This Week in M&A Issue #222

Everyone is rushing to “optimize for AI.” Most are doing it wrong.

In the latest episode of The Opportunity Podcast, Tim Soulo, the Chief Marketing Officer at Ahrefs, joins us to cut through the noise around AEO and GEO and explains why business owners are massively overcomplicating what visibility really means today.

We cover:
• How SEO compares to AEO and GEO
• Why creating content for AI first is a mistake
• How to update your existing content to increase AI visibility
• When AI can actually help you rank faster
• Why traditional SEO isn’t going away

If you want a practical, hype-free take on AI and SEO, check out the full podcast episode here.

A quirky lobster has become the unlikely face of the latest AI craze.

Moltbot was previously known as Clawdbot (and now might be called OpenClaw according to its updated homepage). It’s a personal AI assistant that went viral just weeks after launch, attracting thousands of curious developers and tech enthusiasts. Despite a forced name change following a legal challenge from Anthropic, the project’s crustacean branding and growing fanbase remain intact.

Moltbot markets itself as “the AI that actually does things.” Unlike typical chatbots, it is designed to take real actions, such as managing calendars, sending messages through apps, or checking users in for flights. That hands-on promise is what fueled its rapid rise, even though installing and running it requires significant technical know-how.

Early adopters see Moltbot as a glimpse into the future of AI agents that can move beyond conversation and actually get work done. This enthusiasm helped the project rack up more than 44,000 GitHub stars in a short time. The buzz even spilled into financial markets, with Cloudflare’s stock briefly jumping after social media attention highlighted its role in hosting the infrastructure developers use to run Moltbot locally.

Still, Moltbot remains firmly in early adopter territory. While it is open source and runs on a user’s own machine rather than in the cloud, its ability to execute commands introduces serious security risks. Experts warn that malicious messages or prompt injection attacks could potentially trigger unintended actions.

For now, safe use requires careful setup and often running Moltbot on a separate server with limited access. That trade-off between usefulness and security means it is best suited for experienced users.

Even so, Moltbot has already demonstrated what autonomous AI assistants might soon be capable of, shifting the conversation from impressive demos to practical, if still risky, utility.

Amazon is moving forward with a major shift in how Sponsored Brands product collections work, replacing the current format with an AI-powered version starting January 28, 2026.

Here’s what’s changing.

First, advertisers can now feature between three and ten products in a single ad. Previously, the format was capped at just three ASINs. This gives brands more room to showcase a broader catalog, bundle related products, or highlight variations without spinning up multiple campaigns. Older campaigns with one or two products can keep running, but you will not be able to add new ad groups to them.

Second, Amazon is leaning harder into AI. You can let Amazon automatically choose which products show up based on what shoppers are searching for, or you can still pick the products yourself if you want tighter control. That option matters if margins, inventory, or product positioning are important to your strategy.

Third, product details are now front and center in the ad. Shoppers can see key info right away, making it easier to compare and buy without extra clicks.

Finally, one of the biggest changes is what’s no longer required. Advertisers no longer need to create a custom image or write a headline. Amazon is removing custom creative entirely, which makes it much easier to spin up campaigns, especially if design has always been your bottleneck.

Over the past year, Amazon has been moving away from hands-on campaign setup and toward AI making more of the decisions. Sponsored Brands collections are another step in that direction, with automated product selection and a more standardized ad format.

These changes make it easier and faster to launch campaigns, but they also leave less room for branding and custom messaging. In the end, it comes down to results. As advertisers start testing the new format, performance will decide whether the AI-driven approach is better than the more manual options it replaces.

eCommerce Orders Soar, But Growth Benefits Only the Top Brands