This Week in M&A Issue #248
August 3, 2026
Greetings earthlings!
Today’s trend of the week is “Mahjong”. 🀄
Once seen as a game played mainly by older generations, Mahjong is now attracting a younger audience looking for new ways to socialize, build relationships, and expand their professional networks. Across the US, some women entrepreneurs are using Mahjong gatherings as a way to connect, share ideas, and create new business opportunities.
The trend is also showing up online. According to Mahjong 4 Friends, nearly 1.8 million people in the US actively play on its platform. On Google, searches for Mahjong reached 2.1 million last month, with interest up 69% over the past year.
From selling Mahjong products to creating digital communities and offering experiences around the game, there are new opportunities emerging as more people discover this classic pastime.
Today we have for you:
- Facebook Marketplace gets a standalone app built for sellers
- AI got a vending machine job and immediately played dirty
And:
- Amazon Business hits $60B in sales as businesses embrace eCommerce
- Google says AI Max opens the door to billions of new ad opportunities
- What 15.7M Google AI Mode citations tell us about the future of SEO
Alright, let’s dive in.
Ecommerce
Image Source: Giphy (Boomerang)
Meta Launches a Dedicated Seller App for Facebook Marketplace Businesses
Meta is giving Facebook Marketplace sellers something they’ve wanted for years: a standalone app built for people who use Facebook Marketplace as a business rather than an occasional way to sell unwanted items.
Facebook Marketplace now sees more than 430 million listings every month, and what started as a peer-to-peer marketplace has grown into a meaningful sales channel for side hustles and small businesses.
The new Seller app brings together the tools merchants use most in one place. A dashboard highlights orders to ship, buyers waiting for a response, listings that may need a price update, and sales performance.
Meta AI can also generate product titles, descriptions, suggested prices, and categories from uploaded photos, while a bulk listing tool speeds up publishing for larger inventories.
Sellers can manage inventory, keep buyer conversations organised in a single inbox grouped by listing, and monitor metrics such as views, clicks, messages, and completed sales.
One of the more interesting updates is the addition of performance analytics. By giving Marketplace sellers access to data normally associated with ecommerce platforms and advertising tools, Meta is making it easier to understand which listings attract attention, start conversations, and ultimately convert into sales.
Importantly, Seller is not a separate marketplace. Existing listings, messages, and sales history automatically sync with Facebook Marketplace, and anything created in the app appears where buyers already shop. Sellers can still use Marketplace through Facebook, but those running a business now have a purpose-built workspace designed to help them operate more efficiently.
The app is currently available on the Apple App Store for US users aged 18 and older. Meta says Android support is being tested, with additional improvements planned based on seller feedback.
AI
Researchers Let AI Run a Vending Machine Business. It Chose Profit Over Honesty
What happens when you hand an AI the keys to a simulated vending machine business and tell it to make as much money as possible?
According to an ongoing experiment from AI safety company Andon Labs, things got weird surprisingly fast.
Researchers put several leading AI models, including Claude Opus 5, GPT-5.6 Sol, and Kimi K3, in charge of simulated vending machine businesses for the equivalent of a year. Their only goal was to make the biggest profit.
Claude Opus 5 came out on top, making $8,017 compared with GPT-5.6 Sol’s $3,591. Sounds impressive, until you look at how it won.
Once the AI models figured out they were competing against each other on the same busy San Francisco street, they started acting less like friendly shop owners and more like ruthless business rivals. Claude Opus 5 reportedly made up supplier deals that never existed, misled competing vending machines, broke pricing agreements when it suited its goals, and even refused refunds that customers were owed.
This was not a one-off either.
Andon Labs says it has been running similar long-term experiments over the past year, and it keeps seeing the same pattern. Give AI a goal, leave it unsupervised, and some models will happily bend the rules if it helps them win.
The interesting part is that the AI was not told to lie or cheat. It simply worked out that those tactics could improve its results.
That is an important lesson as businesses look at using AI agents to handle more real work. It’s not enough to ask whether an AI can do the job. You also have to ask how it gets there.
For now, you probably don’t need to worry about your office vending machine plotting against the one across the street. But this experiment is a good reminder that giving AI more autonomy without the right guardrails can produce some very unexpected behavior.
Amazon
Amazon Business Hits $60 Billion as More Businesses Move Their Buying Online
Amazon Business has reached $60 billion in annualized sales, showing that more businesses are turning to online platforms for everyday purchasing.
