Below is a roundup of last week’s notable industry news, with summaries and our opinions. This is the FIRST edition of 2026! And it’s jam-packed with product and partnership announcements. 2026 LET’S GO!

CES 2026: A wave of new ad products and partnerships
January 4th-7th, 2026
Sources: Adweek, Mediapost, etc.

Summary: CES has become the de facto new year kickoff conference for the digital advertising industry. It's where platforms and agencies show off their new wares, introduce marketing campaigns, and start conversations that will shape the year ahead. 

Of course none of it particularly “new”: AI agents, autonomous campaigns, and outcomes-based measurement are in the spotlight . 

There were SO MANY announcements and launches so we had to pick and choose what to include. Here’s are the highlights:

Reddit launched Max Campaigns,🔒an AI-powered automation tool to handle targeting, bidding, and creative optimization. Unlike competitors (like Meta’s Advantage+, Google’s Performance Max, TikTok Smart+, Pinterest Performance+, Snap Smart Campaign, you get the point) Reddit claims it takes an "open box" approach that shows advertisers detailed insights about where and how their ads perform.

Viant introduced Outcomes, powered by Lattice Brain. Outcomes helps marketers run campaigns with minimal human involvement to hit specific business goals like cost per action and return on ad spend. It's built on Viant's new AI Lattice Brain decisioning architecture.

DoubleVerify and IMDb teamed up on DV Authentic Streaming TV🔒to help advertisers place ads in high-quality, culturally relevant programming.

Roku became the first major streamer to adopt iSpot's outcomes-based ad metric. The Outcomes at Scale metric lets advertisers track ROI and optimize campaigns based on actual business results rather than just impressions or reach.

Samsung Ads released Data+ with Snowflake, opening its audience, linear, and CTV campaign data to advertisers that work in Snowflake. Samsung is also integrating AI into all of its consumer products,🔒including refrigerators and TVs.

PayPal Ads launched Transaction Graph Insights, offering visibility into cross-merchant shopping behavior. A new Measurement Partnership Program also includes 20+ third-party partners to verify campaign performance.

Roblox unveiled programmatic partnerships with Amazon DSP, Liftoff, Index Exchange, Magnite, and Pubmatic. Roblox also introduced a new "Homepage Feature" ad format that places video ads in immersive 3D viewing environments.

Omnicom used CES as its coming out party post IPG acquisition. It has partnered with Walmart Connect and Meta to drive influencer marketing🔒and is working with Google on an AI agent to provide deeper insights into consumer intent🔒.  Omnicom also brought its shopper marketing agency TPN under the Flywheel umbrella.🔒

WPP showcased its new AI Agent Hub, a suite of "super agents" that can help brands with data insights and analytics. WPP Media, Butler/Till, MiQ, and others are also working with PubMatic on a new agentic operating system for autonomous advertising. Stagwell introduced its own agentic operating system called "The Machine."

Opinion: When everyone launches the same AI capabilities simultaneously, nobody has an advantage. We're watching platforms inadvertently prove that AI won't be their moat.

If every platform has AI that can handle campaign planning, execution, optimization, and measurement, the idea of AI solving for operational efficiency becomes irrelevant. No one cares how easy your bidding interface is when nobody's manually bidding anymore.

The real competitive moats are what they've always been, just amplified: inventory quality, audience scale, proprietary data, and most importantly, outcomes. These things matter because they address what AI can't solve.

Walmart Opens Up Ads in Gen AI Shopping Agent Sparky🔒- Walmart began testing ads within Sparky last year, positioning it as a direct competitor to Amazon's ad-enabled Rufus chatbot. Sponsored prompts appear when shoppers ask Sparky for product recommendations within Walmart's mobile app. Walmart says 81% of users have used the tool to check product availability and specs before making purchases. Walmart is banking on its massive scale—150M weekly shoppers across 4.6K stores—to differentiate in the emerging AI advertising space. At the same time, Walmart is expanding AI tools for advertisers through Marty, an assistant that optimizes sponsored search campaigns with automated bidding and keyword recommendations. Walmart Connect's VP noted that brands are increasingly asking the retailer to handle both performance-driven campaigns and upper-funnel brand building. Especially now with Vizio in-house.

OpenAI’s Ads Push Starts Taking Shape🔒- OpenAI employees are exploring the mechanics of how to inject advertising into ChatGPT without alienating users who expect unbiased responses. They have been creating mockups showing sponsored results in secondary windows and sidebars, with disclosure notices indicating when content is paid for. OpenAI is also building specialized AI systems that detect commercial intent in conversations before relevant advertisements are shown. The moves address a big revenue challenge for OpenAI: Only 5% of ChatGPT's massive user base pays for $20 or $200 monthly subscriptions. With ChatGPT's 900M weekly users and plans to reach 2.6B by 2030, OpenAI could compete directly in the trillion-dollar ad market, though it faces a balancing act between monetization and maintaining user trust. 

Meta just bought Manus, an AI startup everyone has been talking about - Meta is spending ~$2B to acquire Manus, a Singapore-based agentic AI company that could help Meta turn its AI investments into actual revenue. The startup emerged last spring with demonstrations of AI assistants handling complex tasks like job candidate screening, trip planning, and financial analysis. Manus quickly secured $75M from VC firm Benchmark at a $500M valuation. With millions of active users now paying for subscriptions that bring in over $100M annually, Manus offers cover for Meta's massive AI spending as shareholders question its $60B infrastructure buildout. Meta will operate Manus as a standalone entity while bringing its tech into its social platforms alongside the existing Meta AI chatbot. Manus could also supercharge Meta’s agentic AI efforts for advertisers.

Agency tech giants Mediaocean, Basis announce 'foundational' partnership - Mediaocean and DSP Basis Technologies (formerly Centro) will integrate their back-end systems and automate the "entire media campaign process from start to finish.

Teads names Dani Cushion CMO as it looks to reset marketing in turnaround effort - Cushion previously served as CMO at Innovid and has worked in senior marketing roles at Cardlytics, ExecOnline, and Millennial Media.

WPP Media launches new sports practice while ad dollars soar for big games - WPP Media Sports will lean into data, analytics, investment services, and more to help brands get the most from their sports ad budgets. 

NBCU sells out advertising inventory for Milan Olympics amid sports ad boom - February will be an epic moneymaker for NBCU, which has also sold out its Super Bowl and NBA All Star Game inventory. 

After watching X’s ownership issues play out, marketers brace for TikTok whiplash in 2026🔒- After Elon Musk's Twitter bumpy acquisition, many marketers hope TikTok won't experience the same volatility once its US operation is sold to domestic owners.

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