Ad tech rebuilt itself around identity resolution and clean rooms once third-party cookies disappeared. Coverage here spans SSAI, programmatic CTV, ad-supported tier economics, frequency capping, and the measurement approaches replacing the old playbook.
Amazon Ads ANZ announced new AI-driven interactive video formats, location-based advertising, and expanded programmatic integrations with Netflix and Spotify at its Sydney upfront event. The company reported a 10% increase in ad-supported viewing hours on Prime Video and introduced 'Ads Agent' to assist self-service advertisers with campaign management.
The IAB Tech Lab has opened a public comment period until October 16, 2026, for its new Programmatic Standard Practices v1. This framework aims to establish shared business rules and norms to reduce transaction costs and improve transparency across the digital media ecosystem.
Topsort has launched Universal Ads, a new offsite channel that allows retailers and marketplaces to extend their advertising campaigns into premium CTV and streaming inventory. The platform utilizes view-through attribution to measure performance across inventory from major publishers including NBCUniversal, Paramount, and Warner Bros.
Havas Play has partnered with gaming advertising platform iion to launch Havas Play:able, a service for the ANZ and APAC regions that uses agentic AI to automate the production of playable ads and mini-games. The collaboration aims to reduce development timelines and costs for brands looking to deploy interactive experiences across gaming, social, and web environments.
Google has introduced new agentic commerce features, including interactive AI-driven video ads on YouTube and a Universal Cart framework for cross-platform checkout. These tools enable retailers to integrate conversational AI into video streams and track product visibility through a new AI Performance Insights dashboard.
Emma Lacey, SVP at Onetag, discusses the industry shift toward sell-side intelligence and AI-driven optimization to address programmatic inefficiencies. The approach focuses on applying quality signals and creative performance indicators before inventory enters the bidstream to improve outcomes for both publishers and advertisers.
Hyundai Motor America and Amazon have implemented a closed-loop measurement system using AWS and Amazon Marketing Cloud to connect digital shopping signals to physical dealership sales. The initiative, which utilizes privacy-compliant data matching, reportedly improved campaign efficiency by 2.2-times and achieved a 90% customer match rate.
LiveRamp is hosting its first LAB Demo Day during Advertising Week New York 2026 to showcase over 25 agentic AI use cases built on its identity and governance infrastructure. The event highlights partnerships with companies like OpenAI, Firsthand.ai, and Shopsense.ai to demonstrate AI-driven performance improvements for publishers and platforms.
Triton Digital outlines a strategy for audio publishers to optimize revenue by moving away from simple CPM comparisons toward a holistic yield management framework. The article advocates for using bid landscaping to balance direct sales, programmatic marketplaces, and backfill inventory based on strategic value rather than surface-level pricing.
Magnite has launched Showcase, a tool designed to allow media owners to package premium CTV and display inventory into structured products for discovery by AI buyer agents. The platform integrates with Magnite Orchestration and ClearLine Activation to facilitate the transition from agentic media planning to campaign execution.
Horizon Media is integrating Roku's device-level viewership data into its Blu marketing intelligence platform to enhance cross-channel planning and ad activation. The partnership aims to provide advertisers with more granular insights to navigate the fragmented streaming landscape.
OpenAI has initiated a beta program for context-aware advertising within ChatGPT, utilizing conversation intent to deliver targeted ads while maintaining a separation from the AI's generated responses. The platform aims to integrate product discovery and in-chat checkout, potentially shifting traditional search-to-purchase funnels toward conversational commerce.
Google has added four experimental ad-detection metrics to the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) to help advertisers measure ad count, density, and resource consumption. These metrics provide field data on how advertising impacts CPU and network performance across various devices and connection speeds.
A study conducted by Spectrum Reach and EMARKETER surveying 239 ad buyers indicates that MVPD-based campaigns provide 2.5 times the sustained reach of programmatic CTV. The findings highlight a growing industry demand for deterministic data, improved transparency, and better frequency management in CTV advertising.
Disctopia has been granted a U.S. patent for technology that validates audience engagement by using speech recognition and interactive prompts to distinguish human consumption from bot-driven fraud. The system aims to shift creator compensation models from simple play counts to metrics based on verified presence and attention.
Nielsen has accelerated its streaming measurement reporting, reducing the lag for public weekly charts to 11 days and providing paying clients with daily data within 48 hours. The update, which does not change the underlying measurement methodology, aims to provide more timely performance metrics for content promotion and platform strategy.
