The findings come from Kantar’s newly released ‘The Creator Game Plan’ report, which analysed more than 15,000 branded creator assets across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts.

While the study found that 27% of creator content achieved medium-to-high engagement alongside medium-to-high brand impact, the report suggests many marketers continue to overestimate the value of engagement metrics without considering broader business outcomes.

According to Kantar, the findings expose a growing disconnect between the billions invested in creator marketing and the commercial results brands expect.

Irene Joshy, Head of Creative at Kantar Australia and APAC, said the research is particularly relevant as brands across the region continue increasing their investment in creator partnerships.

“While around a quarter of creator content drives effectiveness, the brand itself is too often missed. Therefore, for our region, ‘Cultural Power’ is such an important measure in Kantar’s new Creator Effectiveness framework,” said Joshy. 

“It helps unlock the right balance between creator authenticity and meaningful brand connection, ensuring content feels native to culture while still working hard for the brand,” added Joshy. 

To help marketers better evaluate creator campaigns, Kantar has expanded its LINK AI platform with creator-specific testing, a new capability that measures engagement, brand-building and short-term sales potential against creator content benchmarks to enable marketers to assess performance beyond traditional platform metrics.

Vera Sidlova, Global Creative Director at Kantar, said the findings should encourage marketers to adopt broader measurement frameworks beyond engagement alone.

“Our research is a wake-up call that high engagement and genuine brand effectiveness more often than not do not align. CMOs say they’re under pressure to prove their return on investment. To do this, they need better signals and more rigorous metrics for testing to understand if their creator partnerships are the right fit,” shared Sidlova. 

The report also notes that creative freedom remains essential for successful creator marketing, with 61% of marketers planning to increase investment in creator content.

However, Sidlova said authenticity alone is not enough without a clear strategic foundation.

“But for all the authenticity and personality that creators offer, there’s no gain to be found in a campaign that lacks strategy, genuine audience insight and fails to add value to a brand’s long-term game plan,” added Sidlova. 

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The collaboration marks a significant step in Sea’s ambition to embed artificial intelligence across its ecosystem spanning e-commerce, digital financial services, and gaming. It also signals OpenAI’s growing push to integrate its technology into everyday consumer experiences beyond standalone chat interfaces.

Under the new agreement, the Shopee app is now available in ChatGPT for users in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Brazil. 

According to Sea, this makes Shopee the first e-commerce platform of its kind to be accessible across Southeast Asia and Latin America through ChatGPT.

The integration allows users to discover products using natural language prompts. Consumers can ask ChatGPT for gift ideas, travel essentials, fashion inspiration, or help finding niche products, before seamlessly continuing their purchase journey on Shopee.

“Sea has always focused on using technology to improve the lives of consumers and small businesses across our markets,” said Forrest Li, Chairman and CEO of Sea.

“Our strategic partnership with OpenAI reflects a shared commitment to making AI more accessible and meaningful for the communities we serve. By combining OpenAI’s advanced AI capabilities with Sea’s vibrant ecosystem, we hope to deliver more intuitive AI-native experiences for consumers while enabling businesses of all sizes to use AI to grow and stay competitive in the digital economy,” he added.

Beyond consumer discovery, the partnership also targets small businesses operating on Shopee.

Sea plans to introduce ChatGPT for Business to its seller ecosystem, enabling merchants to use AI for tasks such as creating product listings and marketing content, improving customer service workflows, and automating day-to-day operations. 

Eligible sellers will receive trial access, alongside onboarding support, training programmes, and best-practice guides designed to accelerate adoption.

The announcement builds on an existing relationship between the two companies. Since 2025, Sea and OpenAI have worked together to broaden access to ChatGPT through marketing promotions and ShopeeVIP membership benefits.

OpenAI’s Chief Revenue Officer Denise Dresser said embedding AI into familiar platforms can help users unlock more practical value from the technology.

“Sea has built an extraordinary ecosystem across some of the world’s most dynamic digital markets,” she said.

“By bringing OpenAI’s technology into the products and services people already use, we can make AI more useful and accessible in their everyday lives. This partnership will help more consumers discover new AI-powered experiences, give small businesses practical tools to grow, and enable more people to put AI to work as an operating layer across the company and the broader builder ecosystem.”

