Business Report: Meta’s AI Ads Outpace Google as Banks Block AI Agents, Nov. 1, 2026

Economic Warfare & Trade Policy › Trade & tariffs

This business report for November 1, 2026 lands on a Sunday with markets closed and two days before the U.S. midterm elections. The big money stories are about artificial intelligence: who is getting paid for it, who is getting hurt by it, and who is trying to keep AI shopping agents out. In Maine, one small factory shows what tariffs and fuel costs are doing to a working business.

Meta’s AI Ad Machine Pulls Away From Google Search

The two companies that built the online ad business are heading in different directions. Meta’s ad revenue rose 26% in the third quarter to $63.1 billion, from $50.1 billion a year earlier, while Google’s Search and other division grew 12% to $63.4 billion, CNBC reported Sunday. That 14-point gap is the widest in Meta’s favor since 2021, and it leaves the two businesses nearly the same size, although Google also took in about $11 billion from YouTube.

The reason is how people now look for things. Chatbots such as ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude and Meta’s new Muse assistant answer questions directly, so users click fewer links on Google. Google said search queries hit a record, but the money is growing more slowly. Meta, meanwhile, says AI is making its ads work better. Chief financial officer Susan Li told analysts that advertisers who took its AI assistant’s suggestions saw almost 5% more conversions, and that nearly 10 million advertisers used at least one of its AI tools in the quarter.

Investors are not cheering either one. Alphabet had its worst day ever after its report, losing about $500 billion in market value, and Meta stock fell 14% in October. Both are spending heavily: Google projects up to $205 billion in capital spending this year and Meta up to $145 billion. We covered the warning signs at Meta in our report on S&P’s negative outlook on Meta’s credit, and the hit to sites that live on Google traffic in Reddit’s 29% stock plunge.

AI Payoffs Start Showing Up in Earnings

For the first time, some big companies outside tech are putting a number on what AI earns them, according to CNBC. Spanish lender Santander said AI projects produced 194 million euros, about $216 million, in business value in the first nine months of 2026. Novartis chief executive Vas Narasimhan said this was “the first quarter I’ve really seen AI start to improve actually our P&L on a tangible basis,” though the drugmaker did not say how much. Standard Chartered’s finance chief said AI tools are helping income grow faster than costs. Brewer Carlsberg said it is not yet seeing benefits at scale.

The stakes are huge. Corporate AI investment reached $581.7 billion in 2025, up 130% from a year earlier, according to Stanford’s 2026 AI Index, as cited by CNBC. AI firms are also chasing new markets. The Economist reports that OpenAI and Anthropic see a big business opportunity in cybersecurity, as hackers put the same tools to work.

Banks and Retailers Shut the Door on AI Shopping Agents

A new fight is breaking out over personal AI agents, the bots people send out to compare savings rates, hunt for deals or cancel subscriptions. JPMorgan Chase, Charles Schwab, Amazon, Neiman Marcus and Kohl’s have moved to block agents such as Meta Muse, CNBC reported. Walmart went the other way and opened its site to them.

An audit of 51 large U.S. retailers by identity-verification firm Billions Network found only 11 have a deliberate policy on AI agents. Five openly restrict them, and 37 block them mostly by accident through old anti-scraper rules. None offers a way for a verified agent to finish a purchase. An Amazon spokesperson said outside agents should “operate openly and respect service provider decisions,” and that the company has asked Meta to remove Amazon from Muse. Why it matters to your money: SharpLink chief executive Joseph Chalom argued that an agent could move idle cash from a low-rate checking account into a money market fund paying ten times as much, the kind of near-free switching he said threatens incumbents’ business models.

The New England Angle: Tariffs and Heating Oil Squeeze a Maine Factory

In Westbrook, Maine, a Portland suburb, union clothing maker American Roots has cut 16 of its 92 jobs, co-owner Ben Waxman told The American Prospect. “We just laid off 16 people because of fuel prices and tariffs,” he said. Two of the company’s largest contracts serve customers in Canada, but it has stopped shipping north because the trade war made it too expensive, and domestic suppliers are adding tariff surcharges.

Home energy is the other pressure. Waxman said filling his home oil tank cost $1,600, up from $850 a year ago. The Prospect put Maine’s average heating oil price at $6.05 a gallon, with gasoline at $4.28 and diesel at $6.41, in a state where half of households heat with oil. The Trump administration recently removed tariffs on nine groups of Canadian goods, including cardboard and plywood. The issue is now central to Maine’s Senate race between Republican Sen. Susan Collins and Democrat Troy Jackson.

Closer to home, Boston-based restaurant software company Toast faces a federal fight: see our report on the FTC and seven states suing Toast over hidden restaurant fees.

By the Numbers: What the Data Shows

Meta added $13.0 billion in ad revenue in one year, a 26% jump, while Google Search grew at less than half that pace. By TBR calculations from CNBC’s figures, Meta’s ad business is now 99.5% the size of Google Search and other revenue. If Google’s segment grew 12%, it brought in roughly $56.6 billion a year earlier, so Meta has closed a gap of about $6.5 billion to $0.3 billion in twelve months.

In Maine, the cost of one heating oil fill rose $750, or 88%, in a year, and the job cuts at American Roots equal about 17% of its workforce, both TBR calculations from figures in The American Prospect.

What to Watch

U.S. markets reopen Monday ahead of Tuesday’s midterm vote. The Financial Times reported that big bond fund managers are pressing pause until the election and upcoming economic data are out of the way. Credit is the other pressure point: the FT also described a sell-off in junk debt, made worse by companies moving assets out of creditors’ reach. And on Wall Street, the 95-year-old law firm Weil Gotshal is shutting down after an exodus of top talent, the FT reported. For yesterday’s roundup, read our business report for October 31.

Sources

• The American Prospect: As the midterms wrap up, one Maine business keeps calm and carries on
• CNBC: Why AI is boosting Meta’s ad business while hurting Google search
• CNBC: Companies promised AI gains, here’s how the payoff showed up in earnings
• CNBC: For JPMorgan and Amazon, fighting AI bots like Meta Muse may not be a winning strategy
• The Economist: Hackers are running riot with AI. Its makers want to cash in
• Financial Times: Bond investors sit out the US midterm elections
• Financial Times: Junk debt rout sparks bloodbath for credit investors
• Financial Times: Weil Gotshal, what happens now at the troubled law firm