Good morning. It’s a nearly all-AI edition of the newsletter today, as marketing claims about the technology come under scrutiny, Meta appears to approach an AI flywheel and we learn how much the New York Times is earning from artificial intelligence even without pouring in billions.

Apple, Google, Microsoft and Samsung over the past year have revised or retracted certain claims about their newest, hottest artificial intelligence products, Patrick Coffee reports for CMO Today.

The tech giants made the changes over the past year in response to a probe by an ad-industry self-regulatory group into whether marketers are overstating the capabilities or availability of AI features.

The scrutiny comes as the biggest names in tech seek returns on their massive investments in the AI race, holding splashy events, publishing demonstration videos and running advertising to bring in customers.

But it can be hard to fit the right caveats into concise and compelling ads.

“That is the struggle in a lot of these cases around AI tools and products,” said Laura Protzmann, an attorney at the National Advertising Division, the industry group examining the issue.

Meta Platforms’ revenue grew 22% in the second quarter, demonstrating that its core ad business remains strong while the company pours billions of dollars into AI, Meghan Bobrowsky reports.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said he expects AI to power all levers of his business in the future. He posted a video before earnings about his vision for “personal superintelligence.”

Those AI ambitions come with a price: Meta expects to spend up to $72 billion on capital expenditures this year, largely on AI.

But the quarterly results show the extent to which Meta’s ad business can help fund AI costs, as well as how the AI tools are contributing to ad sales.

Sales were $47.5 billion and net income was $18.3 billion.

“The investments it’s making in AI are already paying off in its ads business,” said Jasmine Enberg, principal analyst at eMarketer.

Related: ​​Demand for Microsoft’s AI services continues to pay off. [WSJ]

Amazon’s deal to license a broad range of New York Times content comes with a solid payday for the publisher, Alexandra Bruell reports: $20 million to $25 million a year, according to people familiar with the matter.

The financial terms of the multiyear deal, which haven’t previously been disclosed, offer a window into how publishers and AI companies are valuing news content in the midst of a seismic change in how consumers seek information online.

The annual payment amounts to nearly 1% of the Times’s 2024 revenue.

Not easy money: If that looks like a lot of passive revenue for the paper, remember that tech companies have used news articles to train their AI models, and pull from news sites to answer prompts about current events.

All that fuels the AI chatbots now busily sapping publishers’ search traffic and associated ad revenue.

The Food and Drug Administration warned that some cans of Celsius energy drink had been inadvertently filled with High Noon canned vodka. [CNN]

Starbucks is bulking up its cold foam with an option for 15 grams of protein. [BI]

Dog food brand Ollie named Allison Stadd, who had been a marketing executive at Target unit Shipt, as its new CMO. [Adweek]

Kendrick Lamar’s pgLang is opening a full-service creative agency for outside brands. [Fast Company] 

Why the TV industry is back to being mad at Nielsen now that upfronts dealmaking is almost done. [AdExchanger]

Does deodorant work as a luxury product? Brands including Papatui and Salt & Stone are going to find out. [Business of Fashion]

Samuel L. Jackson appeared in an ad for a Swedish energy company promoting wind power, one day after President Trump in Scotland called windmills a “disgrace.” [Bloomberg] 

A figure enveloped in body-length red hair has been spotted around New York City in a promotion for Chappell Roan’s next single, “The Subway.” [Creative Bloq]