May AI Roundup and Rundown: New Heights, Fights and Friendships | Brafton

Welcome back for another AI Roundup and Rundown. This month, we witnessed Google’s unveiling of potentially the biggest change to Search we’ve ever seen — and a few other notable moments you’ll be curious to know.

Google Released AI Mode to U.S. Users

We wrote about Google’s AI mode earlier this month, but for those who missed it, here’s a quick overview:

• Google started rolling out AI Mode to U.S. users in the third week of May, 2025.
• AI Mode transforms Google Search into a chat-like interface, allowing users to ask complex, multi-part questions and receive synthesized responses.
• Users can input queries through text, voice or images, with AI Mode leveraging advanced multimodal capabilities to interpret and respond effectively.
• The Deep Search feature allows AI Mode to perform extensive research by issuing multiple related searches concurrently, compiling information into detailed, expert-level responses.
• AI Mode incorporates visual cards displaying ratings, reviews, real-time prices, and availability for products and local businesses.

SEO is in for a seismic shift. For insights on how to prepare, check out our in-depth AI Mode blog post.

AI Giants Are Fighting

There’s something of a ‘battle to be the best’ brewing amongst the United States’ leading AI companies – and top talents are demanding athlete-level salaries to suit (some as much as $20 million annually). Aligned with that fact, OpenAI, Google and xAI are dishing out millions of dollars in bonuses to attract that talent, hoping hires won’t leave shortly after to work for a competitor or a startup.

What does this mean for the future of AI? Breakthrough innovations will likely emerge faster due to concentrated expertise and investment. So, don’t be surprised if smarter marketing tools start popping up like whack-a-moles (Google’s AI Mode may just be the tip of the AI iceberg).

It may get overwhelming, but if increasing your organizational AI maturity is the ultimate goal, be intentional about what tools you adopt and how.

iPhone + OpenAI = Brand-New AI Companion?

If you’re a close follower of all things AI, you’ve probably seen the few attempts at always-on AI companions over the last few years, like the Humane wearable AI pin or the Rabbit R1. Neither product saw mainstream adoption, and both collected their fair share of negative feedback from around the internet.

Well, there’s a new attempt in town from some familiar faces. Jony Ive, the designer of the iPhone (and iPod, iPad and Apple Watch), is joining forces with OpenAI’s Sam Altman to take a stab at an everyday AI companion device, which Altman is calling the “coolest piece of technology the world will have ever seen.”

OpenAI acquired Ive’s hardware startup, io, for a whopping $6.4 billion. It’s OpenAI’s largest acquisition to date and signals an expensive commitment to integrating advanced AI into consumer hardware. Post-acquisition, Ive will assume creative and design leadership across the combined entities. His design firm, LoveFrom, will oversee design for all OpenAI products, including software.

The duo is envisioning the AI device as a third core product — not a phone, not a wearable, but something entirely new. If this attempt is successful, unlike the AI pin or Rabbit R1, it could become a new marketing touchpoint, much like smartphones did years ago. If many folks wind up walking around with this device, brands may need to consider optimizing for voice-first or even context-aware interactions that move beyond screen-based ads and apps. This is likely inevitable if the device succeeds — I just can’t help but feel like it could get eerie. Advertise responsibly!

More Publications Are Partnering With Perplexity

La Monde, France’s leading newspaper of record, announced a content partnership with the U.S.-based AI startup Perplexity on May 14th, 2025. What could a newspaper and an AI engine have to do with each other? Here’s what the partnership entails:

• Mutual access to resources: Perplexity gains access to Le Monde’s content to enhance its AI-powered search engine responses. In return, Le Monde will utilize Perplexity’s technology to develop new AI-driven products.
• Revenue sharing: Perplexity has entered into similar agreements with over a dozen other media outlets, including the Los Angeles Times and The Independent, sharing advertising revenue with content providers whose material is featured in AI-generated responses.

We’ve seen AI firms face legal challenges from media groups accusing them of unauthorized use of copyrighted content for AI training. Amid that, this alliance signals an evolving relationship between traditional media and AI companies as they work toward mutually beneficial business models.

With reputable news brands like Le Monde licensing content to AI platforms, AI-generated summaries and answers may become more trustworthy as they’re trained on more traditional journalistic sources instead of an amalgam of random data. For marketers, appearing in AI-generated responses may become as, if not more, valuable than traditional SEO rankings.

May the AI Be With You

Google’s AI Mode, the announcement of a third core product powered by AI and content partnerships that potentially mark a mending between traditional media and AI organizations — that’s what May had on offer for this update. I believe most people could have predicted that this is where AI was heading, meaning that it’s just not becoming a more capable technology, but that it will play an increasingly prominent role in our lives. Are you looking forward to any of these bits? Dreading them? Are you split down the middle? It’s OK to be balancing on the fence. A lot of new things are happening.

Note: This article was originally published on contentmarketing.ai.