agentic AI

Brian Gleason joined contextual ad platform Seedtag as CEO earlier this month after a stint as CRO and president of retail media at Criteo.

The Trade Desk makes the S&P 500, triggering a stock price rebound; Estée Lauder is the latest big legacy brand to embrace influencers; and CMOs are trying to measure their return on AI, but it’s tricky.

Nextdoor isn’t ruling out AI data licensing, but it has concerns; NBCU touts sports and streaming as drivers of its record Upfronts; and Scholastic follows kids and parents to YouTube.

Hearst has seen improvements in addressability between 30% and 200% since introducing AURA, its AI-powered ad targeting solution, last year.

Generative AI tech is hurting publisher search traffic, but it’s also helping pubs optimize their ad sales efforts. The head of publisher ad tech solutions for AWS explains how AI is transforming how advertisers value media and the implications for publishers large and small.

AI Overviews are even dinging Google Search ads’ traffic; WPP downgrades its earnings forecast; and Google’s AI competitors launch their own web browsers.

Long before the AI hype kicked off in earnest, Eric Schwartz was already working with machine learning tools to develop optimized ad tech products.

AI Overviews makes dodgy product recommendations because it scrapes marketing copy; discrepancies in TV ratings hamper upfronts negotiations; and why mar tech companies are building software fortresses.

Making Science recently launched an AI tool that helps advertisers optimize their marketing campaigns while maintaining creative control.

Today, David’s Bridal is as much an AI-powered tech company as it is a retailer of wedding apparel and accessories, according to Elina Vilk, president and chief business officer. The company recently unveiled a new digital transformation strategy centered on agentic AI and personalized experiences.

In this fast-paced and insightful conversation from Cannes, Michelle Urwin, Chief Marketing Officer at Skai, breaks down the top three trends shaping Amazon Ads and how advertisers are successfully targeting their rich data across platforms and devices driving more revenue and maximizing campaign performance.

Enjoy this weekly comic from AdExchanger.com that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem … 

Despite publicly hyping AI, advertisers remain privately skeptical; AI aims to replace agencies, but tech complexity makes them more valuable partners; and Americans aren’t paying for news.

What’s behind the drop in CTV CPMS; the UK CMA sets its antitrust sights on Google Search; and gen AI job cuts decimate another marketing department.

After a reenergizing week at the Cannes Lions festival, here are six observations on how our industry is changing to meet its new challenges.

From Cannes Lions, our editorial team discusses the mix of perspectives on the ad industry’s application of AI: the opportunity, the hesitation and the predictions of how it will disrupt marketing.

AI app marketplace Dappier ensures that chatbot responses using Benzinga’s data link back to the original source, and it also shares revenue from ads placed in these responses.

Nexstar’s digital strategy will now use Salesforce’s agentic AI capabilities, hoping to unify the sales pipeline into one system.

Economic uncertainty provides the perfect scenario for demonstrating marketing’s essential role in driving growth, resilience and adaptability. Here are actionable strategies CMOs can take to thrive amid market volatility.

Marketing Cloud Next is designed to automate manual tasks and bring enhanced personalization to customers’ communications with brands through the use of agentic AI.

AGI is Meta’s latest pipe dream; the Nerds Gummy Clusters blueprint for ROAS; and how the gen AI vibe shift could pave the way for “vibe targeting.”

For proof of the uncertainty facing marketers in 2025, look no further than the industry’s ping-ponging projections for ad spending. WPP Media’s revised forecast is just the most recent example.

IAB Tech Lab to highlight the industry’s favorite CTV ad formats; how agentic AI could transform ad agency practices; and the Trump tariffs trigger an uptick in false “Made in America” claims.

Classify is entering a crowded space of AI-powered contextual curation offerings. But the company is already teasing some high-profile integrations thanks to its network of well-connected advisors.

Programmatic promised clarity: automation, efficiency and measurable outcomes. What we got instead is complexity dressed up as optimization: a stack of acronyms performing trust theater.

As AI agents begin to mediate everything from search to purchase, marketers are being forced to confront the reality that they must treat machines as customers.

YouTube is winning the CTV race by not just focusing on TV; ads threaten the gen AI user experience; and sports still brings brands incremental reach.

PubMatic’s new AI curation features are helping it forge closer relationships with ad agencies like GroupM that are ramping up their use of AI.

Google and Amazon compete for people’s time and wallets, and for advertisers’ budgets. And on Wednesday, they both kicked off their marketing industry conferences and announced a round of big ad tech news.

The era of fragmented, adversarial ad tech is winding down. A new paradigm is emerging defined by AI-first, end-to-end platforms and collaboration among buyers and sellers.