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Ad-tech

Desk brief

State of Play

Revised Nov 1, 2026

The moment. Search is paying for the AI that is replacing it. Adweek’s Kendra Barnett reports Alphabet’s Q3 search revenue growth slowed to 12% from 17% the quarter before, with executives citing AI Mode’s lower ad monetization, and TechCrunch has Google taking AI Mode ads international anyway. Google is also moving to personalize those ads with signals from Gmail and Photos. Meta rebuilt the engine underneath its feed: AdExchanger’s Allison Schiff reports an LLM-based ranking model and a retrieval overhaul letting Andromeda score more than a billion ads per second. OpenAI kept building its ad business in public, taking ChatGPT ads to 26 more countries for 89 in all, adding an automatic bid strategy, and applying creative enhancements to existing ads from October 30 unless an advertiser opts out. The FTC cleared Publicis’s LiveRamp acquisition under a consent order with a five-year data firewall.

The tension. The platforms are editing the work and moving the liability to the buyer. Adweek has Meta’s AI reworking creative without being asked, and Meta’s new terms make advertisers solely responsible for whatever it generates, a change Meta pushed from October 30 to November 20 after publisher trade bodies objected. Identity is closing in one browser and opening in another inbox: Apple confirmed it has broken identity resolution vendors’ tracking on Safari, while Google’s policy now lets Gmail, Drive and Photos data feed ads once a user connects them. CTV’s plumbing is still the weak joint: The Measure’s Jon Lafayette reports Wurl finding 89% of CTV ad requests lack a usable program name, and executives from Magnite to The Trade Desk name frequency waste as the problem nobody has fixed. Indie agencies now ask aloud whether they need a DSP at all.

Who’s moving. Google, with search growth at 12% and AI Mode ads going global. Google again, on Gmail and Photos signals in AI Mode ads. Meta, scoring every impression with an LLM. Meta again, delaying its terms to November 20. OpenAI, at 89 countries. The FTC and Publicis, on a five-year firewall around LiveRamp. Apple, closing the Safari workarounds. Wurl, on CTV requests with no program name. Skydance, weighing Google over FreeWheel. FreeWheel, following NBCU in the Comcast split. Madhive, adding AdImpact spend data across 210 markets. Pinterest, launching Programmatic Deals with Magnite.

What the desk is watching. Whether Meta’s November 20 date holds, and whether AI Mode’s ad load closes the gap in Google’s search growth or widens it.

European ad spend hit €187.1bn in 2025, up 5.8% year-on-year

Advanced Television reports that Confindustria Radio TV’s study of 30 European nations puts 2025 ad spend at €187.1 billion, up 5.8 percent and 48.9 percent above 2019 levels.

Amazon gives advertisers access to ChatGPT ads via OpenAI partnership

eMarketer’s Rachel Wolff reports that Amazon and OpenAI struck a partnership letting advertisers using Amazon’s ad tech buy placements inside ChatGPT. It extends Amazon’s ad business beyond its own retail and streaming properties into a major generative AI chat surface.

Publishers now pay Google for the clicks they used to get free

Simon Owens’s Media Newsletter reports that publishers in Similarweb’s Top 100 Media index spent an estimated $113 million on paid search in July 2026 as organic referrals keep eroding amid zero-click search.

Amazon DSP buyers can now extend campaigns into ChatGPT ads

The Measure’s Jon Lafayette reports that Amazon Ads struck a deal with OpenAI letting advertisers using the Amazon DSP extend campaigns into conversational ads on ChatGPT.

Context Matters, But Intent Matters More

AdExchanger’s Victoria McNally reports that Qortex CEO Zack Rosenberg says Nike ads perform four times better against cooking content than basketball. Agency Coegi used the platform to lift a B2B YouTube campaign’s completion rate from 14% to 40% by ditching intuitive placements.

DTG publishes cross-industry framework for IP TV advertising

Advanced Television reports that ahead of IBC 2026, the Digital TV Group released a framework built with more than 50 organisations to align IP-delivered television advertising.

Opt-ed In is Not Enough: Florida sues Netflix over data harvesting behind ad business

Watch this space, because the ramifications could be huge for measurement and targeting: Florida’s attorney general sued Netflix, alleging it collected roughly 550 billion daily user events since 2016 while marketing itself as privacy-friendly, then monetized that data with its 2022 ad launch.

ChatGPT Ads expand to Europe with Adform as launch partner

Advanced Television reports that Adform has been named a technology platform partner for the European rollout of ChatGPT Ads, extending the format beyond the 40-plus markets, including the US, UK and Canada, where it already runs.

