Last week brought major announcements and game changing initiatives from the world’s leading tech and social media companies. Catch up on all the news you may have missed in our Weekly Must Reads.

Twitter Announces New CEO

Is Twitter about to enter another new era? Last Friday, Twitter officially announced former NBCUniversal executive Linda Yaccarino as its new CEO. Yaccarino joined NBCU back in 2011, and as head of ad sales, helped revitalize and modernize the network’s advertising operations. In the coming weeks, Elon Musk will transition into a role as owner and CTO, overseeing Twitter’s software and server teams.

According to a tweet from Musk last week, Yaccarino will officially begin her new role in six weeks. How will a new CEO shape Twitter’s future, and will she be able to bring deserters back to the app’s ad platform? Check out the latest news here: https://www.reuters.com/technology/musk-says-has-found-new-ceo-twitter-2023-05-11/

Meta Launches Generative AI For Advertisements

In an effort to build on the positive advertising growth it saw in Q1, Meta is adding generative AI capabilities to its ad platform. The AI features will include help creating alternative post copy, background descriptions and auto-image cropping. According to Meta, the tools will be available for both Facebook and Instagram ads. An early draft of these features is now available for select advertisers, with a full rollout of its generative AI ad capabilities planned for later this year.

While Meta may be the first major social platform to add AI to its offerings, other ad tech startups have been using services like DALLE-2 to help create ads for years. Will generative AI help lure more marketers back to Meta’s platforms? Read more about their advancements here: https://techcrunch.com/2023/05/11/meta-announces-generative-ai-features-for-advertisers/

Google Rolls Out Generative AI Search

The way we use search engines is on the brink of change. Last week, Google announced a wider release for its AI chatbot Bard during an annual developer conference. The tool, which will be a competitor to the widely known ChatGPT, is now open for use in most countries, and Google plans to implement several updates in the near future. The coming features include visual search, which will allow people to include images in their prompts and let Bard reference images in its responses, as well as third-party plug-ins with services like ZipRecruiter and OpenTable.

The announcement comes at a time when Google’s market dominance has been threatened. Its search engine has been battling increased competition from Microsoft Bing, and its advertising revenue dropped in Q1 for the second consecutive quarter. Find out more about Google’s plans to incorporate generative AI into its offerings here: https://www.marketingdive.com/news/google-ai-chatbot-bard-visual-search-marketing-third-party-io/649986/

TikTok Builds Out More Music Features

Given the popularity of trending sounds and turning song clips into viral sensations, TikTok is investing more heavily into its reputation as a music platform. Last week, the brand introduced “NewMusic,” a new search feature that will help users find new songs and let artists promote their latest work. To access the feature, TikTok users will simply search “New Music” in the search bar, and then start picking videos to watch under the “Featured,” “Trending,” and “Discover” filters.

TikTok has enlisted several artists with large followings on the app, such as Miguel and the Jonas Brothers, to create videos promoting the NewMusic feature. While the hashtag #NewMusic was already in heavy use on TikTok, the new feature generated one billion new views on the hashtag in just one day. Learn more about NewMusic and TikTok’s strategy here: https://techcrunch.com/2023/05/12/tiktok-newmusic/