If you thought 2025 was chaotic, 2026 kicked the door in with a robot wearing AR glasses and a spreadsheet. The ad world isn’t just evolving—it’s full-blown mutating. AI agents are now negotiating ad deals like Wall Street brokers, Snap’s reviving its wearable dreams (again), and even the 4A’s is pretending to innovate. Meanwhile, marketers are duct-taping brand budgets to performance metrics while CFOs demand quarterly proof that every CPM leads to a conversion. Somewhere in the middle of it all, Lady Gaga softly croons Mister Rogers while trying to sell you a mortgage. Buckle up—it’s going to be a weird, automated, hyper-measurable year.

Prebid, the group that made header bidding less of a nightmare, is now gunning to be the brain behind publisher-side AI agents. They’re adopting AdCP protocol code and launching something called the “Prebid Sales Agent,” which sounds like a knock-off from Westworld but for banner ads. The pitch? Help publishers automate ad sales without needing to build Skynet in-house. But let’s be real—expecting most publishers to debug GitHub commits while fending off SEO consultants is delusional. Prebid’s trying to drag the sell-side into the future before Google does it for them, but it's also quietly laying the groundwork for AI-to-AI open auction deals while everyone else is still manually uploading price floors.

Marketing budgets are growing in 2026—but with the grip of a Formula 1 pit crew. Agencies and brands aren’t just throwing cash at CTV and social because it feels good. They want ROI receipts signed in triplicate, with bonus points for fraud detection and attribution dashboards. Flexibility rules, performance is the new religion, and CFOs are the new CMOs. AI-powered campaign tools aren’t just flashy—they’re survival kits. Brands are shifting upper-funnel, betting that visibility now buys conversions later. And platforms not offering plug-and-play measurement with clean signals? They're roadkill. As one buyer put it, the market’s not expanding—it’s just cannibalizing Meta’s lunch money.

The IAB just slapped a shiny new forecast on the table: 9.5% ad spend growth in 2026. Cue the confetti—until you read the fine print about a possible recession. Social media (+14.6%) and CTV (+13.8%) are the golden children, while linear TV limps into decline. But don’t mistake growth for confidence. The optimism here is more “I’ve got a life raft” than “let’s build a yacht.” It’s about adaptability: fewer upfronts, more fluid deals, and every dollar tracked like it’s carrying state secrets. The vibe isn’t bullish—it’s “braced but mobile.”

Snap just announced it’s birthing a new subsidiary to handle its upcoming Specs AR glasses, which will allegedly ship before Apple and Meta’s next-gen wearables. Translation: Snap is hedging its bets by fireproofing its social business in case this thing belly-flops like the first batch of Specs that cost them $40 million. Specs now come with an improved browser, better gallery, and a new Spotlight Lens feature. It’s Snapchat on your face, again. But will Gen Z really swap their phones for face gear just to doomscroll in 3D? Snap better hope so. Otherwise, this is just another vanity hardware project with better PR.

Comscore’s 2026 Programmatic Report is here, and the message is clear: performance, not scale, is the new flex. Buyers are shifting from linear to CTV and programmatic audio, not just because it’s trendy, but because they can actually measure stuff. AI is doing the grunt work—targeting, pacing, bidding, fraud-checking—while humans focus on strategy (and maybe justifying their jobs). The days of blindly pumping impressions into the void are over. And if your platform can’t show lift, not just clicks, you’re out. The ad pipes are smarter now, but they’re also colder. It’s survival of the most accountable.

The 4A’s is trying to shake off the “useless trade org” dust by launching a new Innovation Team to build actual tools, dashboards, and data products for agencies drowning in pitch decks and procurement hell. Led by interim EVP Eve Asbury, the group aims to make the 4A’s less of a consultant and more of a performance partner. That’s good, because in a world where independent shops are rising and holding companies are imploding, agencies don’t need cheerleaders—they need oxygen tanks. If this team can actually deliver usable stuff, it might just keep the 4A’s from becoming the Myspace of ad orgs.

