Welcome in, today is Monday, September twenty-first, and we begin with OpenAI putting brand-run agents inside ChatGPT ads, per TechRepublic. On the platforms side, OpenAI is testing Sponsored Agents with select United States advertisers, TechRepublic reports: click a ChatGPT ad, then talk to the brand's own agent. That account says the agents are shaped from an advertiser's existing site and services, sit apart from the conversation that produced the click, and do not support purchases. The same reporting pairs the format with first e-commerce and CRM tie-ups. Shopify merchants worldwide can launch and manage ChatGPT ads from the twenty-third of September, and HubSpot users can build and track them in that platform. It follows our earlier coverage of what buyers said would move them past test budgets, and the answer arriving is inventory, not measurement. Among marketers, the recurring concern is liability, since an agent fielding live questions on delivery or availability is answering for the brand. Also today, Digiday makes the case that Publicis has turned client fatigue with competitive reviews into a new-business tactic, following our earlier report on the PepsiCo global media win. The argument rests on chief executive Arthur Sadoun's July earnings call, where he said pitches are shorter and more capabilities-based, and that the group passed on six reviews this year it expected to be decided on price. That read points back to Leo Burnett taking B and Q without a pitch in twenty twenty-four. Using Comvergence data, the same piece nets the PepsiCo win down to about one point one billion dollars, since Publicis already held the Asia-Pacific portion, and to roughly two hundred ninety-five million once the eight hundred five million dollar Coca-Cola North American business leaves on conflict. One consultant, speaking anonymously to Digiday, questioned how decisions made without a formal review stand up to internal audit. Separately, Converse has apologized after a pair of ads drew objections from social media users who said the imagery recalled Klan symbolism and a lynching, Adweek reports. That report is brief, and we have not seen it matched elsewhere. The exposure for brand and agency teams sits upstream of the media plan, in concept review and approval. Industry reaction leans toward reading the episode as a governance question rather than one bad image, with a recurring ask about who had the cultural context, and the authority, to stop it. A smaller current argues the reading is a stretch amplified by the platforms themselves. Now, the organization behind Cannes Lions is rebuilding around the calendar rather than one week in June. LIONS says it is adding regional platforms in North America, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East and North Africa, with Cannes kept as the centre, according to Conference and Meetings World. Per that account, a North American platform called Insight to Impact debuts in Denver in October twenty twenty-six and moves to Nashville the year after, folding in Informa's market research and content marketing events alongside WARC, Contagious and Effie, with VidCon joining from twenty twenty-seven. Spikes Asia becomes LIONS Asia in September twenty twenty-seven, carrying the Asia Lions Awards. And the Riyadh festival we reported last week is now presented as LIONS Riyadh, arriving that December with Tahaluf and the Ministry of Media. For marketers, that is awards spend and travel stretched across more of the year. Reaction is largely welcoming, though practitioners outside the named regions note Africa is absent from the map. Now, a few more headlines moving the trade today. Brand visibility splits sharply by assistant: Amazon drew four percent of Microsoft Copilot citations in July, zero point one percent on ChatGPT and none on Gemini, per Tinuiti data cited by Digiday. AdExchanger reports HBO Max's Reddit account was compromised and used to run fraudulent ads, in the same week a media buyer's nine-year-old spent one hundred eighteen thousand dollars on YouTube ads from a logged-in business account. More than half of consumers say they prefer creator-informed AI recommendations, according to IAB findings reported by Marketing Dive. Wpromote x Giant Spoon has hired Kendra Mazey from Publicis Collective to lead its enterprise accounts as managing director, Adweek reports. And finally, Adweek says its Brandweek conference moves to Dallas in twenty twenty-seven, with a Texas A and M University partnership whose scope is not yet detailed.