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Ad industry experts call out trends to watch in 2026 and separate the real AI use cases having an impact today from the AI hype they heard at CES.

Fraud is eating into retail profits. A new startup called Pinch AI just launched with $5 million in funding to fight back.

On Wednesday, retail and CPG data company SPINS added a new piece with its acquisition of MikMak, a click-to-buy ad tech and analytics startup that helps optimize their commerce media.

Believe it or not, car oil change service company Valvoline is in the midst of a fascinating retail marketing transformation.

Agents, streamers and robots, oh my! Live from the C-Space campus at the Aria Casino in Las Vegas, our team breaks down the most interesting ad tech trends we saw at CES this year.

From afar, it looks like Google had a rough year in antitrust court. But zoom in a bit and it becomes clear that the past year went about as well as Google could have hoped for.

A few years ago, “data clean rooms” were all the ad tech trades could talk about. Fast-forward to 2026, and maybe advertisers don’t need to know what a data clean room is after all.

Publishers have been losing 20%, 30% and in some cases even as much as 90% of their traffic and revenue over the past year due to the rise of zero-click AI search.

If any single event can be considered the jumping-off point for TV upfronts, it’s the Consumer Electronics Showcase (CES), which kicks off this week in Las Vegas, Nevada.

It’s been 15 years since this comic first ran in January 2011, and there’s something both quaint and timeless about it. Here’s to more (and more) transparency in 2026, and happy New Year!

The generative AI trend generated endless hot takes this year, but the ad industry also had plenty to say about growing competition between DSPs and SSPs. Here are AdExchanger’s top 10 most popular guest columns of 2025 and why they resonated.

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

The founders of six AI startups offer insights on the founding journey and what problems their companies are solving.

Roku’s streaming data will now be integrated into Nielsen’s campaign measurement and outcome tools, the two companies announced on Monday,

Viant struck a deal with IHeartMedia and its Triton Digital advertising platform that will make IHeart’s broadcast radio inventory available through Viant’s DSP.

The film and TV studio Lionsgate has chosen Comcast’s FreeWheel as its exclusive ad server to help manage and sell the growing volume of ad inventory Lionsgate creates with new FAST channels.

The Trade Desk is cutting its workforce. A company spokesperson confirmed the news with AdExchanger. The layoffs affect less than 1% of the company.

One of the DraftKings founders now leads HardScope, parent of FaZe Clan, aiming to bring FaZe’s content and distribution magic to creators beyond gaming.

On Tuesday, Infillion launched fully agentic media execution platform built on MCP, marking a shift from the programmatic to the agentic era.

The grocery chain Albertson’s is trying to reduce the time and number of clicks it takes to add an item to an online shopping cart. It’s new click-to-cart product should help.

Looks like Pinterest has its eyes – or its pins, rather – fixed on connected TV.

Publisher comment sections remain an untapped source of intent-based data, according to Kelly Andresen, who recently left USA Today to head up comment monetization platform OpenWeb’s direct sales efforts.

Shopify launched its latest advertising business line on Wednesday, called the Shopify Product Network.

Criteo recently debuted new AI tech and pilot programs to a group of reporters – including a backend shopper data partnership with an unnamed LLM.

Agency buyers are facing a new wave of Google account hijackings that steal funds and lock out admins for weeks or even months.

Spencer has exited The Trade Desk after 12 years, marking another major leadership change amid friction with ad tech trade groups and intensifying competition across the DSP landscape.

America’s biggest department stores are changing, and changing fast.

AudienceMix, a new curation startup, aims to make it more cost effective to mix and match different audience segments using only the data brands need to execute their campaigns.

On Tuesday, digital out-of-home (DOOH) ad tech startup Place Exchange was acquired by Broadsign, another out-of-home SSP.

For the uninitiated, “Glitchmas” is our name for what’s become an annual tradition when, from between roughly late October through November, Meta’s ad platform just seems to go bonkers.