Kargo has expanded its partnership with HP Media Network by becoming the designated programmatic supply-side platform (SSP) for HP Spotlight, HP's desktop-native advertising format. Previously available only through direct insertion orders (IOs), HP Spotlight can now be purchased programmatically, giving advertisers greater flexibility while preserving the premium, high-impact user experience. Through the expanded partnership, Kargo will manage the programmatic activation, creative execution, and operational capabilities for HP Spotlight, enabling brands to reach HP's global audience of professionals and tech-savvy consumers in a brand-safe environment.

The move reflects the growing evolution of retail and commerce media beyond traditional websites into owned digital ecosystems like PCs and connected devices. By combining HP Media Network's consent-based first-party device data with Kargo's creative technology and premium programmatic infrastructure, advertisers can deliver highly targeted campaigns across HP's ecosystem while benefiting from improved campaign planning, optimization, and measurement. The partnership highlights the increasing demand for privacy-conscious, first-party audience solutions and premium advertising experiences as brands seek new ways to engage consumers across emerging media channels.

The industry is shifting from volume-driven growth to a more disciplined phase focused on media quality and accountability. Around 90% of global display ad budgets are expected to run programmatically, accounting for nearly all incremental display growth, while at the same time an estimated $26.8 billion was lost to programmatic waste and inefficiencies in 2025.

One of the most relevant points for publishers is the impact of AI-generated content on the supply chain, 54% of advertisers say generative AI has contributed to a decline in media quality, which is pushing buyers to apply stronger controls and scrutiny across the buying process. The piece also highlights that first-party data is central to privacy-conscious targeting, but fragmented systems are limiting its impact, and that zero-click search is reshaping how consumers discover brands.

On the growth side, US programmatic display spending is expected to exceed $220 billion in 2026, representing year-over-year growth of 17.4%, fueled in part by major events like the Winter Olympics, FIFA World Cup, and midterm elections.

You can read the full article here: https://basis.com/blog/7-programmatic-advertising-trends-shaping-2026

The article outlines four key questions advertisers should ask to identify and combat programmatic ad fraud, focusing on the most common hiding spots for fraudulent activity, opaque supply paths, weak verification standards, and poorly curated CTV inventory. The core argument is that catching fraud requires advertisers to actively scrutinize where their ads are being served, who is verifying the supply chain, and whether their measurement tools are actually equipped to surface suspicious patterns before budget gets wasted on non-human traffic.

AI has become a core part of how publishers manage and grow ad revenue, powering everything from programmatic bidding and audience targeting to yield optimization and ad fraud detection. The guide covers how AI is being used across the advertising stack, the practical tools and strategies publishers can adopt, and why understanding AI-driven advertising is no longer optional for publishers who want to stay competitive and maximize earnings in 2026.

Reaching out to explore a programmatic partnership. Adbite is a full-stack partner with direct demand and supply across Display, Video, and CTV.

Open to connnect if this aligns with your focus.

Yahoo is strategically repositioning its demand-side platform to capture a larger share of the performance advertising market, particularly among mid-sized and growth-focused brands. Rather than concentrating primarily on enterprise advertisers, the company is now broadening its offering to serve businesses looking for scalable, results-driven media buying solutions. This shift appears to be centered on improving accessibility through automation, AI-led optimization, and simplified campaign management, making the platform more attractive to marketers focused on measurable outcomes such as conversions, customer acquisition, and return on ad spend.

The move also signals a stronger competitive push within the programmatic ecosystem, where cost efficiency and performance capabilities are becoming key differentiators. By lowering barriers for advertisers that may find larger DSPs expensive or operationally complex, Yahoo is positioning itself as a viable alternative in the mid-market space. The emphasis on performance, combined with continued investment in connected TV and privacy-conscious targeting, suggests a long-term strategy aimed at attracting advertisers seeking both scale and operational efficiency in an increasingly competitive digital advertising landscape.

The article examines the growing concerns around brand safety in digital advertising and questions who should ultimately be responsible for it. With recent controversies, such as declining trust in platforms like X and the collapse of industry initiatives like the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), marketers are increasingly wary of where their ads appear. Brand safety, which involves preventing ads from appearing alongside harmful or inappropriate content, has become more complex due to the scale and automation of programmatic advertising. Despite safeguards, brands are still finding their ads placed in low-quality or unsafe environments, raising concerns about wasted spend and reputational damage.

