Technology

Agentic media buying may cut middlemen or add more chaos; Grocers are remodeling for retail media amid rising costs; Peacock is betting on the booming microdrama trend.

Amazon Ads expects this year’s television upfronts to be an outcomes-focused affair. That may explain why the company preempted its Monday evening presentation by announcing the launch of a new ad product called Dynamic TV Creative.

For companies like Shopify, Criteo and Instacart – and even for giants like Amazon and Walmart – figuring out if the agentic oasis is real or a mirage is their priority No. 1.

Marketers must become memelords now; Yahoo has incurred the wrath of Apollo; and AppLovin is going hybrid.

PubMatic has run more than 30 fully autonomous, end-to-end agentic campaigns through the SSP’s AgenticOS platform, in addition to more than 1,000 direct publisher deals.

If a tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound? And if a UID2 doesn’t work, does anyone notice? Inside a UID2 mix-up that has a publisher questioning the value of alt IDs. Then, what Kochava’s settlement with the FTC means for any ad tech company that handles location data.

InMobi acquires Apple ad startup MobileAction; the hallucination problem is real; and microdrama are being nonconsensually “nudified” with AI tools.

TTD CEO Jeff Green laid out the DSP’s plan for winning in a new world of advertising that – AI aside – necessitates major changes in how marketers behave.

Magnite posted strong Q1 numbers and is confident that it will prevail in its battles with both Google and The Trade Desk.

TTD confirmed that this CTV publisher’s errors would have made its UID2s useless for ad targeting. But TTD also said it wouldn’t have had enough information to flag the issue.

Clipping can be lucrative, but can – and should – it last?; AI Max raises the stakes for advertisers; and the ANA introduces a new fee to fund Aquila.

Criteo shares dropped by 20% Wednesday morning after the company reported shaky Q1 earnings and revised its guidance downward for the rest of the year.

People Inc. previewed plans to downsize by focusing mainly on its key properties. The strategy makes sense considering its publishing portfolio has lost about two-thirds of its Google traffic.

There is a clear set of capabilities that CTV OEMs and streamers can offer advertisers that the original content owner cannot. Here are the most material gaps that the buy side experiences between supply sent from the publisher and supply sent from distributors.

Programmatic enemies make better friends in the AI era; social video projected to outgrow CTV this year; and apps are integrating into chatbots, but where are the users?

Google is launching Meridian Studio, an enterprise version of its Meridian media mix modeling platform and an updated open-source version of its GeoX tool for measuring incrementality across geos. 

Amazon has packaged a handful of upgrades to its ads measurement solutions, obviously catered to TV and streaming media advertisers.

Going viral isn’t great; AI search is a nightmare; and CTV is forcing everyone to get along.

Amazon is optimistic about agentic commerce; the costs of AI may soon outweigh profits; and AMC Global Media thinks old shows deserve new ads.

Generative AI search has pushed traffic off a cliff across most of the internet, but not on social platforms. Reddit included.

Google announced new features and ad types for AI Max, its AI-based bidding product for search and shopping or sponsored product ads. The company also touted “hundreds of thousands” of advertisers using AI Max.

Agency picks can quietly determine a brand’s tech stack; Ad spend is shifting away from the open web; The CW is betting on partnerships, not its own platform.

Alphabet earned $109.9 billion in Q1 this year, up from $90.2 billion a year ago. And that’s not even the truly gobsmacking number.

With its new funding, commerce data platform Chord plans to help brands access their data more easily by unifying it within one platform.

As connected TV (CTV) matures, advertisers aren’t just raising expectations; they’re resetting them. And increasingly, transparency isn’t a value-add, it’s the cost of entry.

Omnicom is rebuilding its media machine around Acxiom and agentic AI in a bid to push more spend to publishers and sidestep the “messy middle.”

The Trade Desk announced that it will begin allowing mutual clients to use its DSP within the Pacvue or Skai platforms.

IAS pushes clearer streaming ad visibility; Meta eyes a plug-in CTV play; Too many creators, not enough ad dollars.

Dappier’s new ad format allows advertisers to insert a custom brand agent into AI chat sessions on publisher sites.

Programmatic tensions peaked last fall as LinkedIn flame wars erupted over transaction IDs. OMD Worldwide Chief Media Officer Ben Hovaness now leads a new group aimed at fostering dialogue and reducing conflict in the space.