The partnership also extends to developer communities. Earlier this year, Sea and OpenAI launched the first regional Codex Hackathon series in Asia Pacific. The initiative kicked off in Singapore in June, attracting more than 1,200 applications and 40 shortlisted teams. Additional hackathons are planned across Vietnam, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Malaysia.

The latest move underscores a broader shift in how AI is reshaping commerce. As consumers increasingly rely on conversational interfaces to discover products and businesses seek productivity gains through automation, companies are racing to integrate AI directly into the customer journey.

For Sea, the partnership represents another milestone in its evolution into an AI-native business. For OpenAI, it offers a pathway to bring its technology to millions of users across some of the world’s fastest-growing digital economies.

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The collaboration seeks to address one of retail media’s longstanding challenges: the disconnect between media metrics and merchant priorities.

While retail media has increasingly adopted the language of digital advertising—focusing on impressions, reach, click-through rates, and return on ad spend (ROAS)—retailers have traditionally measured success differently, prioritising sell-through, product velocity, and margin performance.

As a result, sponsored products and organic listings have often been ranked separately, creating situations where products that perform well in ad auctions may not necessarily support broader commercial objectives.

Under the partnership, Zitcha and Pentaleap aim to bridge that divide through a unified ranking approach that evaluates sponsored and organic products within a single system.

The integration combines Pentaleap’s ranking technology with Zitcha’s merchant decisioning capabilities to ensure media investments are informed by factors such as product relevance, likelihood of conversion, and margin contribution.

At the centre of the collaboration is Margin Manager, Zitcha’s merchant intelligence layer, which feeds product-level margin insights into Pentaleap’s auction and ranking engine.

Pentaleap, in turn, governs how products are ranked and served by connecting multiple demand sources—including ad servers, demand-side platforms (DSPs), and major platforms such as Teads and Amazon Ads—to a unified decision-making framework.

The companies said the resulting model enables retailers to adopt a “best-of-breed” technology stack without overhauling their existing systems.

Designed to be ad-stack agnostic and privacy compliant, the solution operates within retailers’ own data environments and can integrate with existing search, personalisation, campaign management, and demand partner systems.

Rather than requiring retailers to replace current infrastructure, the combined offering is intended to improve existing capabilities incrementally.

“For too long, retail media networks have operated in isolation using digital advertising metrics that do not speak the language of the merchant,” said Troy Townsend, Co-Founder and CEO of Zitcha.

“Our partnership with Pentaleap introduces a shared language. By infusing margin-aware insights into the media workflow, we ensure retail and media grow together while producing evidence that retailers can trust.”

Andreas Reiffen, Co-Founder and CEO of Pentaleap, added that the ranking process remains one of the most critical moments in the shopper journey.

“The ranking decision is the moment of truth. If organic and sponsored products are ranked by separate systems, neither can be optimised,” he said.

“Pentaleap rewrites that decision so organic and sponsored products are judged against the same standard of relevance, media performance, and product margin. Partnering with Zitcha delivers a best-in-class stack that plugs into existing retail systems to improve them incrementally.”

As retail media networks mature and retailers seek stronger proof of commercial impact, the partnership reflects a growing industry shift towards balancing advertising performance with merchant outcomes.

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Inspired by football’s popular xG (expected goals) metric, the launch introduces xC, or expected clichés, a new score designed to measure how often managers rely on familiar football phrases instead of providing genuine insight and original perspectives.

The xC Tracker will analyse every pre-match and post-match press conference delivered by the tournament’s 48 national team managers, creating a live ranking that highlights the sport’s strongest communicators while tracking those who frequently fall back on well-worn football clichés.

At the heart of the launch is the idea that communication matters just as much off the pitch as performance does on it, and by applying artificial intelligence to one of football’s most visible media moments, Sinch aims to bring a fresh layer of analysis to the tournament while showcasing how communication can be measured and understood through data.

Throughout the competition, fans, journalists and commentators will be able to follow live rankings showing which managers provide the clearest insights, how communication styles change as tournament pressure increases, and which clichés are most commonly used across different languages and markets.

The tracker analyses press conferences conducted in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German and Arabic by examining exact phrases, variations and paraphrased responses, meaning managers who repeatedly use phrases such as “taking it one game at a time” or “the boys gave everything” are likely to receive higher xC scores than those who offer detailed observations, tactical explanations or unique reflections.

