While digital giants Google, Meta, and Amazon continue trousering the vast bulk of the online advertising dollars in the digital ecosystem, all are keenly aware the rise of AI offers an inflection point. And for Google in particular, a once monopolistic market is suddenly hyper-contestable, hence the need to assure investors that all the new AI innovations in advertising simply increase the opportunities to monetise new types of search. Meta's Mark Zuckerberg meanwhile, used the latest financial reporting presentations to crow about the depth of Meta's offerings across of "Family of Apps" with particular emphasis on Threads, the app it built specifically for Twitter quitters, which now has over 300 million users. But he was most excited about AI, and the possibilities offered by agents, where he expects Meta to lead in delivering personalisation at scale. And Amazon, which used to relegate advertising to the footnotes in its reports, now puts it centre stage. That's hardly surprising, it's a $US69bn business.