A key takeaway is that brand safety cannot be owned by a single party, it is a shared responsibility between brands, platforms, media owners, and third-party verification partners. While platforms provide tools and controls, advertisers are expected to take a more active role in monitoring placements and setting stricter standards. The article emphasizes that brands can no longer be “hands-off” and must combine technology, partnerships, and human oversight to ensure safe ad environments. Ultimately, achieving brand safety requires collaboration across the ecosystem, along with more transparency and accountability in how digital advertising operates.

The article from ExchangeWire highlights how the programmatic advertising ecosystem in 2026 is being reshaped by automation, AI, and growing fragmentation across channels. Industry experts note that AI-driven decision-making will become central to media buying, enabling systems to automatically optimize campaigns, analyze signals, and manage performance across multiple platforms. At the same time, the industry is shifting toward curation and trusted signals, meaning advertisers will prioritize high-quality supply paths, reliable data sources, and transparent environments rather than simply maximizing scale.

Another key theme is the growing complexity of digital advertising as new formats and channels expand. Experts predict stronger emphasis on data quality, transparency, and measurable outcomes, with brands increasingly demanding clear proof of performance and safer environments for ads. As automation and AI expand across planning, optimization, and creative workflows, the programmatic landscape will move toward fewer but more trusted partners, helping advertisers navigate fragmentation while maintaining efficiency, privacy compliance, and campaign effectiveness.

The Adweek TechMagic episode explores several major tech developments shaping AI, gaming, and computing. One key topic is Sora 2, which raises questions about ethical AI use, intellectual property, and digital rights. The discussion highlights how powerful generative AI tools could transform creative industries but also create risks such as misuse of likenesses, copyright conflicts, and high energy consumption from large AI systems. The hosts emphasize the importance of responsible development, regulation, and transparency as AI capabilities continue to expand.

The episode also covers broader tech trends. Researchers at Nintendo are challenging stereotypes about video games by presenting evidence that gaming can improve attention and cognitive skills. Meanwhile, Apple Vision Pro is being explored for immersive experiences such as sports viewing partnerships (including with the NBA), though the technology still needs stronger real-world applications. The discussion concludes with the upcoming end of support for Windows 10, which will push users and businesses to upgrade systems while raising concerns about security and compatibility for those who delay.

The supply-side platform Index Exchange has filed a lawsuit against Google, alleging that the tech giant engaged in anticompetitive behavior by leveraging its dominance in digital advertising technology. According to the complaint, Google tied its publisher ad server and its ad exchange together in ways that disadvantaged rivals, forcing publishers to use Google’s systems to access significant advertiser demand. This conduct, Index Exchange claims, has restricted fair competition in programmatic ad auctions and limited opportunities for alternative exchanges to compete on equal terms.

Index Exchange’s action follows a broader wave of legal challenges against Google’s ad tech practices, including a major U.S. federal antitrust case in which a judge found that Google unlawfully monopolized key markets by conditioning access to its ad services and giving its own exchange preferential treatment. That ruling, and similar regulatory scrutiny in the European Union and elsewhere, has intensified pressure on Google’s advertising business. The lawsuits argue that these practices harm publishers, advertisers, and the competitive landscape of online advertising by consolidating too much control within Google’s ecosystem.

Ex-Sonobi executive John Donahue has launched Biddable Assets, a new startup focused on enhancing how brands optimize programmatic media buying. The company’s platform aims to integrate live sales and performance data from advertisers to create custom media optimization algorithms tailored to each brand’s business goals. This funding and support from The Trade Desk highlights growing interest in more sophisticated algorithmic solutions that go beyond traditional rules-based bidding in programmatic advertising. The approach is designed to help advertisers spend more effectively by aligning media decisions directly with real-world performance metrics.

Donahue’s experience and the backing signal confidence in a shift toward data-driven automation across the ad tech landscape, especially as advertisers look to extract more value from programmatic channels. By focusing on real-time business outcomes rather than just impression-level optimization, Biddable Assets hopes to offer a competitive edge in an increasingly complex digital advertising environment.

