This week Julius and Ben discuss how performance marketers are being pushed to rethink metrics as competition concentrates budgets in the lower funnel and suggest a broader shift back toward brand strategy as early digital advantages fade. They cover Google Ads integrating Tag Manager access to simplify tracking for small advertisers and tie it to Google’s AI-driven push to democratize advertising and reduce reliance on large buyers. They also note Google dropping FAQ rich results, reducing SEO visibility while AI answers may still use on-page FAQs. Finally, they react to Anthropic’s reports of Claude “blackmail” scenarios, framing them as likely marketing and prompt-dependent.