The Big Story

Fees, fees, fees. The Trade Desk is facing market pressure in all directions: from rival DSPs offering lower fee structures, SSPs and agencies clashing over its OpenPath product and bearish investors disappointed with growth. Guest Sarah Caputo, founder of consultancy Fraction Method, tells us why The Trade Desk should reduce its margin and make its fees more transparent.

The strategic value of commerce data continues to rise, as Infillion snaps up Catalina. Then, a court filing reveals where agencies spend clients’ money.

The Winter Olympics show us how far streaming live sports has come – and how much linear viewership remains. Plus: CPGs are pulling back on ad spend, as they steer through economic challenges and the ripple effects of policy decisions.

OpenAI launched ads this week, making ChatGPT the newest canvas for advertising. But not before its biggest competitor, Anthropic, lambasted the decision in a Super Bowl ad.

At the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting this week, IAB CEO David Cohen demanded publishers receive payment from AI companies who are taking their content. As publishers grapple with AI redirecting the attention they receive from consumers, what’s their path forward?

Prebid is on a roll: It will take charge of a seller agent, part of AdCP, and Amazon’s integration with Prebid is in beta. But there’s one sticking point: Microsoft is not going to cache video ad creatives anymore that come through Prebid, leaving publishers scrambling for an alternative.

Ads were going to be a “last resort” for ChatGPT, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman promised two years ago. Now, they’re finally here. Omnicom Digital CEO Jonathan Nelson joins the AdExchanger editorial team to talk through what comes next.

The year ahead in commerce, with insights from the NRF Big Show conference, where retailers congregate every January. Plus, the 2026 privacy policy cheat sheet.

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.

AI is fueling advertising, and AI agents are running ads. As we close out 2025, take a moment to listen to this AdExchanger Talks interview with Paul Longo, GM of AI in ads for advertising, for his POV on both of those topics.

First, the VAB clashes with Nielsen over Big Data, and Pinterest teams up with tvScientific. Plus, Google Ad Manager rolls out major EU changes, from ditching Unified Pricing Rules to deeper data sharing with publishers.

Netflix could acquire Warner Bros., unless Paramount swoops in or regulators intervene. How rearranging the streaming leaders could affect the CTV ad business.

Consumer spending on Black Friday Cyber Monday was up 7%. But prices are high, and it’s affluent customers who are doing the most spending in the US. Plus: the challenge of being an ad buyer managing campaigns on Meta during “Glitchmas.”

Inside Omnicom’s shift in spend from The Trade Desk DSP to Amazon DSP.

We break down some of the most interesting financial trends coming out of Q3 earnings reports, and what rises to the level of being worth covering in the first place.

New APIs from Roku, Comcast and The Trade Desk are reshaping digital advertising, from self-serve campaign management to cross-platform measurement. But when it comes to identity and targeting, a new study finds that IP address matching is missing the mark.

With its wide adoption and independent membership, Prebid is powerful. We discuss Transaction IDs and the remedies phase of the antitrust trial with those inside and outside the org to better understand this open-source project.

Last week, after nearly six years of development and delays, Google officially retired its Privacy Sandbox.
Which means it’s time for a memorial service.

Shortly after Trade Desk CEO Jeff Green said the DSP would splinter off from Prebid, he showed up at the Prebid Summit. Then, at ScreenShift, we learn what the TV industry thinks about AI.

With its PubDesk wrapper, The Trade Desk is putting roots into ad tech’s sell side. But publishers are wary.

Live from New York at Programmatic IO, the AdExchanger editorial team debriefs what ad tech’s brightest minds are saying and doing around AI and measurement.

Will Google need to spin off its ad exchange and ad server? Court is in session in Virgina, with the DOJ and Google advocating for completely different remedies to Google’s sell-side ad tech monopoly.

Advertising using AI-doctored images could spark legal issues if the images are misleading. Plus: the commerce reckoning.

From a $637 million PE acquisition of healthcare of a DSP to acquisitions of freshly minted startups, there’s been a flurry of ad tech deals this month. And they have one thing in common: AI.

Google is running a search monopoly, but the remedies are light. How will this decision affect advertisers and competitors? Plus, Google Ad Manager is acting like a standalone SSP, a move that appears connected to the looming remedies phase of Google’s second antitrust case.

Pause ads are going programmatic, as connected TV ad buying becomes more automated. Plus: how publishers are proposing to be compensated by AI companies – and the odds that they’ll receive what they are asking for.

We’ve got the witness list for the remedy phase of the Google antitrust trial, which starts in September. How might Google be forced to change its ad server and exchange to make this corner of the ad tech market competitive again?

The Trade Desk has won the battle for supremacy on the open internet, says Needham & Company’s Laura Martin. But it might just be losing the war for the future of the web to walled gardens and AI search.

OpenX filed a lawsuit against Google over its anticompetitive practices. And HyphaMetrics claimed victory against Nielsen in court over a patent lawsuit.

Change can be bumpy. From The Trade Desk’s Solimar-to-Kokai transition to Nielsen’s transition to its Big Data + Panel offering, we go inside customers’ challenges with these two transforming platforms.