CMO TLDR: Google & Amazon's AI Payout

AI Dividend

Google Hits Century Mark as Search Defies AI Threats

Alphabet reported its first-ever $100 billion quarter with revenue jumping 16% to $102.35 billion, powered by resilient search advertising that brought in $56.57 billion despite competition from ChatGPT and other AI alternatives. The tech giant's cloud business surged 34% to $15.16 billion as more than 70% of its cloud customers now use Google's AI products, while YouTube advertising climbed 15% on the strength of new NFL programming. Google's ad tech unit, which a federal judge found to be an illegal monopoly in April, contributed $7.35 billion to the quarter as the company faces potential remedies that could force a breakup of that business.

AdWeek: Google Posts First-Ever $100B Quarter in Wake of Historic DOJ Antitrust Battles

NY Times: Alphabet Revenue Jumps 16% With Strong Cloud Sales

Amazon Cloud Rebounds, AI Spend Pays Off With 38% Profit Surge

Amazon Web Services posted 20% sales growth to $33 billion in the third quarter, its fastest expansion in nearly three years, as the company spent $34.2 billion on AI infrastructure, including data centers and chips, to meet surging customer demand. The cloud resurgence helped drive overall profit up 38% to $21.2 billion and sent shares jumping 13% after hours, easing concerns that Amazon was losing ground to Microsoft and Google in the race to provide computing power for artificial intelligence. Amazon's advertising unit, which primarily promotes products on its marketplace, pulled in $17.7 billion as retail sales climbed 11% despite tariffs, though the company announced 14,000 corporate job cuts this week while racing to add capacity.

FT: Amazon shares jump 13% as AI powers fastest cloud growth in years

NY Times: Amazon’s Profit Is Up 38% on Strong Performance

Ad Tech Under Pressure

Prebid Faces Identity Crisis as Google Antitrust Ruling Looms

Prebid.org, the open source header bidding software that powers ad auctions across much of the web, is caught between competing visions of its future as stakeholders await remedies in the DOJ's antitrust case against Google. The Trade Desk sparked controversy by forking Prebid's code after the organization unexpectedly changed how it handles transaction IDs in August, a move that exposed tensions between supply-side publishers who founded Prebid and buy-side platforms now demanding more influence. The clash has revived questions about whether Prebid should remain independent or merge with the IAB Tech Lab, the industry's traditional standards body that Google blocked from absorbing the upstart organization back in 2017.

Read more at AdExchanger

Amazon Deploys Cloud Arsenal in Ad Tech Infrastructure War

Amazon Web Services launched RTB Fabric, a real-time bidding service that aims to keep ad tech firms from defecting to Google Cloud Platform, which has aggressively courted the sector with compute credits and incentives over the past three years. The service promises to cut latency and data transfer costs by co-locating ad transactions within AWS infrastructure, allowing partners in the same data center to communicate in microseconds rather than milliseconds during programmatic auctions. AWS is positioning itself as a neutral alternative to Google's vertically integrated cloud offerings, betting that ad tech companies wary of hosting data on a direct competitor's infrastructure will find the pitch appealing, especially as Google faces ongoing antitrust scrutiny.

Read more at Digiday

Add to Cart

AI Shopping Tools Drive $260 Billion in Sales but Trust Remains Elusive

Nearly 40% of US consumers now use AI tools like ChatGPT and Google's Gemini when shopping, with AI expected to influence more than $260 billion in global ecommerce sales this holiday season, according to new research from the Interactive Advertising Bureau. While 77% of shoppers say AI helps them make faster, more confident purchase decisions by comparing products and narrowing choices, only 46% fully trust AI recommendations, leading 95% to take additional validation steps on retailer sites, review platforms, and community forums before buying. The findings reveal that AI isn't shortening the path to purchase but rather creating new high-intent moments for brands, with shoppers visiting retailer and marketplace sites nearly three times as often after consulting AI as before.

Read the full IAB Research Deck

Quick Links

Publicis to Buy Singapore Meme Creator in Social Media Push

Publicis Groupe agreed to acquire Singapore's Hepmil Media Group, which works with over 3,000 creators and 450 brands, including Disney and Google, marking one of the French ad giant's biggest Southeast Asian deals as it expands its influencer marketing capabilities.

The Trade Desk Announces Anders Mortensen as New Chief Revenue Officer

The Trade Desk hired Anders Mortensen from Google to lead global sales starting November 4, replacing Jed Dederick, who helped build the company from a startup to an S&P 500 ad tech platform over 13 years.

The Financial Times' AI paywall drove conversions up 290%. Now it's learning who stays

The Financial Times is launching a new AI model early next year that will predict which readers are most likely to remain long-term subscribers, building on its current AI paywall that has boosted conversion rates by 290% by personalizing paywalls and subscription offers for about 30% to 40% of its audience.

Can WPP's self-serve AI offer Open Pro win without cannibalizing the agency market?

WPP launched Open Pro, a self-serve AI platform built on $400 million in Google AI technology, to compete with tech giants for small business clients while trying to avoid undercutting its own premium agency services that generate billions in revenue.

How retail execs will evaluate ChatGPT checkout this holiday season

Retailers are testing OpenAI's new ChatGPT checkout feature with caution this holiday season, viewing it as too limited for widespread use without real-time inventory tracking and loyalty programs, though they're watching closely as the AI platform builds toward launching its own advertising network that could challenge Google's dominance.

In Graphic Detail: How AI search is changing brand visibility

AI-powered search summaries are causing brands to lose an estimated 15% to 25% of organic web traffic as 44% of users now rely on tools like Google's AI Overviews instead of clicking through to websites, though paid search spending is still set to grow 10% this year to $253 billion.

Key Article Takeaways - TLDR

• Ad tech’s plumbing is fracturing; the IAB has been sidelined by the Ad Context Protocol and Prebid undercut by The Trade Desk, but the real players are battling for control of cloud infrastructure on which advertising and AI rely.

• Consumers are using AI to shop faster, but still check human reviews before buying. For marketers, that means the conversion path now begins in AI but closes where credibility lives. The challenge is to optimize for confidence, not just clicks.

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