Blueprint | The Gradient

Featured Stories

The GRADIENT

The GRADIENT: Why Taste Is the New Moat

Why AI Content All Sounds the Same & How SEO Pros Can Fix It

This post was sponsored by Market Brew. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own. If your AI-generated articles don’t rank but sound fine, you’re not alone. AI has made it effortless to produce content, but not to stand out in SERPs. Across nearly every industry, brands are using generative AI tools like

Fintech Moneybox on striving to be in ‘lockstep’ with customers

Wealth management platform Moneybox wants to become a “household name” in the UK, as the fintech firm looks to build on its “exponential growth”. The platform, currently supporting a community of more than 1.5 million customers nationwide, has over £16bn in assets under administration helping people to save, invest, buy their first home and prepare

Christine Furuya-Gössler’s photographs are a powerful memento of a life cut short

As well as reflecting their shared family life, for Seiichi, many of the photographs reveal Christine’s inner-self, her personality and demeanour, even the way she held her camera. “She never aggressively imposed herself on her subjects. Instead, she always maintained a position of quiet restraint, observing from a slight distance,” says Seiichi. “She held the

Perplexity Bets $400M On Snapchat To Scale AI Search Adoption

Perplexity will pay Snap $400 million to integrate its AI answer engine into Snapchat’s chat interface, with rollout starting next year. Perplexity will pay Snap $400 million over one year to integrate its AI answer engine into Snapchat. Snap calls this its first large-scale integration of an external AI partner directly in the app.

Recentering creative and relevance in a precision-driven industry

For over a decade, “the right person, the right message, the right time” has been a guiding principle in digital advertising. It has been cited in decks, planning documents and strategy sessions across the industry. Even so, it rarely happens in reality. In practice, the industry focus has gone toward refining targeting and timing. The

They made Trump a gangster, but there’s more to The Dor Brothers than viral AI filmmaking

For Yonathan Dor, one half of The Dor Brothers, AI filmmaking isn’t about speed or savings, but it’s about spirit. “I think fear is the mind killer,” he says, referencing Dune. The pop cultural references keep coming as I try to unearth what makes one half of AI filmmaking’s most popular teams work. Echoing a

YouTube Separates Organic & Paid Metrics In Channel Analytics

YouTube introduced separate filtering for organic and paid traffic metrics in YouTube Analytics, allowing you to distinguish between unpaid and promoted content performance. Channels can now filter views, engaged views, likes, comments, shares, and watchtime by traffic source. The update addresses longstanding questions about how paid advertising affects organic channel growth. YouTube’s announcement included clarification

Netflix Releases New Ad Tier Metric, Says It Reaches 190 Million Monthly Active Viewers

Ahead of Stranger Things Season 5 premiering this month, Netflix has a whole new acronym to turn its ad reporting upside down. Today, the company announced several advertising updates, including revealing that it’s using a new metric to calculate engagement. Rather than using Monthly Active Users (MAU), which focused on profiles interacting on its ad

Clark | LG2 :: Behance

(EN) Since 1877, Clark has been a classic in Quebecers’ pantries. Aliments Ouimet strived for innovation in its category by introducing new gourmet flavors and new dishes showcasing legumes, an increasingly popular food. The challenge was significant: finding the right balance between tradition and modernity to attract new clientele, while allowing the brand to

How Founders Are Turning LinkedIn Posts Into Larger Sales Deals

Build Influence, Drive Revenue, and Grow Faster Your voice is your most underused business asset. Founders who post at least 10 times a year on LinkedIn: Generate 33% more leads. Close deals that are 3.7x larger. The data speaks for itself. In this live webinar, a rockstar team from LinkedIn will share new insights and

Two-thirds of listeners say podcasts recommendations drive purchase decisions

A new study found 67 percent of global podcast listeners say they’ve made a purchase directly because of a recommendation from a podcast, which begs the question: Are podcasters influencers? The study, “Podcast Pulse 2025,” (no registration required) from podcast monetization platform Acast, found 75% of podcast listeners don’t consider podcasters to be influencers. But

Meet the Nigerian graphic designers bringing African expression to typography

Before his big pivot into type design, David James Udoh was a graphic designer without formal training and with only a passion and a dream he mentions was ambitious. His curiosity eventually led him into brand design, which gave him a playground to experiment with typography constantly. He was working with type every other day,

Google AI Mode Starts Rolling Out Agentic Booking In Labs

Google is starting to roll out agentic capabilities in AI Mode as a Search Labs experiment. This update enables AI Mode to find and book restaurant reservations, event tickets, and wellness appointments across multiple websites. Availability is limited, and Google notes this experiment may not be available to everyone yet. Robby Stein, VP of Product

KFC UK highlighted for ‘really incredible results’ by parent company

KFC’s parent company has highlighted the “incredible” results generated by the UK business in its most recent quarter, as the market grew sales by double-digits in Q3. Speaking to investors today (4 Nov), Yum! Brands CEO Chris Turner highlighted the contribution of KFC UK to the sales growth of the brand in the third quarter,

Freepik reveals Spaces, a fresh take on a crowded creative idea

Freepik’s new Spaces platform, revealed at Upscale Conference here in Málaga, marks a shift from being a vast resource library to a collaborative hub for creatives. It’s designed to give designers and visual storytellers a place to share, experiment, and find inspiration, all within the familiar Freepik ecosystem. After the announcement, I went backstage for

LLM Traffic Is Shrinking

LLM referral traffic has been growing +65% year-to-date. But we should assume 0 in the future. LLM Referral Traffic Is Shrinking LLM referral traffic in B2B grew +65.1% since January – but dropped -42.6% since July. Image Credit: Kevin Indig My December prediction of 50% organic by 2027 is dead: In December 2024, I analyzed six B2B sites

People Inc. IAC Google AI Overviews Microsoft

People Inc. has struck an AI licensing deal with Microsoft to be part of the tech giant’s pay-per-usage AI content marketplace. The news was revealed to shareholders by People Inc. CEO Neil Vogel during parent company IAC’s 2025 third-quarter earnings call on Nov. 4. Vogel described the Microsoft marketplace as an “a la carte” pay-per-use

Double Clutch :: Behance

Double Clutch — Brand Identity Double Clutch is the content platform for the classic car connoisseur. Capturing the craftsmanship and creativity that inspired every wheel and wing, created to share the stories of classic luxury cars and the lives they have driven with them. The identity draws inspiration from the retro automotive world, blending the

Can You Use AI To Write For YMYL Sites? (Read The Evidence Before You Do)

Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) covers topics that affect people’s health, financial stability, safety, or general welfare, and rightly so Google applies measurably stricter algorithmic standards to these topics. AI writing tools might promise to scale content production, but as writing for YMYL requires more consideration and author credibility than other content, can an

Sephora, Gap, Béis Execs Say Authenticity Is Future of Lifestyle Marketing

Style is a living, breathing response to and architect of culture. Increasingly, it’s being shaped by independent creators and everyday consumers. This was the core idea at the heart of a lively onstage discussion at ADWEEK’s Brandweek 2025 event in Atlanta on Monday. Marketing executives at some of the largest style and beauty brands told

Join Our Newsletter

For more professional opportunities join our newsletter.