CMO TLDR: Meta, IAB forecast, and AI Agents
Meta Earnings
Meta Shares Surge on Record Sales as Zuckerberg Bets Big on AI Infrastructure
Meta reported fourth-quarter revenue of $59.9 billion, beating analyst estimates and driving shares up more than 10% in after-hours trading, even as the company outlined plans to potentially double capital expenditures to as much as $135 billion in 2026. The Facebook parent attributed its strong performance to holiday demand and AI-driven advertising improvements, with ad impressions up 18% and average ad prices rising 6% year over year. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is pressing ahead with massive AI infrastructure investments despite previous investor skepticism, creating a new Meta Compute initiative to build data centers while pulling back on metaverse projects and cutting 1,500 jobs in that division.
IAB Forecast
Advertisers Forecast 9.5% Spending Growth as Agentic AI Reshapes Marketing Priorities
U.S. advertising spending is projected to grow 9.5% in 2026, driven by digital channels and the rapid adoption of agentic AI systems that autonomously plan and execute campaigns, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau's annual outlook study of over 200 brands and agencies. Five of the six top marketer priorities this year are AI-related, with two-thirds of advertisers now focused on using agentic AI for ad buying and campaign execution, while 73% are creating content optimized for AI-generated search answers. The industry is also shifting from customer acquisition toward retention strategies, with focus on repeat purchases nearly doubling since 2024, as marketers deploy AI to make loyalty programs and first-party data more effective at scale.
AI Agents
AI Agents Poised to Upend Digital Advertising as They Capture Quarter of Online Shopping by 2030
Artificial intelligence agents are set to handle roughly 25% of online transactions by 2030, up from just 2% in 2025, potentially generating $900 billion in commerce and advertising revenue, according to ARK Invest's Big Ideas 2026 report. The research forecasts that AI search will capture 65% of global search traffic within five years, with related ad spending growing at a 50% annual clip as these digital assistants compress the buying journey from an hour in the pre-internet era to about 90 seconds today. The shift threatens traditional digital advertising models as new protocols from Anthropic and OpenAI enable AI agents to seamlessly access product data and complete transactions, fundamentally changing how consumers discover and purchase products online.
Quick Links
Diageo is elevating retail media from a downstream sales tool to a core part of its marketing strategy, using Tesco's data to link broadcast campaigns with in-store behavior and shape campaigns from conception rather than just at conversion.
Microsoft is ending its free video ad caching service for Prebid publishers on April 30, potentially disrupting 60% of Prebid video ads served through Google Ad Manager unless publishers quickly adopt paid alternatives or new workarounds.
The Trade Desk's CFO departed after just six months, with the adtech company replacing Alexander Kayyal with interim finance chief Tahnil Davis as it faces mounting competition from Amazon and a 7% stock decline.
TikTok confirmed its U.S. ownership structure under TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, but marketers face lingering uncertainty about algorithm changes, potential outages, creator monetization impacts, and whether the new setup will shield the platform from future regulatory scrutiny.
Programmatic TV advertising is poised for growth in 2026 as streaming platforms like Comcast, Netflix, and Disney expand automated ad buying to attract small and mid-sized brands, with Comcast reporting a 14% increase in programmatic advertisers in the first half of 2025.
NBCU is charging advertisers $3 million for a 30-second ad on Peacock's Super Bowl coverage with a requirement to match that spending on other Peacock inventory, effectively creating a $6 million entry point as the streamer targets 19 million peak viewers.
OpenX CEO John Gentry, who led the ad tech company through its antitrust lawsuit against Google and died January 14 after battling cancer, is remembered by colleagues for prioritizing people over business, from flying an employee's family to a leadership retreat so she could breastfeed to buying a laid-off worker a laptop out of his own pocket.
Note: Having worked with JG for 8 years, all these stories are true. He was a fantastic human and will be missed. He was one of the few who genuinely cared about the employees he worked with.