AI agents are now shopping, clicking ads, and rewriting the rules—just don’t tell Amazon, who’s suing Perplexity for not announcing its bot’s presence at checkout. Meanwhile, DoubleVerify flipped from blocking bots to validating the “good” ones. Bots with manners? Totally fine. Bots without? Lawyer up.

Netflix is inflating reach metrics like it’s bulking for Cannes, The Trade Desk is building sell-side tools while pretending it’s not, and IAB Tech Lab wants everyone to play nice in a governance council no one asked for. Ad tech is evolving, sure—but mostly in the direction of chaos with a fresh coat of AI paint.

Amazon, benevolent god of impulse buys and bad UX, is throwing a tantrum over Perplexity’s Comet AI assistant, which had the audacity to buy things like a human. The crime: not waving a little “Hi, I’m a bot!” flag when checking out. Jeff Jassy’s crew claims it’s all about “transparency,” but the real subtext is clear—Amazon doesn’t like when anyone else guides how shoppers spend money on their platform. When a third-party agent skips Amazon’s ad slots and recommendation traps, it threatens the one thing Bezos built the empire on: algorithmic manipulation disguised as consumer choice.

Perplexity says Amazon’s being “aggressive” (translation: acting like a corporate mob boss) and insists its bot only buys stuff on behalf of humans. Amazon calls that a ToS violation; Perplexity calls it the future of retail. Either way, it’s a classic Silicon Valley standoff—one trillion-dollar company clutching its shopping cart, screaming, “Mine!” while the startup next to it quietly automates away the need for middlemen, ads, and maybe, eventually, Amazon itself.

DoubleVerify’s new “AI Verification” tool proves the industry has finally given up pretending humans run the internet. The company famous for hunting down ad fraud is now rolling out a service to validate “good” AI agents—like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity—while still blocking the bad ones. Translation: they’re turning their old enemies into billable audience segments. It’s the digital version of “if you can’t beat ’em, monetize ’em.”

In the coming years, DV says it’ll distinguish between “declared” bots (hi, Comet!) and “malicious” ones. So yes, brands will soon pay to serve ads to machines, which might then make purchases for actual humans. We’ve officially hit the stage of capitalism where we’re marketing to the middlemen that live inside your browser. Somewhere, Don Draper is chain-smoking in disgust.

Magnite’s CEO Michael Barrett spent his latest earnings call pretending everything’s fine while clearly grinding his teeth over The Trade Desk’s shiny new OpenPath toy. “We’re not mad,” he said—usually the first sign that someone’s very mad. Revenue’s up 11%, CTV is booming, and they’re working with Netflix, Roku, and WBD. But the cracks show in the subtext: Magnite’s tired of being cast as the sidekick in TTD’s superhero movie.

Then there’s Google, the eternal villain. Magnite’s suing them for antitrust violations, claiming they’re throttling competition and rigging the open web. Bold move, sure—but don’t expect Alphabet to break a sweat. The irony? Everyone in this ecosystem claims to be “cleaning up ad tech” while quietly building new walled gardens. The open internet is starting to look like a gated community.

Netflix’s ad business just hit puberty, and with that comes a new identity: “Monthly Active Viewers,” or MAVs. Forget boring subscriber counts—now they’re multiplying eyeballs per household to inflate their reach. It's marketing math meets multiverse theory. The goal is simple: prove to advertisers that everyone’s watching, even the roommate’s cousin on the couch.

But behind the metrics makeover is a bigger flex. Netflix wants to be treated like a real ad platform, not a novelty. With Amazon now selling its inventory through its DSP, Netflix’s ad stack is starting to look like Prime Video with better content and worse pricing. Add in dynamic ad insertion for live sports and Stranger Things-branded beer, and the message is clear: this is no longer the “testing phase.” It’s the moment Netflix becomes Madison Avenue’s favorite frenemy.

IAB Tech Lab is forming a Programmatic Governance Council, which sounds like something out of a dystopian bureaucratic nightmare—and honestly, it kind of is. The goal: bring agencies, DSPs, SSPs, and publishers to one table to agree on transparency, data rules, and auction standards. The reality: herding feral cats with conflicting business models.

It’s an $800 billion marketplace full of partners who hate each other but can’t break up. The council is supposed to make everyone play nice, but let’s be real—every “standardization” effort in ad tech ends up benefiting whoever wrote the standard first. Expect plenty of kumbaya language about “collaboration” followed by years of quiet backstabbing in the name of “interoperability.”

After years of bureaucratic misfires and a juicy scandal involving romance and wasted millions, the U.S. Army’s marketing machine has rebranded under DDB Chicago. The agency teamed up with the Army Enterprise Marketing Office (AEMO) to rebuild recruitment ads from the ground up—think Be All You Can Be, but with better lighting and fewer war crimes. Their secret weapon: treating enlistment like a brand funnel.