Amazon’s own auction language contradicts itself, DSP analysis finds

AdExchanger’s AdExchanger Guest reports that the FTC’s Amazon lawsuit covers only search ads, but Amazon DSP materials describe Private Auction pricing four different ways. Amazon’s own research admits payment rules in such auctions are “only partially specified.”

Large screens now take 79% of open programmatic streaming spend

MediaPost’s Wayne Friedman reports that Pixalate data shows large-screen share of open programmatic streaming ad spend jumped to 79% in July from 57% in June, while smaller screens fell to 21%. Amazon Fire TV led all platforms with 37% share, up from 30%.

TF1 PUB maps 2027 roadmap around AI trading agents and full-funnel measurement

VideoWeek’s Dan Meier reports that TF1’s ad sales house unveiled a 2027 roadmap built on five pillars: new ad formats, expanded addressable targeting, easier access for smaller advertisers, full-funnel measurement, and AI-driven trading.

IAB raises US ad spend forecast as AI tools capture more of the budget

Digiday’s Sam Bradley reports that the IAB now projects 12.3% U.S. ad spend growth this year, up from 9.5%. Madison & Wall estimates AI-directed spend will hit 12% of U.S. ad dollars, up from 2% in 2023, reaching 27% by 2030.

AI now runs daily in most ad production shops, XR study finds

The Measure’s Jon Lafayette reports that a State of Ad Ops study from XR finds 88% of U.S. advertisers use AI in creative production, with nearly half of brand and agency executives saying they use it daily.

Supreme Court order expands who gets local TV’s lowest political ad rate

TVREV’s Tim Hanlon reports that a September 4 Supreme Court stay kept in force an FCC interpretation that extends lowest-unit-charge pricing beyond candidates to some party committees and joint fundraising groups.

Analysts say Trade Desk’s open-web faith is out of step with advertisers

Next in Media’s Mike Shields reports that Trade Desk CEO Jeff Green has long insisted marketers will inevitably shift budgets from walled gardens to the open internet.

Listen Labs walks from $1.5B term sheet amid Salesforce buyout talks

TechCrunch’s Marina Temkin reports that Listen Labs signed a $125 million Series C term sheet at a $1.5 billion valuation led by Menlo Ventures, but never closed it.

Apple’s new CEO stakes AI strategy on the iPhone, not new hardware

TechCrunch’s Sarah Perez reports that John Ternus, taking over from Tim Cook, opened Apple’s fall event by calling the iPhone the ideal “intelligent personal hub” for AI.

Instinct gives its AI agent its own email address to run tasks

TechCrunch’s Sarah Perez reports that Instinct, the AI assistant valued at $2.5 billion, now issues every user an Instinct email address so the agent can create accounts, contact businesses, and handle support requests on its own.

Analysts: The Trade Desk’s open-web pitch stalled as buyers wanted price and ease

On Next in Media, analysts Brian Wieser and Luke Stillman dissect The Trade Desk’s negative growth guidance, executive turnover, and 15% workforce cut.

Google Cloud, Accenture form joint unit to deploy AI into enterprises

Google Cloud and Accenture launched the Accenture Gemini Enterprise Business Group, training up to 1,000 Accenture engineers as forward-deployed engineers to help clients adopt Gemini and build custom AI applications, joining OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, and Amazon in similar bets.

Mistral raises €3 billion as sovereign AI pitch pays off

TechCrunch’s Anna Heim reports that French AI lab Mistral raised three billion euros at a post-money valuation above twenty-one billion euros, led by Samsung with EQT’s Scaleup Europe and PSG Equity. Mistral calls it Europe’s largest-ever tech equity round.

Meta launches Muse, an AI agent that wants your email, calendar and payments

TechCrunch’s Sarah Perez reports that Meta debuted Muse, a personal AI agent that connects to email, calendars, payments, health, and shopping apps to complete tasks like booking travel or checking out purchases via Link by Stripe.

Reuters becomes exclusive home for ITN’s 70-year broadcast archive

Reuters and ITN struck a deal making Reuters Connect the exclusive worldwide marketplace for ITN’s archive starting in 2027. Reuters will digitize an additional 12,000 hours of unreleased footage and apply AI-enhanced search and metadata across the full collection.

Magnite runs first agentic CTV campaign in EMEA with Amnet France

markets.businessinsider.com reports that Magnite’s buyer agent built and activated a premium CTV video campaign for Amnet France using natural language prompts, cutting campaign setup time by about 70 percent.

Advertisers push OpenAI for more visibility into ChatGPT ad placements

Adweek’s Trishla Ostwal reports that four ad buyers interviewed say they want more visibility into the prompts triggering ChatGPT ads, placement context, and whether exposure drives sales, as OpenAI’s ad revenue surpassed one billion dollars annualized, up from a hundred million in March.

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