New data from BrightLine and Innovid shows that CTV QR code scan rates have declined significantly, reaching 0.004% by late 2025. The findings suggest that marketers are shifting away from QR-based calls-to-action in favor of alternative shoppable formats as consumer engagement remains low.
Media intelligence firm Kinetiq Political Insights has partnered with ad tech company VideoAmp to provide visibility into political advertising spend across CTV, YouTube, and premium streaming apps. The collaboration aims to address the lack of transparency in digital political ad spending, which now accounts for one in every four dollars in the sector.
At its annual YouTube Festival in Australia, Google showcased new AI-driven ad tools, shoppable formats, and connected TV performance data to position the platform as a full-funnel competitor to traditional broadcasters. The event highlighted YouTube's reach in the Australian market and its growing role in driving business outcomes through creator-led content and commerce integrations.
Wurl has launched its Content Intelligence Platform, a solution designed to provide demand-side platforms with scene-level and object-level contextual signals for programmatic CTV advertising. The platform integrates data from partners including KERV, Peer39, and IRIS.TV to improve targeting capabilities across premium streaming inventory.
The Trade Desk reported that audio advertising grew faster than any other channel for four consecutive quarters, despite total Q2 revenue of $715 million missing expectations. The company is developing a new measurement framework to help CPG and automotive brands track incremental business results beyond traditional last-click attribution.
Nexxen has expanded its programmatic advertising capabilities by enabling pause ad inventory from Philo and DIRECTV Advertising to be transacted through its SSP and DSP. The integration allows advertisers to access these high-attention CTV formats using automated workflows within Nexxen's platform and third-party DSPs like Simpli.fi.
A study by ad platform Billo analyzing 88,329 Meta video ads found that high click-through rates often correlate with lower return on advertising spend (ROAS). The findings suggest that niche categories like baby products achieve higher conversion efficiency than entertainment-heavy ads, highlighting the need for more granular performance metrics in digital advertising.
Red Seat Ventures has integrated live streaming, real-time chat, and interactive polling features into its Supercast subscription platform. The update allows creators to broadcast directly via third-party software, expanding the platform's monetization capabilities beyond its existing audio and on-demand video offerings.
PebblePost has appointed former Magnite executive Adam Soroca as CEO to lead the company's transition from programmatic direct mail into a multichannel commerce marketing platform. The expansion focuses on leveraging first-party transaction data to enable Performance CTV advertising and closed-loop measurement for brands.
Google's ad sales chief Sean Downey discussed YouTube's strategy to integrate brands into creator-led content and live event coverage, specifically highlighting the platform's upcoming 2029 Academy Awards broadcast. The strategy focuses on moving beyond traditional ad formats toward deeper brand integration within creator communities and long-term storytelling.
Snapchat is increasingly utilized by major streaming services like Netflix, HBO, and Hulu as a marketing platform to engage Gen Z audiences through augmented reality Lenses and Sponsored Snaps. The platform, which reported 971 million monthly active users in Q2 2026, provides interactive tools for studios to drive viewership and awards season buzz.
The Independent Grocers Alliance (IGA) is leveraging its ADvay Media Group to provide independent retailers with access to connected TV (CTV) advertising, data targeting, and omnichannel marketing tools. This initiative aims to help 8,000 independent stores compete with national chains by modernizing their digital advertising capabilities.
BIA Advisory Services has increased its 2026 U.S. local advertising forecast to $186.1 billion, citing stronger-than-expected political spending. The report notes a $1.2 billion increase specifically allocated to over-the-air and OTT television platforms, signaling continued investment in streaming video by local advertisers.
Industry leaders from Dentsu, Mindshare, BBC Studios, and other firms discuss the shifting balance of power in the CTV advertising market. While increased inventory and programmatic access are creating a buyer's market, experts note that premium content and high-quality IP allow top-tier publishers to maintain significant pricing leverage.
Brand Engagement Network and Cataneo have launched a conversational AI technology at IBC2026 that enables viewers to interact with AI agents during commercial breaks. The platform is designed to facilitate real-time product inquiries and transactions directly within broadcast and streaming content.
Ad-management firm Raptive has launched Raptive Community, a free, ad-supported platform that allows creators to build direct audience relationships and receive a 50/50 revenue split. The platform aims to provide an alternative monetization stream for creators facing declining organic reach on major social media networks.
The Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) reports that fragmented device usage across different rooms in U.S. households creates significant measurement blind spots for ACR-based systems. The study highlights that 63% of households use different TV brands in living rooms and bedrooms, complicating audience attribution and frequency management for advertisers.
