This article outlines seven ad tech trends for 2026, including the emergence of AI agents in advertising workflows, the shift to first-party data and contextual advertising due to cookie deprecation, and the rising prominence of retail media. It also highlights Connected TV (CTV) as a major battleground for premium advertising, the continued growth and privacy-focused evolution of mobile ad tech, advancements in attribution models, and efforts towards greater transparency and sustainability in the ad tech supply chain.
The immediate implication is that 2026 planning is shifting toward fewer, higher-quality signals: first-party data, clean rooms, CTV, and privacy-safe mobile measurement. Epom frames this as a broader reset in which AI handles more media operations while humans keep strategy and creative control. That matters across streaming because CTV, video, and mobile are all named as core battlegrounds, and retail media is now a major buying channel too. The clearest signal to watch next is whether AdCP and the newer attribution stack — MMM, clean room measurement, attention metrics, and qCPM — move from theory into standard buying workflows.
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