Below is a roundup of last week’s notable industry news, with summaries and our opinions. It’s that time again, earnings season! As always, there were some surprising winners and losers…

Q3 earnings!

Alphabet (👍): Revenue was up 16% to $102.35B, beating estimates and topping $100B for the first time ever. Ad revenue was up 12.6% to $74.18B, and YouTube ad revenue was up 15% to $10.26B. AI drove cloud revenue up 34% to $15.15B, with a $155B backlog. Alphabet will spend $91B-93B on AI in 2025, up from $85B. Shares rose 5%.

Meta (👎): Revenue was up 26% to $51.24B, beating estimates. Ad revenue was up nearly 26% to $50.08B. Daily active users across Meta's apps were up 8% to 3.54B. Meta will spend $70B-72B on AI this year, up from $66B-72B, and expects this to increase in 2026. Investors didn’t like that. Shares fell 9%.

Amazon (👍): Revenue was up 13% to $180.17B, beating estimates. AWS revenue was up 20% to $33B, beating estimates and accelerating the fastest since 2022. Ad revenue was up 23.5% to $17.7B, beating estimates. Amazon will spend $125B on AI this year, up from $118B. Shares rose 13%.

Microsoft (👎): Revenue was up 18% to $77.67B, beating estimates. Azure revenue was up 40%, and Microsoft Cloud revenue was up 26% to $49.1B. Microsoft spent $35B on AI this quarter, more than previously forecast, and expects spending to accelerate. Shares fell 4%.

Spotify (👎): Revenue was up 12% to $4.9B, beating estimates. Premium subscribers were up 12%, and overall monthly subscribers grew 11%, driven by improvements in its free tier. Current quarter guidance for revenue and subscribers missed expectations. Shares fell 2%.

Reddit (👍): Revenue was up 68% to $585M, beating estimates. Ad revenue was up 74% to $549M. Daily active users were up 19% to 116M, beating estimates. Q4 revenue guidance of $655M-$665M topped estimates. Shares rose 7%.

Apple (👍): Revenue was up 8% to $102.47B, beating estimates and topping $100B for the first time, driven by iPhone 17 demand. Profit was up 86%. Services revenue, which includes advertising, was up 15%. Apple issued strong current quarter guidance. Shares rose 3% in extended trading. 

Roku (👍): Revenue was up 14% to $1.21B, beating estimates. Platform revenue was up 17% to $1.065B, driven by video ads and streaming services distribution. Streaming hours were up 12%. Operating income ($9.5M) was positive for the first time since 2021. Shares fell 6% in after-hours trading before popping the next day.

Pinterest (👎): Revenue was up 17% to $1.05B, meeting estimates, but earnings per share missed. Global monthly active users were up 12% to 600M. But current quarter guidance underwhelmed. Shares fell 15%.

Criteo (👍): Revenue was up 2% to $470M, beating estimates. Retail media contribution was up 11%. Criteo will move legal residence from Paris to Luxembourg next year, with the option to move to the US, enabling it to trade on the Nasdaq. Shares opened 8.7% higher. 

Zeta Global (👍): Revenue was up 26% to $337M, beating estimates. The company, which bills itself as an AI marketing cloud, says it grew its "Super Scaled Customers" by 25%. Zeta also raised its current quarter guidance. Shares rose as much as 10% in after-hours trading. 

Digital Turbine (👍): Revenue was up 18% to $140.4M, beating estimates. Earnings per share beat expectations following a miss last quarter. The company raised full-year guidance. Shares rose as much as 20% in after-hours trading. 

WPP (👎): Organic revenue was down 5.9%, missing estimates. For the second time this year, the agency holding company has revised its organic growth forecast downward. New CEO Cindy Rose outlined a turnaround plan (more on that below). Shares fell 11%.

Fox (👍): Revenue was up 5% to $3.74B, beating estimates. Ad revenue was up 6% to almost $1.4B. Fox announced a $1.5B share repurchase. Fox shares reached an all-time high.  

IAC/People (👎): Revenue was down 8% to $589.8M, missing estimates. People's revenue was down 2% to $429.8M. People's digital revenue was up 9% to $269M, driven by performance marketing and licensing. Google Search traffic declined from 54% to 24% in two years, but People signed an AI licensing deal with Microsoft. Shares fell 9% in after-hours trading. 

Comcast (👎): Revenue was down nearly 3% to $31.2B, beating estimates. Broadband and cable TV are under pressure. Peacock subscribers were flat at 41M. Media revenue, including NBCUniversal, was down almost 20% (up 4% if you exclude last year's Summer Olympics). Shares fell 4%. 

Opinion: Last quarter, we talked about the "AI dividend"—how Google, Meta, and Amazon turned AI investments into measurable revenue and soaring stock prices. But now we're seeing a new sub-hierarchy play out within big tech. The "AI Earners" versus the "AI Burners."

AI Earners like Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft have cloud businesses printing money from AI today—Google Cloud Platform (GCP) up 34% with a $155B backlog, AWS up 20% at $33B quarterly, Azure up 40%. They can point to enterprises cutting them checks for AI infrastructure right now.