DoubleVerify reported detecting over 500 million impressions of low-quality AI-generated content across 200 domains in the first half of 2026. The findings underscore growing brand safety concerns, as nearly half of UK consumers report negative brand perceptions when ads appear alongside such content.
Roku is promoting its Publisher Media platform, which allows advertisers to purchase in-stream video inventory across 100+ streaming apps through a single campaign. The solution aims to simplify fragmented ad buying by providing unified reporting, frequency management, and multiple buying paths including self-serve and programmatic.
Digitas North America is deploying a 'Synthetic Audience Agent' that uses Epsilon data to pressure-test creative concepts before production. The agency aims to use AI as a co-pilot for contextual content distribution, a strategy supported by parent company Publicis Groupe's acquisition of LiveRamp.
Mutinex CEO Henry Innis argues that brands must integrate incrementality data directly into programmatic bidding systems to remain competitive as AI-driven walled gardens render traditional deterministic measurement obsolete. The company is promoting its GrowthOS platform as a solution to industrialize market mix modeling and enable outcome-based media activation.
DoorDash GM Katie Daleo advocates for CPG brands to unify media and promotion budgets to improve performance measurement and incrementality. The company is also deepening its partnership with Ibotta to co-create bespoke campaigns that leverage cross-merchant data for better consumer targeting.
A new IAB study and Podscribe report demonstrate that digital audio, including podcasts and web radio, provides significant incremental reach over CTV and is now measurable through advanced attribution tools. The findings suggest that brands can effectively integrate audio into always-on performance marketing strategies by leveraging first-party data and pixel-based tracking.
BMW recently integrated a promotional animation for a film into its vehicle dashboard displays, sparking debate over the expansion of advertising into connected car interfaces. The event highlights the growing trend of automakers treating vehicle screens as ad networks and the subsequent need for standardized measurement to evaluate engagement and effectiveness.
DoubleVerify's Fraud Lab has identified a botnet operation called ShadowBot that uses Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI) spoofing to generate 3 million fraudulent CTV impressions daily. The scheme mimics various device profiles, including legacy hardware, to siphon ad spend, prompting the vendor to advocate for multi-signal forensic measurement.
Nift CRO Saket Mehta discusses the company's action-triggered, opt-in advertising model, which leverages machine learning to match brand offers with specific consumer behaviors. The platform reports conversion rates of 10% to 12% by integrating monetization into moments like delivery confirmations and loyalty enrollments.
Axonet CEO Patrick Raycroft discusses a new aggregation model designed to consolidate data from 250 retail media networks into a single national activation layer. The platform aims to simplify brand access to long-tail retail inventory while maintaining first-party measurement and retailer data control.
A campaign conducted by IPVanish, Blue Wire, and AdBridge found that AI-generated host voice replicas outperformed traditional announcer-read ads by 26% in driving new subscriptions. The study suggests that synthetic media can scale host-read performance across larger podcast inventories while maintaining listener trust and reducing operational overhead.
A user report details the persistence of deceptive ads on the YouTube app that mimic iOS system notifications, despite Google's internal AI models correctly flagging the content as policy violations. The article highlights a disconnect between Google's automated ad review processes and its own AI-driven content moderation capabilities.
Teads has launched CTV Ensemble, a suite designed to connect connected TV ad impressions to lower-funnel performance metrics like site visits and conversions. The platform aims to solve data fragmentation by tying household CTV data to individual cross-device user sessions.
Retail advertisers have reduced their spend share on Meta's Advantage+ Shopping campaigns from 38% to 20% year-over-year as of Q1 2026. Survey data indicates this shift is driven by a lack of trust in automated media buying due to AI-related incidents like hallucinations and concerns over platform-aligned incentives.
DoubleVerify has published a guide outlining five best practices for designing incrementality tests to measure the effectiveness of CTV and social media advertising. The framework emphasizes defining clear decision-making goals, calculating Minimum Detectable Effect (MDE) thresholds, and utilizing larger holdout groups to improve statistical reliability.
Amazon Ads has partnered with OpenAI to enable programmatic advertising within ChatGPT, allowing brands to reach users through conversational shopping experiences. This integration leverages Amazon's DSP to target audiences on the AI platform, which has reached 900 million weekly active users.
A report from Confindustria Radio TV indicates that European advertising expenditure reached €187.1 billion in 2025, a 5.8% increase driven by digital growth. While linear TV ad revenues declined by 9.2% across major European economies, digital video ad spend surged by 18.2% to €22.1 billion.
James Varndell · Bitmovin
