At Stripe’s Sessions conference this week, Mark Zuckerberg pitched what he calls the “ultimate business machine”: a fully automated, end-to-end AI ad engine promising to replace agencies, creatives, and media buyers with a single black box. You just need to connect your bank account first. 

Zuckerberg claims this could be one of the most valuable AI systems ever built, generating thousands of image ads and testing them in real time, but it raises a bigger question: Is this the future of advertising, or just another wave of AI slop flooding your feed?

Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff, and Anthony Ha are unpacking why Zuckerberg’s vision could be a marketer’s dream or creative agency’s worst nightmare, and what else caught our eye in tech this week.

Listen to the full episode to hear about:

Equity will be back next week, so stay tuned!

Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. 

Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity onX and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes here.