AI Burners are making equally massive AI bets but can only promise better ad targeting and speculative consumer products. Meta's the poster child: dropping $70B+ on AI with a strategy built on improving ad performance (which is starting to feel like table stakes) and hoping consumers eventually pay for AI wearables. Meta reported 26% revenue growth and 240 million new daily users, but shares tanked 9%. Meanwhile, Alphabet grew ads just 12.6% but shares popped 5%, because investors can actually see the AI money flowing into GCP.

The market is telling us something: Advertising growth alone can't justify the spending required to compete in AI. Meta crushed it on ads. Didn't matter. Advertising has a ceiling, and that ceiling sits below the AI spending floor.

For marketers, this means a few things:

Be an earner, not a burner!

Bending Spoons to acquire AOL - The iconic internet service provider that once defined web 1.0 is changing hands again, this time to Milan-based tech holding company Bending Spoons for roughly $1.5B. AOL, which officially shuttered its dial-up service just last month, has had quite an ownership history—it merged with Time Warner in 2001, acquired by Verizon in 2015, and most recently by Apollo in 2021. Bending Spoons, which specializes in acquiring underperforming tech brands and revitalizing them, secured $2.8B in debt financing to support this acquisition and future deals. Despite AOL's many ownership changes, the platform maintains a surprisingly loyal user base of 30 million monthly active users. 

Cindy Rose reveals WPP turnaround plan—simplify the business, rebuild media, invest more in AI🔒-  After meeting with clients WPP lost to understand what went wrong, Rose said brands want WPP's offerings to be "simpler, more integrated, powered by media data and AI, efficiently priced and designed to deliver growth." Her plan focuses on client acquisition and retention, strengthening go-to-market strategies, and dramatically simplifying internal organization. Rose called the WPP Media turnaround "critical," backing CEO Brian Lesser's vision of an "open and privacy-compliant data and AI-powered ecosystem." WPP also recently launched WPP Open Pro, a new service allowing small and mid-sized businesses to manage their own campaigns with a usage-based commercial model—a client segment WPP hadn't gone after before.

Netflix ‘Actively Exploring’ Warner Bros. Discovery Bid, Hires Bank to Put Together M&A Offer - Just days after Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos downplayed the company's interest in traditional media acquisitions, news reports indicate the streaming giant has retained Moelis & Co. as its financial advisor and gained access to WBD's confidential financial details—steps that suggest serious intent. The acquisition would dramatically expand Netflix's reach, giving it control over franchises like Harry Potter and Game of Thrones, plus the Warner Bros. TV studio that already produces Netflix hits including "You" and "Running Point." With WBD splitting into two entities next year (separating studio/streaming from cable networks), Netflix is pursuing just the high-value entertainment assets while avoiding the legacy TV networks. 

In other streaming news, Disney+ jacked up prices (again) and YouTubeTV is in a carriage dispute with Disney/ESPN. Streaming is somehow becoming more fragmented and more expensive. Streaming consolidation can’t come soon enough!

The DOJ And Google Sharpen Their Remedy Proposals As The Two Sides Prepare For Closing Arguments - Google and the DOJ have sharpened their competing proposals for how Google should be punished for its ad tech antitrust violations. The DOJ is pushing for a breakup, while Google promises it’ll behave better.

Alt Identity Provider ID5 Buys TrueData, Marking Its First-Ever Acquisition - ID5 expects identity resolution provider TrueData to provide a 30%-40% incremental revenue bump.

Twilio to acquire Stytch - Stytch, an identity platform for AI agents, was built for developers and will help Twilio build an intelligent identity layer across its platform. 

Gannett Rebrands as USA Today Co.🔒- The nation's largest newspaper publisher wants to align its identity to its most famous brand.

The Triopoly’s market share dip exposes new digital trends - Digital media market share for Amazon, Google, and Meta combined fell from 73.9% to 71.9% in the US between 2020 and July 2025, according to eMarketer.

Uber Launches A Platform-Specific Attention Metric With Adelaide And Kantar - The metric combines Adelaide’s general attention metric, Uber’s rider and ad placement data, and Kantar's brand lift studies.

The great TID controversy takes another turn as Prebid moves to clarify its position🔒- Transaction IDs will remain optional for those who want to use them for tracking bid requests.

Google's first-ever AI ad is part impressive, part scary - The ad features Tom the turkey using AI Mode in Google Search to take a trip very far away from his farm before Thanksgiving… 

Coca-Cola Is Trying Another AI Holiday Ad. Executives Say This Time Is Different - Is it, though? You be the judge…

The U of Digital Weekly Newsletter is intended for subscribers, but occasional forwarding is okay!

To subscribe visit Uof.Digital/Newsletters or contact us directly for group subscriptions.

And remember, U of Digital helps teams drive better outcomes through structured education on critical topics like programmatic, privacy / identity, CTV, commerce media, AI, and more. Interested in learning more about how we can supercharge your team?