The launch will also monitor how managers’ communication strategies evolve throughout the tournament, revealing whether success, defeat or increasing pressure influences the way they engage with the media.

In addition to ranking authenticity, the platform will identify the most frequently used football clichés across languages and crown the manager who demonstrates the strongest communication performance with football’s first-ever “Press Conference Ballon d’Or.”

“Sinch powers billions of customer interactions every year, helping businesses deliver the right message to the right person at the right moment. For this year’s tournament, we’re applying that same communication expertise to one of the world’s biggest sporting events,” explained Robert Gerstmann, Chief Evangelist and Co Founder at Sinch. 

“At Sinch, we help businesses communicate effectively under pressure every day. Through billions of interactions between companies and their customers, we know what it takes for a message to land at the right moment. We wanted to find out whether football managers do too,” added Gerstmann. 

Through the initiative, Sinch is applying its expertise in AI and communications to one of the world’s most watched sporting events, highlighting the role that effective communication plays when every word is scrutinised by global audiences.

The xC Tracker is available throughout the tournament, providing real-time insights into how football’s biggest personalities communicate both on and off the field.

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Designed to promote AI awareness and responsible usage, the campaign features real students and young creators who are using AI tools to support their studies, careers, businesses, and creative pursuits, while showing how technology can become a practical companion for everyday productivity and self-development.

At the heart of the campaign is a video series showcasing the experiences of fresh graduate Russco Jarviña using AI to improve job applications, student entrepreneur Ysa Buenaventura creating marketing and branding materials for her business, and student creator Gift Boiser developing engaging educational and creative content — each showcasing the many different ways AI can help people achieve their goals. 

Through these real-life stories, Globe aims to show that AI is no longer a distant technology but an accessible tool that can help young people learn, create and grow when used thoughtfully and responsibly.

The campaign supports Globe Prepaid’s broader efforts to make AI more relevant and accessible to the next generation, recognising how Gen Z and Gen Alpha consumers are increasingly integrating AI into their daily lives, from education and entrepreneurship to creativity and self-expression.

Alongside the campaign, Globe is also expanding access to AI-powered tools through its Go+ PLUS AI offering, which includes access to Canva AI features designed to help users create content, generate visuals, and complete creative tasks more efficiently.

“Today’s generation is already using AI in practical and meaningful ways, from school requirements and creative projects to small businesses and job applications,” said Givielle Florida, Senior Director at Globe Prepaid. 

“We want to make these tools more available and relevant to the everyday experiences of young Filipinos while encouraging responsible and purposeful AI use,” added Florida. 

Looking ahead, Globe said it plans to introduce more AI-powered experiences and app partnerships as part of its ongoing commitment to making artificial intelligence more useful, practical and accessible for subscribers across the Philippines.

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Inter Pariwara Global and iLab Indonesia bring media expertise across both global and local client portfolios, along with a combined workforce of about 150 employees.

Amrita Randhawa, CEO of Publicis Groupe Singapore and Southeast Asia, commented, “Indonesia is one of the most important and high-potential markets in Southeast Asia, and this acquisition reflects our continued commitment and optimism for its future at a time when much of the industry seems focused on divestment. This allows us to combine deep local expertise with the full power of our global capabilities in data, technology and innovation. Together, we are building a stronger, more future-ready offering for our clients.”

The transaction remains subject to customary closing conditions.

The acquisition adds to Publicis Groupe’s ongoing investments in data and identity platform Lotame, influencer marketing firm HEPMIL, and its artificial intelligence initiatives, including an APAC AI Hub developed in partnership with the Singapore Economic Development Board.

Publicis Groupe continues to report strong performance in Southeast Asia and was ranked number one for new business momentum in Indonesia by COMvergence.

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As marketing teams across Asia Pacific grapple with the content demands of an always-on digital economy, the promise of generative AI has often collided with fragmented workflows and spiralling credit-based costs.

Unveiled on May 8, Vidu Claw is built on ShengShu’s proprietary Vidu Q3 video model and the open-source OpenClaw framework. It is positioned not merely as a production tool but as a creative partner capable of managing the end-to-end campaign workflow—from strategic planning and scripting to visuals, voiceover, and final video output—removing manual handoffs between specialists that have traditionally constrained large-scale AI video production.

