Artificial Intelligence

Meta updated its ad platform Wednesday with AI-based buying improvements. Is the company on track to be fully automated with AI by the end of next year?

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.

Meta introduced a set of new features Wednesday that gives advertisers more granular metrics for how they value traffic and ad campaign conversions .

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.

Angelina Eng, a 30-year industry veteran who serves as the IAB’s vice president of measurement, addressability and data center, has been swimming in the ocean of digital advertising from the very beginning.

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.

Michael Komasinski, Criteo’s newly-minted CEO, shares his vision for the company – and swears that Criteo doesn’t regret its huge investment in testing the Chrome Privacy Sandbox.

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.

Sports sponsorships can play well for small brands; Perplexity was first to AI search ads, but advertisers waited for Google; and GroupM officially rebrands to WPP Media.

Viant is on an M&A tear, with two acquisitions – IRIS.TV followed by lockr – in less than six months. Although the rationale behind these deals might be obvious to ad tech insiders, Wall Street investors speak a different language, one that Viant CEO Tim Vanderhook has become fluent in as the leader of a publicly traded company.

Magnite’s SpringServe deal illustrates why SSPs need a video ad server; Google grapples with AI search’s impact on publisher traffic; and Anthropic’s AI assistant is a law enforcement snitch.

Although furniture brand James & James was hitting its own aggressive revenue targets while primarily spending on search and social ads – the facts told a different story.

CTV ad platform MNTN has gone public; last week, the FTC dismissed a lawsuit brought against PepsiCo; the new US budget bill might ban state regulation of AI.

Recorded live on the Programmatic IO stage in Las Vegas, the editorial team recaps the trends that dominated our conference: marketers adopting AI and finding truth through measurement.

Microsoft’s AI assistant, Copilot, is a product of trial and error. Past mistakes paved the way for today’s iteration which has led to performance improvements and increased customer trust.

Amazon Prime Video rolls out new audience and contextual targeting; streamers wring more revenue from subscription-weary consumers; and AI is an app, so it must obey Google and Apple.

Perplexity is thirsty for revenue streams; Marketecture’s media biz grows; and Duolingo goes dark on social after its AI pivot.

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.

GroupM is restructuring, as AI looms over the business model of agency holding companies, and one-click campaign planning comes for agency jobs.

Walmart is loving its ad business more every day; AI agents are coming to destroy everything; YouTube is trying to win over brands.

The open web is dead; long live the open web. It’s healthy; it’s full of opportunity; it’s doomed; it’s a mess. Also, what even is the open web, and do consumers care about the definition?

The CFPB backtracks on plans to bar data brokers from selling financial data; Jamie Lee Curtis takes on Mark Zuckerberg over fake AI ads; and Gas Station TV drives traffic to Applebee’s.

Why bring data to SaaS applications when you can bring the applications to your data? That’s what modern data platforms do, says Erin Foxworthy, global industry go-to-market lead for marketers and advertisers at Snowflake. Cloud-based platforms, meanwhile, are becoming the foundation for technologies that are increasingly integral to how digital advertising functions.

Marketing On Autopilot Companies that build AI-powered marketing software have been framing the technology as a friendly helper. Nothing to fear here, just an eager “copilot” ready to serve. The AI “copilot” that first comes to mind for most people is Microsoft’s generative AI chatbot of the same name. GitHub, meanwhile, which is owned by […]

Contextually relevant pause ads were just one of three new formats that Amazon unveiled in advance of its upfronts presentation on Monday.

CMOs’ ad budgets are flat this year compared to last year, according to Gartner. As a result, CMOs are looking for efficiency wherever they can find it, and AI is a top strategy.

Jerry Dischler leaves Google; a bunch of marketing execs join AI companies; agency holdcos don’t know which way is up.

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

AppLovin has Axon, and now Unity has Vector AI, which was made generally available to all Unity advertisers and developers on Wednesday.