In a weirdly low-key Super Bowl teaser, Lady Gaga croons a stripped-down version of “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” for Rocket Mortgage and Redfin’s big campaign. Shot in black and white with the handheld energy of an indie doc, it’s intimate, emotional, and—honestly—kind of great. Gaga trades spectacle for sincerity, and the brands are betting that heartfelt vibes will cut through the ad circus of Super Bowl 60. It’s a bold move, especially when everyone else is just throwing celebrities at their creative brief like darts. But hey, if anyone can turn mortgage pre-approval into a moment, it’s Gaga.

Anywho, I'm supposed to be at the IAB's Annual Leadership Meeting next week, so let me just say upfront: David Cohen, if you're reading this, I come in peace. Mostly. Don't disinvite me. The food at these things is... well, I keep kosher, so I'll be eating a lot of fruit plates regardless, but I hear the shrimp is pretty good for those who partake.

But someone has to say it: the IAB just dropped its 2026 ad forecast and it's giving "cautious optimism" energy, which in advertising speak means "we're telling investors everything is great while quietly updating our LinkedIn profiles."

The headline number is 9.5% growth. Sounds fantastic! Champagne all around! Except—and here's where it gets fun—strip out the Olympics, the World Cup, and the midterm elections, and you're looking at more like 7%. Still decent, but let's not pretend we're not juicing the stats with every four-year event on the calendar short of a lunar eclipse.

And the caveat? Oh, the caveat is my favorite part. If the economy tanks, so do these numbers. I mean, yes? Isn't that always the caveat? "Our forecast is accurate unless things happen that make it inaccurate." Groundbreaking analysis. Truly. This is like me saying I'll definitely make it to the gym tomorrow unless I don't feel like it.

Here's what's actually happening, and none of this should surprise anyone who's been paying attention:

Digital continues to eat everything. Social media up 14.6%. Connected TV up 13.8%. Commerce media—that's your retail media networks, your Amazon ads, your checkout-screen nonsense—up 12.1%.

Meanwhile, linear TV? Down 1.7%. Which honestly sounds like a victory lap compared to 2025's bloodbath of negative 14.4%. Congratulations, linear TV, you're dying slower! Someone get the champagne. (Not for me. I'll take the Manischewitz. Kidding. Mostly.)

Traditional media overall is sliding about 1% into the void, which in industry terms means "we're not saying it's dead, we're saying it's on a wellness retreat with no return date."

Here's the part that actually matters: nobody wants to commit to anything.

The whole vibe of this forecast is "we'll spend money, but we want to be able to yank it back the second things get weird." Fewer rigid upfront deals. More flexible activation. Shorter commitments. It's the media-buying equivalent of keeping your bags packed by the door.

The IAB even moved the NewFronts to March and is clustering all these creator and podcast marketplaces together because—and I quote—buyers want "always-on" cycles instead of one big anchor moment. Translation: no one trusts the calendar anymore. No one trusts anything anymore.

This is "braced but mobile" spending. Plan for growth, build in the escape hatches, and pray Jerome Powell doesn't sneeze wrong.

Here's where it gets interesting, and by interesting I mean "slightly terrifying for anyone whose job involves making decisions."

The IAB says five of the top six buyer priorities are now AI-related. Two-thirds of buyers are specifically focused on agentic AI—that's the stuff that doesn't just recommend what to do, it actually does it. Buys the media. Optimizes the campaign. Probably writes the press release about how well it did.

Marketers are also—and this is wild—prioritizing content tuned for AI-generated answers. Meaning they're not just optimizing for Google anymore; they're optimizing for ChatGPT and Perplexity and whatever else is going to summarize their brand into a three-sentence answer before anyone clicks through to their actual website.

We've gone from "AI is coming" to "AI is here and it's doing your job while you're still debating whether to use it."

Look kids, I've been covering this industry long enough to know that every forecast is a wish dressed up as a spreadsheet. The IAB is telling us the ad market is going to grow, but they're also telling us it could all fall apart, and everyone's building their plans with one foot out the door.

That's not pessimism. That's just how you operate in 2026. Nobody knows what's going to happen with the economy. Nobody knows if the tariff situation is going to get worse. Nobody knows if the next recession is six months away or six years away.

So you plan for sunshine and pack an umbrella. Or in IAB terms: you project 9.5% growth and put an asterisk the size of Montana next to it.

David, I'll see you next week. Save me a fruit plate.