At the core of the launch is a direct challenge to what ShengShu describes as the “aggregator tax”. While many all-in-one AI video platforms route tasks through multiple third-party models that stack up credit charges, Vidu Claw generates every frame natively via Vidu Q3. It also introduces what the company calls the world’s first Video Plan, a subscription model where users pay for completed advertising output rather than tool access or generation credits.

“The result is a complete and high-quality advertisement. Brands know exactly what they are paying for before they pay for it,” the company stated. 

For marketers, this shifts the value proposition from unpredictable usage-based billing to fixed, outcome-driven pricing, enabling greater budget predictability and supporting large-scale A/B testing and creative iteration.

ShengShu projects that Vidu Claw can reduce the cost of producing a finished ad to around 1% of traditional production costs while compressing timelines from days to same-day delivery. A simple brief such as “Create a short-form ad for a running shoe targeting young women on Instagram” is enough for the system to generate a concept, script, storyboard, and final video in a single workflow.

Beyond video generation, Vidu Claw also functions as a broader marketing automation platform. Its marketing skills orchestration layer integrates thousands of capabilities spanning trend analysis, social copywriting, performance analytics, and document generation for reporting. The system is open and extensible, allowing integration with existing environments through OpenClaw, Claude Code, and other compatible agent frameworks.

For brands and agencies across APAC, Vidu Claw signals a shift in how AI is embedded within the marketing stack—positioning itself not as a passive assistant but as an always-on strategic teammate capable of delivering campaigns from brief to completion.

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Eighteen months after launching its free streaming TV service in Southeast Asia, Samsung TV Plus, Samsung Ads has entered its first data partnership in the region to deepen its understanding of Samsung TV households.

The collaboration brings together Samsung’s regional Smart TV scale with Eyeota’s consumer data network, expanding Samsung Ads’ capabilities.

Through the partnership, advertisers can reach household audiences across Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines for Connected TV (CTV) campaigns.

The move aims to improve targeting based on demographics and interests, enhancing the effectiveness of native and video ad formats on the big screen in one of the fastest-growing CTV markets.

Marc Fanelli, General Manager, Dun & Bradstreet Sales & Marketing Services, commented, “Whether the goal is driving broad discovery or accurately converting intent into purchase, understanding CTV audiences and meeting them where they are watching is key to delivering campaign impact.” Our work with Samsung Ads significantly increases accessibility for brands and advertisers, ensuring campaign budgets are spent reaching the audiences that matter most.”

Alex Spurzem, Managing Director of Samsung Ads Southeast Asia and Oceania (SEAO), added, “Our new partnership with Eyeota empowers advertisers to unlock the full potential of Connected TV. The combination of scale and unique audience segmentation gives brands greater confidence that their campaigns are reaching the right consumers to ultimately deliver better outcomes.”

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The agreement is OpenAI’s first MOU with the Singapore Government and includes a commitment of more than S$300 million to support the country’s AI ecosystem. It sets out plans to develop AI deployment capabilities, strengthen talent pipelines and expand the use of AI across the public and private sectors.

The collaboration is structured around three workstreams covering an applied AI lab, talent development and broader access to AI.

A key component is the OpenAI Singapore Applied AI Lab, the company’s first such facility outside the United States. The lab will grow a team of Forward-Deployed Engineers and technical specialists to more than 200 roles over the next few years, focused on translating frontier AI models into practical applications. Its work will be aligned with Singapore’s national AI priorities, including public services, finance, healthcare and digital infrastructure. OpenAI will also introduce a Forward-Deployed Engineer programme in Singapore to train mid-career software engineers in applied AI system development.

On talent development, OpenAI will collaborate with local education institutions on training programmes and research partnerships, including workshops under a Singapore chapter of its OpenAI Academy and Codex for Teachers hackathons. It will also work with the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and AI Singapore (AISG) under the AIxTech programme to support skills development among technology professionals, including access to Codex and structured training initiatives.

The third pillar, “AI for All”, focuses on expanding access to AI tools for individuals, businesses and startups. Planned initiatives include citizen-facing AI applications for public services, accelerator programmes offering technical support to startups, and workshops aimed at micro-entrepreneurs and SMEs. The partnership also includes plans to develop localised content for SkillsFuture programmes.

