The Digital Commerce Daily — May 18, 2026

The Digital Commerce Daily — May 18, 2026 Your 8-minute briefing on ecommerce, social commerce, and digital marketing. In today's episode: • A $2.2 billion deal that puts the world's largest ad holding company in control of the data clean room infrastructure that ecommerce advertisers depend on for attribution and audience matching. • Anthropic's Project Deal experiment showed AI agents autonomously buying and selling in a controlled marketplace — and it's the clearest preview yet of what ecommerce infrastructure needs to look like when the shopper is a machine. • Edible Brands has cracked measurable AOV growth in a high-frequency gifting category by expanding delivery options and bundling — a concrete DTC case study at a time when acquisition costs leave brands no choice but to squeeze more from every order. Fun fact: Amazon's Prime Day actually drives more sales for Walmart and Target than a typical day — because the flood of comparison shoppers who start on Amazon frequently end up converting elsewhere after seeing the deals aren't as steep as expected. In 2023, Walmart reported its biggest online sales day of the year coincided directly with Prime Day. Hosted by Marco and Klara.