By hiring marketers from Johnson & Johnson and giving them access to military data for targeting, the Army’s campaigns now look more like Nike spots than recruitment PSAs. It’s working—the Army’s hit its highest enlistment numbers since 2019. But the pendulum swings fast: after progressive “two moms” ads sparked backlash, they’ve pivoted back to “lethality” and nostalgia. The takeaway? The Army’s new ad strategy isn’t about politics—it’s about whichever version of America is most clickable this election cycle.

AdsGency just raised $12 million to automate the entire advertising workflow—from creative concept to cross-channel buy to performance reporting. It calls itself “the first agentic ad agency,” which is Silicon Valley for “we fired the account team.” The platform promises 3x ROAS, 10x profits, and zero patience for human inefficiency. Basically, if ChatGPT and The Trade Desk had a baby, it would take your job before maternity leave was over.

Clients like TAL Education and Mobvoi are already bragging about massive growth, while traditional agencies are quietly having a collective panic attack. AdsGency isn’t trying to support agencies—it’s trying to replace them. It doesn’t need a Cannes jury or a client dinner. Just data, GPUs, and your budget. Welcome to advertising’s singularity, where the only thing more automated than your campaign is your unemployment.

Magnite strutted into its latest earnings call like a startup that just found a second wind — revenue up 11%, partnerships with Netflix, Roku, and Warner Bros. Discovery humming like a well-oiled hype machine. On paper, the company looks solid. In reality, it’s like watching a calm news anchor who’s secretly barefoot under the desk, trying to stomp out a fire.

CEO Michael Barrett radiated confidence, but every line carried the faint scent of defensiveness. The obsession with The Trade Desk’s OpenPath wasn’t just coincidence — it was a tell. You don’t keep repeating the name of a competitor unless they’ve started eating your lunch. Or, in this case, your entire lunchroom.

Here’s the adtech plot twist: SSPs are losing the plot.
Magnite isn’t alone, but it’s the most visible symbol of a structural problem.

The Trade Desk built OpenPath as a direct bridge to publisher inventory — which sounds boring until you realize it removes the SSP middle layer altogether. Translation: buyers can now go straight to the source without paying the toll. Magnite’s entire business model is that toll booth.

And while Barrett insists this isn’t a threat, you can practically see the stress lines in the transcript. He’s right that Magnite still moves a lot of CTV money, but the question isn’t how much—it’s how long.

Magnite’s lawsuit against Google feels like performance art at this point. The company’s accusing Google of monopolistic behavior—something about control of the open web’s supply routes. Which, sure, is true. But it’s also like yelling at your neighbor for building a fence while you’re secretly pouring the concrete for your own.

Everyone in adtech loves to preach about the “open internet.” What they actually mean is “open for me, gated for you.”
The Trade Desk has OpenPath, Amazon’s DSP has exclusive Netflix access, and Magnite is out here waving the banner of fairness while quietly trying to build its own private playground.

That’s the quiet irony: the “open web” isn’t open anymore. It’s turning into a suburban cul-de-sac with “No Soliciting” signs and private security.

Here’s the part Barrett didn’t highlight: most big buyers don’t need Magnite to access premium CTV inventory anymore. They can get it directly via OpenPath, Amazon DSP, or their own publisher deals.

What’s left? The unsold stuff.
Magnite’s position is starting to look like a digital version of the outlet mall—plenty of inventory, sure, but not exactly the first stop for luxury buyers. Netflix, Roku, and WBD might have deals with Magnite, but insiders say those deals cover what’s left after the premium slots are gone.

The optics? Not great. Magnite’s still calling itself a gatekeeper, but most of the gates are already open—and the rich buyers have moved on.

Magnite knows it can’t just keep being a toll booth in an era of direct roads. The pivot is already visible in three plays that feel like a Hail Mary — but at least it’s a play.

Magnite is leaning into SpringServe, its ad server integration that gives publishers granular control over yield, measurement, and workflows. It’s less sexy, more survivalist—think of it as turning into the AWS of the sell side. If Magnite can become indispensable plumbing, it stays in the game.

Magnite’s betting on new ad formats like pause ads—those brief, calm moments when you stop streaming to answer the door, and a brand politely invades your living room. These formats could buy time (and revenue) by offering something neither OpenPath nor Amazon can easily replicate: creative experiences that actually engage viewers.

Data curation is Magnite’s quiet pivot. As third-party cookies crumble, Magnite wants to be the platform that lets publishers control and monetize their own data safely—turning “privacy-first” from a compliance buzzword into a business advantage.

The SSP world is collapsing into two camps: those who build infrastructure, and those who cling to margin.
Magnite has chosen the first, and that’s the right call—but it’s also a slow climb.

If it succeeds, Magnite becomes a curator, not a middleman—a company that adds value through tools, data, and smart formats rather than taking its cut for being in the middle. If it fails, it becomes the digital version of a clearance rack—useful, familiar, and quietly fading into the background while DSPs and publishers eat the premium lunch.

Magnite’s challenge isn’t survival. It’s relevance.
The numbers say one thing; the tone of that earnings call said another. You can paint over anxiety with good PowerPoint slides—but everyone in adtech knows the smell of fear when they hear it.