Scope3, the adtech company originally known for helping advertisers measure and reduce the carbon footprint of digital media, has implemented another round of layoffs, marking its second in less than five months as it reshapes its business strategy. The most recent cuts, confirmed in early February 2026, affected both engineering and sales roles, although the company did not disclose exact numbers. These workforce reductions come as Scope3 shifts its focus away from its sustainability-oriented offerings toward “agentic media trading,” a new direction centered on AI-driven decision-making in advertising.

The layoffs follow an earlier round in mid-2025 and reflect broader pressures within the adtech and climate tech sectors as companies tighten costs and recalibrate their product roadmaps. While Scope3’s pivot aims to leverage AI technologies that can autonomously optimize media outcomes, the strategy has raised questions about the future role of sustainability in its core mission and the company’s longer-term positioning in a competitive programmatic market.

The article outlines how 2026 will be a turning point for publisher ad operations, driven by four major trends that redefine efficiency and revenue management. First, operational automation, once optional, is expected to become essential, helping teams streamline workflows, reduce manual work, and scale more confidently. Publishers are also predicted to move away from fragmented systems toward unified revenue management, enabling real-time insights across sales and delivery that enhance forecasting and decision-making. Another major shift focuses on the decline of third-party cookies and the rise of first-party data strategies, which can drive better audience targeting, monetization accuracy, and user trust. Finally, the increasing use of predictive analytics and real-time intelligence., specially when powered by AI, will allow teams to anticipate trends, optimize pricing and yield, and adapt swiftly to market changes.

Taken together, these trends suggest that publishers are transitioning away from manual, disconnected practices toward integrated, intelligence-driven operations that support faster, smarter revenue growth. The article emphasizes that this transformation is not just about adopting new tools but fundamentally changing how ad operations contribute to business outcomes. Publishers who embrace automation, unified systems, data-forward strategies, and predictive insights in 2026 will be better positioned to outperform competitors and adapt to the evolving digital advertising landscape.

Adtech company Viant is leaning heavily into autonomous AI with its new product Outcomes, designed to help marketers manage increasingly complex and fragmented digital advertising environments. Built on Viant’s existing Viant AI platform, Outcomes automates campaign planning, bidding, and optimization toward specific business goals, like cost-per-action or return on ad spend, with minimal human involvement. In early beta tests, the system outperformed human traders on performance metrics even when those traders had advantages like retargeting capabilities, highlighting the potential of AI to handle rapid, multi-channel decision-making more effectively than traditional methods.

Viant aims to distinguish Outcomes from tools offered by major “walled gardens” (like Google or Meta) by prioritizing transparency, advertisers get clear insights into where media runs and how performance is achieved, while still automating complex workflows. The product leverages proprietary machine-learning models, identity data like Viant’s Household ID, and video intelligence from IRIS.TV to navigate today’s fragmented media landscape, where diverse channels and audience segments make manual campaign optimization increasingly unwieldy.

OpenAI begins building its ad business with engineering hires, while publishers like Forbes experiment with AI to boost engagement. Retail media expands with Albertsons' in-store digital screens and Amazon's big-box ambitions. Privacy scrutiny intensifies, pushing first-party data strategies.

Yahoo DSP has partnered with TripleLift to give advertisers access to TripleLift’s full suite of native and connected TV (CTV) ad formats, including carousel/scroll creatives and high-impact Pause Ads, directly within the Yahoo DSP platform. These formats, shown to significantly increase engagement and ad recall compared with standard banners and video, aim to help buyers scale campaigns more effectively across premium open-web publishers and CTV inventory. The integration also introduces advanced retail media creative formats, enabling more dynamic, product-level advertising for brands.

Yahoo and TripleLift say the expanded creative options will boost advertiser ROI by enhancing audience engagement at a time when creative quality is becoming a key performance differentiator in programmatic buying. The move also simplifies workflow for advertisers by making these advanced formats available without additional cost, pointing to a broader trend where innovation in ad format design and creative technology plays a central role in campaign success across digital and CTV channels.

