Category: Uncategorized
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Criteo Q4 2025 Earnings: Retail Media Troubles Overshadow Agentic Push
By Karsten Weide, Chief Analyst Executive Summary Criteo reported their fourth quarter 2025 earnings on Wednesday, February 11, 2026. There was good news and bad news. First the good news: Criteo is repositioning itself around what it calls Agentic Commerce, embedding AI agents, recommendation services and Model Context Protocol (MCP) infrastructure across its platform. The…
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Beyond the Hype: How Real Is Agentic AI In Advertising?
By Karsten Weide, Chief Analyst Agentic AI has become one of the most overused and least understood terms in digital advertising. The promise is sweeping: autonomous systems that plan, buy, optimize, negotiate, and learn with minimal human intervention. The reality, at least today, is far more modest. Adoption is real, but narrow. Autonomy exists, but…
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Amazon Advertising’s MCP Server Enters Open Beta: What Does It Mean For The Industry?
By Karsten Weide, Chief Analyst On February 2, 2026, Amazon Advertising officially announced the open beta test for its Model Context Protocol (MCP) server at the IAB’s Annual Leadership Meeting. With this new product, Amazon is taking an important step toward opening its advertising platform to AI agents. And because of Amazon’s size, this also…
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Some Learned Observations on Advertising, Hypocrisy, and a Certain Super Bowl Sermon
By Karsten Weide, Chief Analyst We will soon be able to witness a most curious spectacle during the Super Bowl, that annual civic ritual in which Americans gather to watch football while being instructed, at great expense, on what they ought to buy. In the midst of this proud tradition will appear a campaign by…
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OpenAI Introduces Ads: What Does it Mean for Buyers, Vendors and Pubs?
OpenAI officially announced its entry into advertisements sales on ChatGPT on January 16, 2026. For a company that once viewed advertising as a last resort, this move represents a pragmatic step intended to subsidize the massive infrastructure costs of artificial intelligence while expanding access to its tools. The strategy centers on a phased rollout, beginning…
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The Top Ten Trends In Advertising in 2026
This research note outlines W Media Research’s top 10 trends in advertising for 2026. Next year will be when gradual change in advertising flips into a dramatic step-change, driven mainly by AI. Click below to read more for free.
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TTD’s PubDesk: Making Ads Work Better for Buyers and Publishers
By Karsten Weide, Chief Analyst For years, publishers have struggled with a basic problem: understanding what buyers truly value. Everyone in digital advertising talks about transparency, supply path optimization (SPO), and reducing waste, yet publishers have had little visibility why a buyer decides to bid for an impression. The Trade Desk’s new PubDesk product, announced…
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PubMatic Introduces Agentic AI: From SSP To End-To-End Ad Platform
By Karsten Weide, Chief Analyst On November 13, 2025, PubMatic showcased the latest progress in how it is using agentic and generative AI throughout its advertising platform at a private demo event. The presentation was led by CMO Johanna Bauman, Dave Neway, VP of Product Marketing, and Nishant Khatri, EVP of Product Management. For nearly…
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PubMatic Q3 2025 Earnings: Positive Outlook Despite Revenue Drop
By Karsten Weide, Chief Analyst Executive Summary PubMatic reported its third-quarter 2025 earnings on Monday, November 10. The independent SSP delivered a quarter that underscored its operational discipline and technological innovation but also the limits of those advantages in an environment of DSP evolution and shifting ad spend patterns. Revenue fell 5% year-over-year to $68…
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Amazon unBoxed 2025: Advertising’s Next Leap Toward Automation
By Karsten Weide, Chief Analyst The Dawn of Agentic Advertising Amazon Ad’s 2025 unBoxed conference, its annual showcase for advertisers and agencies, took place November 9-12, 2025 in Nashville. The message: Advertising is entering the era of intelligent automation, and Amazon is intending to take the lead. The company unveiled a slew of new products,…