smartphone buying checklist, consumers continued to judge devices on everyday performance and usability.
OpenAI builds dedicated ChatGPT experience for teens with parental controls and study features
New safeguards address self-harm, eating disorders and emotional dependency while promoting collaborative learning
ChatGPT-maker OpenAI on Tuesday announced that it’s creating a new portal for teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17 as it looks to address concerns about online safety for young people.
The company made the announcement exclusively on-air with Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday morning and outlined how the platform looks to address the potential for the misuse of the platform by children.
The ChatGPT for Teens portal will serve as the default experience on the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot for users between the ages of 13 and 17 and will come with new safeguards aimed at fostering the safe use of the platform and supporting teens’ critical thinking skills.
OpenAI said that most teen users of ChatGPT use it for homework and help with their studies, so the new platform is intended to allow for study aides without giving the answers away and was designed with Stanford University.
It will feature quizzes and responsible-homework reminders that redirect teens toward collaborative problem-solving, as well as a Study Hours feature that allows teens or parents to set Study Mode as a default during certain time periods.
Spotify to label AI-generated artists, exclude them from recommendations
The streaming platform will introduce ‘AI Persona’ tags for profiles that appear to represent AI-generated identities.
Spotify will soon begin ‘AI Persona’ labels for artist profiles that use AI-generated identities. The labels are expected to appear from September, helping users distinguish between AI-generated personas and real artists.
Artists will be able to self-disclose as AI Personas through Spotify for Artists from August 11. However, Spotify says it will not rely only on self-disclosure. The platform will also review artist profiles where names and imagery appear to represent photorealistic AI-generated identities, beginning with profiles that meet predefined audience thresholds.
Once applied, the label will appear across the artist’s profile, including the banner and About section, as well as in Search and track rows across playlists.
Spotify will also exclude AI Personas from its editorial and algorithmic recommendations by default. Their music will not appear in personalised recommendations unless a user has explicitly chosen to follow the AI Persona.
Anthropic explains how Claude’s text watermark works
The watermark will be invisible to readers but can help determine whether Claude was involved in creating a piece of text.
Anthropic last week published a blog post explaining how it will watermark text produced by its AI chatbot Claude. This comes after the company said it would comply with the EU AI Act’s Transparency Code, which requires AI companies to use systems that make it possible to identify AI generated content.
“Watermarking does not impact the quality of Claude’s output. To a reader, a watermarked response is indistinguishable from an unwatermarked one,” wrote the company.
How does Claude’s watermark work? Large language models, including Claude, generate text by selecting the next word from a set of possible candidates. When several words would make sense in a particular sentence, the model can use randomness to determine which one it selects.
Reddit begins testing a new audio and video experience, similar to popular TikTok videos
Reddit recently said it would bring most viral stories to life through a new “video Reddit” experience, allowing users to listen to Reddit posts in the background while doing other tasks and activities. On Monday, Reddit will begin testing an initial version of this experience with both video and audio posts across select communities to see which type of posts resonate with its users and have the potential to scale.
The company announced its plans for narrated Reddit videos during its second-quarter earnings call in July, when CEO Steve Huffman told analysts on the quarterly call that people were already consuming Reddit content like this on other platforms.
He was referring to how other social media platforms, like TikTok and Meta’s Reels, often feature popular Reddit stories narrated through a text-to-speech feature or read aloud by creators. Some of those videos display the words on screen as they’re read or are accompanied by unrelated footage, like video gameplay or cooking content.
Google Ads is removing language targeting from Search campaigns
Google’s shift to automated language matching removes a manual Search targeting control, leaving advertisers with less control
Google is removing campaign-level language targeting from Search and AI Max for Search campaigns starting in late September, shifting responsibility for language matching to Google’s automated systems.
Instead of advertisers explicitly selecting which languages to target, Google will determine which ads to serve based largely on the language of the ad alongside signals about the languages a user understands.
What’s changing. For Search and AI Max for Search campaigns, the campaign-level language targeting setting will disappear. Google says Search ads will automatically match based on the language of the ads.
Performance Max gets a more nuanced change. For ads appearing on Google Search, campaign-level language settings will no longer apply and language matching will work the same way as standard Search campaigns.
That;s the update for the week, see you soon. Stay ahead with D-talks !