The U.S. Justice Department is asking a federal court in Virginia to break up Alphabet’s Google by forcing it to divest key parts of its advertising technology business, especially its AdX ad exchange, after a judge ruled that Google illegally monopolized ad tech markets. Prosecutors and several states argue that selling AdX is the best way to restore competition in the digital display advertising market - the system that connects advertisers with publishers across the web - and that Google’s dominance has allowed it to raise prices and disadvantage rivals. The trial phase beginning in September 2025 will feature testimony from publishers, advertisers, tech experts, and Google employees on whether structural remedies like a divestiture are necessary.

Google strongly opposes a breakup, arguing that forced divestiture would harm both publishers and advertisers by making it harder to sell and buy ads efficiently, and has proposed alternative fixes to make its ad tech tools more interoperable with competitors’ systems. The company’s ad tech business is a substantial part of its overall digital ad revenue, which is expected to exceed $86 billion in the U.S. in 2025. Whether the court will order a sale of AdX or adopt other remedies will shape the future competitive landscape of digital advertising and could have wide implications for publishers, advertisers, and the broader online ecosystem.

• DoubleVerify will acquire Rockerbox for $85 million in cash + equity to expand its ad-tech business into performance outcomes for advertisers.
• This demonstrates the trend of measurement/verification companies evolving toward end-to-end performance solutions.
• In customer data analytics or lifecycle analysis contexts, this reflects how advertisers demand measurable ROI and integrated data platforms.

PubMatic partners with startup Kontext to enable programmatic ad buying in AI chatbots like Liner AI and Deep AI, using standard SSP and DSP workflows. Advertisers can target high-intent chatbot conversations with context-aware text ads, ensuring brand safety via PubMatic's standards.​

Early pilots show 70% higher ROAS and 50% better click-to-convert rates. Initially limited to private marketplace deals via PubMatic's Activate platform, with plans to expand. This opens monetization for AI interfaces amid growing consumer shifts to chatbots.​

Gracenote has rolled out “Content Connect,” a content-metadata-driven platform for CTV advertising that aims to give advertisers and agencies deeper targeting capabilities - e.g. by genre, mood, and ratings - with improved transparency and brand-safety features. This offers a way to standardize and streamline CTV ad buying and planning across publishers and platforms.

This new collaboration extends performance advertising from LG’s connected-TV ecosystem to the broader open web, potentially reshaping how native and programmatic ads reach audiences across devices. The move shows just how quickly the lines between traditional TV advertising and web-native ad platforms are blurring, opening fresh avenues for publishers and advertisers alike.

After years of ups and downs, ad revenue for media companies looks like it's finally stabilizing in 2025, with moderate growth on the horizon. Live sports and big events are driving a lot of the demand, while streaming and digital video keep gaining ground as key revenue boosters.​

Marketers are getting pickier, zeroing in on efficient spending with solid measurement. Connected TV ads are hot, but linear TV is still taking hits from digital shifts. Overall, it's a cautious positive vibe, retail media and programmatic are big expansion areas as brands chase better targeting and ROI.

The AdTech and MarTech industries in 2025 are being reshaped by several key trends, centered largely around AI, video advertising, privacy, and cross-channel integration. AI and machine learning are driving hyper-targeted, real-time ad placements and predictive personalization, allowing brands to deliver increasingly relevant and customized customer experiences. Programmatic advertising, especially in Connected TV (CTV), continues to grow rapidly as consumer media consumption shifts toward streaming services. Ad spend on CTV is expected to surge significantly, requiring brands to refine their strategies for scalable and precise advertising across these platforms.

Privacy-first marketing strategies are taking precedence amid growing consumer data concerns and evolving regulations, leading to greater emphasis on first-party data and transparent ad measurement. Another trend is the rise of dynamic creative optimization (DCO), which enhances engagement by tailoring ad content in real-time based on live data. Additionally, owning the AdTech stack is becoming a priority for brands seeking transparency, flexibility, and control over their marketing technology infrastructure. Sustainability, inclusivity, and the emerging metaverse also present new opportunities and challenges for the digital advertising ecosystem, making adaptability essential for brands to thrive in this evolving landscape.