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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.

Google tests group-level “Sponsored” tag in AI Mode shopping carousels

PPC Land’s Luis Rijo reports that Google is testing an AI Mode layout that replaces per-card “Sponsored” tags with one heading over the whole paid group, pairing it with a new “All products” heading over unpaid items.

Affle to buy Perion for $420 million in all-cash ad tech deal

PPC Land’s Luis Rijo reports that Affle agreed to acquire Perion for $11.70 a share in cash, a 34.5% premium, valuing the ad tech company at approximately $420 million, with a 40-day go-shop window before closing expected in early 2027.

Google says AI Mode ads monetize worse, even as it expands them

The Verge reports Google’s chief business officer Philipp Schindler told an earnings call that AI Mode shows “lower monetization,” even as Google expands AI Mode ads to new countries and adds ads in follow-up queries in the US.

Meta’s ad growth doubles Google search’s as AI reshapes discovery

CNBC’s Ari Levy reports that Meta’s ad revenue grew 26% last quarter to $63.1 billion, versus 12% growth to $63.4 billion for Google’s search unit.

Bluefish launches AI ad briefs, cites 35% brand gap between ChatGPT, Google

PPC Land’s Luis Rijo reports that Bluefish extended its AI brand-monitoring platform into paid media on October 27, launching Paid Media Briefs for Google and ChatGPT ad campaigns.

OpenX report: supply-side targeting hit 51% of CTV spend in 2025, up from 9%

PPC Land’s Luis Rijo reports that OpenX’s first annual supply-side intelligence report shows supply-side targeting reached 51% of connected TV deal spend on its U.S. marketplace in 2025, up from 9% in 2022, while third-party audience data fell from 78% to roughly 40% of targeted-deal spend.

Criteo slashes 2026 guidance to a 12% decline after second cut in three months

PPC Land’s Luis Rijo reports that Criteo has cut its 2026 forecast twice in three months, moving from expected growth of up to 2% in February to a projected decline of up to 12% by August.

Audit: most AI assistants lack opt-out for ad data sharing

PPC Land’s Luis Rijo reports that seven academic researchers audited 788 privacy settings across 30 AI products and found only 14 of 29 applicable products let users opt out of data sale or sharing for advertising.

Platforms penalize advertisers who opt out of AI automation, columnist warns

MediaPost’s Maarten Albarda reports that Meta, OpenAI, Google and TikTok have made AI-driven ad automation default-on, while advertisers who opt out face higher CPMs, restricted inventory and throttled distribution.

ChatGPT shifts from writing tool to advice machine, OpenAI data shows

PPC Land’s Luis Rijo reports that OpenAI’s newly released Signals v3.0 dataset shows writing’s share of ChatGPT consumer requests fell from 34.1% in July 2024 to 21.4% in September 2026, while work-related requests dropped from 51.6% to 32.2%.

Google will add ads to more AI Search queries

Nieman Lab’s Sarah Scire flags a report that Google is expanding ad placements across a wider set of AI Search queries.

Report: CTV ad tech can’t see most content it’s selling against

Advanced Television reports that Wurl’s CTV Trends Report found 89 per cent of connected TV ad requests lack usable content metadata in the bidstream.

Google admits AI Mode ads monetize worse, even as it expands them

The Verge’s Jay Peters reports that Google chief business officer Philipp Schindler told investors on the company’s earnings call that AI Mode is seeing “lower monetization” than traditional search, even as he called early ad experiments “promising.”

CTV ad buys often can’t be matched to actual shows, Wurl finds

MediaPost’s Rob Williams reports that a new Wurl CTV Trends Report found 89% of programmatic ad requests lacked a usable program name, while 45% didn’t identify the content at all.

Amazon ad revenue growth slows to 12% as Prime Day shift bites

Marketing Dive’s Peter Adams reports that Amazon’s ad revenue grew 12% year over year to $19.6 billion in Q3, down sharply from 22% growth a year ago and 26% in Q2.

Tatari launches AI ad-buying tool as Meta pushes into TV

Next in Media’s Mike Shields reports that Tatari unveiled Tatari Max, an AI tool echoing Google’s Performance Max and Meta’s Advantage+, at its Forward event where DTC marketers described shifting budgets from social into TV.

Google takes AI Search ads global as core search growth cools

TechCrunch’s Lauren Forristal reports Google is expanding AI mode ads internationally, announced on Alphabet’s third-quarter call as Search ad growth slowed to 12% year over year, down from 19% in Q1.

Google search growth slows as AI Mode cannibalizes ad revenue

Adweek’s Kendra Barnett reports that Alphabet’s Q3 search revenue growth decelerated to 12%, down from 17% last quarter, as executives blamed AI Mode’s lower ad monetization alongside forex and Asia-Pacific spending dips.

Indie agencies question whether they need DSPs at all

Digiday’s Kimeko McCoy and Tim Peterson discuss indie agencies’ long-running gripes about DSP fees and reseller costs, with The Trade Desk singled out as the main target.

Meta rolls out LLM-based ad ranking, scoring every impression in real time

AdExchanger’s Allison Schiff reports Meta is rolling out three ad-ranking upgrades: a new GenRecs model built on LLMs, a bigger GEM foundation model, and a retrieval overhaul letting Andromeda score over a billion ads per second.

Google to personalize AI Mode ads using Gmail, Photos data

eMarketer’s Asa Hiken reports that Google will begin personalizing AI Mode ads using signals pulled from users’ Gmail and Photos content. The move extends Google’s ad-targeting reach into personal Workspace data that previously sat outside its advertising ecosystem.

Cocie AI brings show-level CTV curation deals to Google’s DV360

ExchangeWire reports that Cocie AI’s curated CTV deal packages are now live inside Google DV360 through exclusive SSP partnerships, giving buyers show-level, cookie-free targeting across streaming, FAST and broadcaster apps with no onboarding required.

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