Meta may be under fire by regulators and distrusted by consumers, but never forget that its core advertising business is a gold mine.  The company reported $29.65 billion revenue for the first quarter of 2023.  That’s up 3% from the pandemic-depressed Q1 last year, which isn’t great but better than the year-on-year declines in every quarter since.

If you need to be reminded what healthy growth looks like: Amazon reported a 21% year-on-year gain in Q1 retail media revenue, $9.5 billion.  Amazon accounts for 85% of the industry, according to eMarketer.  While some reports have predicted a slowdown in retail media, Skai takes a brighter view: 87% of advertisers plan to maintain or increase retail media spending this year.  Plot twist: funds for retail media most often come from the paid search budget, but are usually managed by ecommerce staff.

AI-edited content is less concerning than AI-generated content — that’s the takeaway from Meta’s adjustment to its AI labeling on Facebook and other platforms. The “AI info” label will continue to appear on AI-generated content. Where content has only been modified or edited using AI, the label will appear more demurely in the post’s menu.