In today’s Digest, we cover Apple training its own AI model for China with Alibaba’s help, Walmart Connect adding negative keyword controls for sponsored ads, and Audigent’s brand disappearing as Experian absorbs it into its marketing services division.

Apple trains its own AI model for China 

Apple has developed a large language model tailored for the Chinese market with support from Alibaba, according to three people familiar with the matter. This marks a departure from the company's earlier strategy of leaning primarily on Chinese partners' models to power AI features on iPhones sold in the country. 

Alongside its own model, Apple is also expected to draw on Alibaba's Qwen model and technology from Baidu, though how the self-trained model will interact with these Chinese partners' systems remains unclear.

Walmart Connect adds negative keyword controls for sponsored ads

Walmart is giving advertisers more precise control over where their ads appear in search results, rolling out a long-awaited "negative keywords" feature for sponsored-products campaigns. Announced in late July, the tool lets brands exclude specific search terms, such as "dog food" or "running shoes," ensuring their ads won't surface when a customer's query matches an excluded phrase. The feature is now live within the Walmart Connect Ad Center and accessible through partner technology platforms including Pacvue, Skai, Quartile, Teikametrics, and DataCaciques.

In a blog post, Walmart Connect said the update gives advertisers "a higher level of control, allowing the blocking of low-performing or misaligned terms without unintentionally filtering out related high-value traffic." 

Audigent brand disappears 

Nearly two years after Experian acquired Audigent, the curation brand has been folded into Experian Marketing Services and no longer operates independently. A company spokesperson described the change as consolidation rather than a step back, telling Digiday via email that Audigent's curation technology remains central to Experian's platform and broader growth strategy, and that the company's original goal in acquiring Audigent, embedding intelligence into supply-side decisions to support agentic marketing, hasn't changed. 

What the restructuring means for Audigent's staff is still unclear, and Experian declined to say whether the move would result in job cuts.