Agencies

Agencies are differentiating their tech stacks by building custom agentic AI tools for their clients. And they’re rethinking owning those AI tools – particularly since licensing them creates new revenue streams.

Everyone in Adland wants to show off their shiny new AI agent. But you can’t do the cool stuff unless you build the data foundation first, says Tinuiti CEO Abbey Klaassen.

Connected TV advertisers are still pining after show-level control. And PubMatic announced contextual targeting at the episode level is available to media buyers accessing CTV inventory through its platform.

AI is creating new problems for advertisers; Amazon Prime’s new privacy feature irks customers; and the Trump administration sides with OpenAI in the copyright lawsuit brought forth by the NYT.

The company is launching an accelerator program to help tech vendors pitch their solutions in a way that makes sense to advertisers.

Why does the buy side remain so smitten with handing control to autonomous systems owned by companies whose economic interests are not its own?

AI can help make media buying more efficient. But it’ll take some more time before AI agents are a seamless part of the modern media buying process, says Goodway Group’s Andrea Kwiatek, director of strategic partnerships.

WPP’s earnings were less bad than expected; Versant’s, meanwhile, weren’t great either; and Cloudflare gets into the AEO game.

Omnicom is halfway through a major sell-off of IPG agencies. Its future looks healthier as it prunes lower-growth firms, including eliminating certain specialist firms and overlapping agencies in certain countries.

Somewhere between what the ad industry says and what the market rewards is often where the truth lives. Here are the three industry storylines most in need of debunking.

Two-thirds of consumer attention lives on the open internet, but only one-fifth of ad spend follows it there. That gap is no accident. Walled gardens spent the past decade creating it.

The SAIL initiative compensates publishers when AI scrapes their content and guarantees the outputs adhere to the same cultural standards they apply to their own coverage.

Advertising in AI-native destinations and experiences is already starting to look less like a series of experiments and more like an emerging market.

Intuit shakes up its media business; the OpenAI ads pilot continues to expand; and the MLB seems to have changed its tune on gambling.

Comcast separates NBCUniversal and Sky from its broadband and wireless business; Omnicom is all in on M&A; and startup Whatnot bets on livestreamed shopping.

Amazon’s Alexa gets voice-activated shopping assistant ads; AI-affiliated Super PACs are the big spenders this midterms; and P&G throws cold water on the agency “one-stop shop” model.

For the first time, Omnicom can directly compare ad frequency and performance across multiple major streamers, which typically prefer to keep data locked inside their walled gardens.

Goodway Group has reduced the number of SSPs it works with from about 20 at the end of 2024 to just single digits today.

I’ve always loved sci-fi movies and the way they portray futuristic worlds shaped by advanced technological innovation. One of my favorite movies is the ’80s classic “The Terminator.” And the more I hear about “agentic AI” in ad tech, the more I think the film is a perfect analogy for what’s happening right now.

Some DOJ staffers wanted to challenge the Paramount/WBD merger on antitrust grounds; ad tech M&A is poised to pick up; and social media marketers want to normalize controversial clipping.

Papa Johns tapped NBCUniversal, Instacart and the dentsu-owned media agency Carat for help reaching consumers when they’re low on groceries – and thus more likely to be swayed by a mouth-watering ad.

Most competitive intelligence is backward-looking. Earnings calls tell us what happened last quarter. Annual reports tell us where budgets went last year. Traditional competitive intelligence tools often focus on creative libraries, estimated spend or campaign archives.

Amazon has third parties selling some of its ad inventory; Scope3 selling Adloox to Peer39 suggests sustainability is out; and “fabric” is the new AI-related buzzword for ad tech.

The FAST channel ecosystem is providing advertisers with a sandbox (no, not that sandbox) to test new CTV formats, targeting tools and programmatic buying methods.

Olyzon raises $10 million for TV AI; Transparency now matters more than neutrality; OpenAI expands ChatGPT ads to SMBs.

Recorded live in Las Vegas at Prog AI, the AdExchanger team tackles a tricky question: As AI floods the feed with chaotic, addictive content and people engage with it, what does “premium” even mean anymore?

AI can’t handle complex media plans; Retail media lands under the CMO; Airbnb flirts with ads, cautiously.

If creators want brand dollars, they have to play by the rules of data-driven marketing and measurement, says Ryan Detert, CEO and co-founder of Publicis-owned influencer marketing platform Influential.

Carol Reed discusses what it means to be a chief innovation officer and how to keep up with new AI developments without losing the human touch.

Hundreds of exasperated and unexpected ad industry phone calls were made on Sunday, as agencies and ad tech vendors discussed the fallout of Publicis Groupe’s $2.2 billion acquisition of LiveRamp over the weekend.