Chng Kai Fong, Permanent Secretary (Digital Development and Information), said, “With AI reshaping economies, businesses and the workforce, Singapore’s response has been deliberate: growing new sectors, anchoring global frontier companies here, and equipping our people with the skills to thrive in this new environment. This partnership with OpenAI reflects the Government’s commitment to developing Singapore’s AI capabilities, strengthening enterprise adoption of AI, and securing good jobs for Singaporeans.”

Denise Dresser, Chief Revenue Officer at OpenAI, said, “We’re excited to partner with Singapore as it builds on its position as a global leader in AI. Singapore has strong technical talent, trusted institutions, and a clear ambition to use AI to drive long-term growth and improve people’s lives. Through OpenAI for Singapore, we want to help more organisations put frontier AI to work, develop local talent, and expand access to the benefits of AI.”

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The agreement builds on a 2022 memorandum of understanding with the Smart Nation and Digital Government Group and is aimed at deploying frontier AI across public services, industry and research, while supporting workforce development and AI governance.

The partnership will focus on using AI to address societal challenges, strengthen enterprise adoption, build an AI-ready workforce and develop a secure ecosystem aligned with Singapore’s National AI Strategy.

Health, science and inclusive innovation

A key pillar of the partnership is research and development in health and life sciences, supported by Google DeepMind’s presence in Singapore under its global National Partnerships for AI initiative.

In healthcare, Google DeepMind is exploring collaboration with public health clusters on “AI co-clinicians” to support doctors in delivering care, including systems that draw on clinical guidelines and scientific literature under physician oversight.

In scientific research, Google DeepMind is working with the National Research Foundation (NRF) to train local researchers in agentic AI tools, including Co-Scientist, and will run workshops to support biomedical applications.

Separately, Google and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) will use secure AI tools on Google Cloud to support hypothesis generation and accelerate translation of research into materials and life sciences innovations, while maintaining safeguards for intellectual property.

In inclusive innovation, Google DeepMind is developing a Gemma-powered running assistant for blind and low-vision athletes. The tool uses spatial reasoning to provide real-time environmental awareness and is being tested with SG Enable.

Education and workforce development

Google is also expanding its collaboration with the Ministry of Education (MOE) to strengthen AI capabilities in teaching and learning, including educator training and upskilling programmes.

It has already integrated AI tools into Google Workspace for Education for educators across primary to pre-university levels, supporting lesson planning and content development.

The partnership also extends existing programmes under the “Majulah AI” initiative, including Skills Ignition SG with the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), Google for Startups Accelerator: AI First, AI Cloud Takeoff, and Gemini Academy.

Enterprise innovation

Google Cloud will expand its Forward Deployed Engineers team in Singapore to help companies scale agentic AI systems, building on the Singapore Engineering Centre launch.

The partnership also continues collaboration with agencies including AI Singapore (AISG), the Centre for Strategic Infocomm Technologies (CSIT), GovTech Singapore, the Home Team Science and Technology Agency (HTX) and the National University of Singapore (NUS).

Safety and governance

The agreement includes work on AI safety and governance frameworks as Singapore tests “computer use” AI agents in real-world environments.

A joint whitepaper by Google, the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA), GovTech Singapore and IMDA outlines findings from the AI Agents Sandbox, including early governance considerations for safe deployment in areas such as software testing and social assistance.

Google DeepMind is also working with IMDA and MLCommons on multilingual and multimodal safety benchmarks to improve AI systems’ handling of local languages and cultural context.

“This partnership builds on years of close collaboration with Google, and we are pleased to take it to the next level. Bringing frontier AI into our public services and enterprises is central to Singapore’s AI ambitions. This partnership, spanning across multiple agencies, allows us to deploy it at scale,” said Chng Kai Fong, Permanent Secretary (Digital Development and Information).

“As Singapore advances its National AI Strategy the focus now shifts to deploying frontier AI to accelerate real world impact for the country. Through this expanded partnership with the Singapore Government, we are putting AI into action by combining the best of our technology, R&D expertise, and local talent to accelerate AI for the public good. This also creates a scalable blueprint for responsible AI innovation, built in Singapore for the world,” said Ben King, Country Managing Director at Google Singapore.

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