Below is a roundup of last week’s notable industry news, with summaries and our opinions. There’s an industry calm before the Q4 earnings storm that is coming next week, so we’re doing it lightning round style for this edition. Starting with … ads on Threads!

Meta to begin rolling out Threads ads globally - After testing ads in the US and Japan last January, all Threads users globally will begin seeing ads starting next week. The gradual rollout could take a few months to complete, but Wall Street analysts are already bullish on Threads becoming a significant revenue driver for Meta. With over 400M monthly active users and data showing the platform has surpassed X in daily mobile users globally, Threads has become a legitimate competitor to the company formerly known as Twitter. Meta plans to bring new ad formats and third-party verification services that are already available on Facebook and Instagram to the platform.

Opinion: Meta waited until Threads hit 400M users to turn on ads. A luxury! Of course, they did eventually turn on ads. It’s their business.

Big tech companies can play this waiting game in new frontiers (see: Google Gemini) until they achieve scale that others (see: OpenAI) can’t. It’s a major advantage.

The Trade Desk’s CFO is out after just 6 months on the job🔒- Alexander Kayyal has left The Trade Desk after joining as CFO in August 2025, according to an SEC filing. Longtime executive Tahnil Davis, who has been with The Trade Desk since 2015 and served as the company's chief accounting officer since 2023, has stepped into the interim CFO role effective January 24th. The leadership change comes at a moment of heightened scrutiny for the leading independent demand-side platform (DSP) as it faces intense competition from Amazon and recovers from a bumpy rollout of its AI-powered Kokai buying interface. Wells Fargo noted that the departure adds to "continued fundamental and narrative volatility" and recommended that the company prioritize a finance chief with public company CFO experience (which neither of its prior CFOs had). Shares fell about 7% following the news. 

Opinion: Not great. Either Kayyal didn’t like what he saw, or The Trade Desk didn’t like Kayyal’s approach to managing investor expectations during a turbulent time for the company. Or both. Regardless, this doesn’t bode well for TTD’s 2026 outlook…

US-based TikTok is collecting even more user data. Here are the 3 biggest changes - New US owners, new data collection policies. Users received a pop-up requiring them to agree to a new privacy policy with some significant changes. First, TikTok will collect precise GPS location data from users who grant permission; previously it only tracked approximate location. The platform will also explicitly track all user interactions with TikTok’s AI tools, including prompts and AI-generated answers. Lastly, TikTok has expanded its ad offering to serve targeted ads across the web (outside of TikTok) using its user data. Precise location tracking puts TikTok on par with Instagram and X, and the expanded ad network means TikTok can now “follow” its users around the internet.

Opinion: Kinda funny how TikTok was forced to change hands from being Chinese-owned to being US-owned over data privacy concerns, and now it’s collecting even more data. The first few days under new ownership haven’t been smooth (outages, backlash about suspected censorship, etc.). In the wake of TikTok’s messy transition, a TikTok competitor called Skylight Social is gaining traction.

Paramount will use UFC to kick off programmatic live ad sales in sports events - Starting with UFC matches on January 24th, Paramount is opening up its live sports inventory to programmatic buyers for the first time. Paramount is working with major DSPs including The Trade Desk, Amazon, Google's DV360, and Yahoo to enable private marketplace buying for UFC preliminaries and Fight Nights, while reserving main card events as streaming “fixed units.” Paramount dropped $7.7B for exclusive US rights to UFC's full slate of 13 annual marquee events and 30 Fight Nights.

Opinion: When you're on the hook for $7.7B, you need to get paid pronto. As live sports shifts to streaming, we'll see more and more inventory sold programmatically. That will be great for smaller brands in particular because they won't have to fork over those huge upfront budgets required for traditional linear TV advertising. It may not be so great for traditional networks and broadcasters.

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