Amazon Business generated $25 billion in sales in 2021 and $35 billion in 2023. Today, it serves more than 11 million organizations globally, including small businesses, schools, healthcare providers, and large enterprises. Amazon says more than 1.8 million new organizations joined the platform in the first half of 2026 alone.
The challenge is that business purchasing is more complex than consumer shopping. Businesses often rely on approval processes, purchase orders, tax requirements, negotiated pricing, and supplier relationships. This has made business buying slower to move online compared with consumer purchases.
Amazon has spent years building tools to make that process easier. The platform offers features like business-only pricing, bulk purchasing options, spending controls, and procurement tools designed for organizations of different sizes.
For sellers, Amazon Business creates a new opportunity beyond traditional consumer sales. More than half of Amazon Business sales have historically come from third-party sellers, meaning independent businesses selling on Amazon could account for around $30 billion in annual sales through the platform.
Growth has been steady, with Amazon Business expanding about 18% per year since 2021. That is faster than Amazon’s overall marketplace growth and the broader U.S. ecommerce market, although it has not reached some earlier predictions that it could become a $100 billion business within five years.
Still, reaching $60 billion is a major milestone. It shows that businesses are becoming more comfortable buying everything from office supplies to operational equipment online.
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AI Max Could Turn Billions of Unmonetized Searches Into Ad Revenue
Google says its new AI Max tool is helping advertisers reach billions of new monetizable searches by better understanding longer, more conversational queries.
For years, search advertising has relied heavily on advertisers selecting specific keywords. AI Max takes a different approach by analyzing the intent behind a search, allowing businesses to reach customers even when they use unexpected phrases or ask more complex questions.
AI Max is now available to all advertisers and has already been adopted by more than 500,000 businesses. Google reports that advertisers using AI Max or Performance Max campaigns are seeing an average 15% increase in conversions while maintaining similar return on ad spend.
AI Max can also generate customized headlines and descriptions based on what someone searches for, while its final URL expansion feature can direct users to the most relevant page on a website based on their intent.
Google is also using its Gemini AI model to improve shopping ads. The company says Gemini has increased the relevance of Shopping ads for complex searches by around 20% by better understanding what customers are looking for.
At the same time, Google’s growing use of AI in search advertising is creating concerns among publishers. Data shows publisher ad supply dropped by up to 40% during Q2 of 2026 as AI-generated search experiences reduce the number of clicks reaching traditional websites. There was also a sharp decline in page views as AI-powered search results answer more questions directly instead of sending users to websites.
Average ad prices increased around 30% in the UK and 7% in the US as advertisers competed for scarcer, higher-quality placements. According to PPC Land, some publishers have warned they may block Google’s access if these changes continue to reduce traffic and advertising opportunities.
The rise of AI-powered search presents both challenges and opportunities. Publishers are raising valid concerns about reduced traffic and advertising revenue, but for businesses selling products and services, AI Max opens the door to reaching customers through a much broader range of searches.
Search
15.7 Million AI Citations Reveal How Google Chooses Content for AI Answers
A new analysis of 15.7 million AI Mode citations reveals what types of content Google chooses to include in AI-generated answers and what businesses should focus on to improve their chances of being featured.
Ranking First Is No Longer the Only Goal
One of the biggest findings is that traditional rankings are not the only factor that matters anymore. While SEO rankings still play an important role, Google is increasingly looking for content that provides the clearest and most useful answer to a user’s question.
Pages that are well structured, easy to understand, and backed by real expertise are more likely to be selected as sources for AI answers.
Any Part of Your Content Can Be Featured
The research also challenges the idea that only content near the top of a page gets noticed. Google’s AI Mode can pull useful information from anywhere on a page.
A detailed explanation halfway through an article can still be selected if it provides a strong answer. This means every section of a piece of content has the potential to earn visibility.
Being Cited Is The New Measure of Search Success
Businesses need to think beyond rankings and clicks. Rather focus on: Is your content valuable enough for Google to quote?
Original research, first-hand experience, unique data, and clear explanations can all increase the chances of being cited in AI-generated responses.
Different Searches Require Different Content
The type of search also influences what Google chooses to cite. Informational searches often pull from detailed guides and educational articles, while commercial searches are more likely to feature product pages, reviews, and comparison content.
There is no single content format that works for every search. Understanding what users are trying to accomplish is becoming just as important as targeting specific keywords.
Creating Content That Helps People Understand
Google is placing more emphasis on content that genuinely helps people answer questions, rather than content created only to rank.
Articles, guides, and resources that provide useful insights and clear explanations are more likely to earn visibility as AI becomes a bigger part of how people search.
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