Campaign Retail & Commerce Media Briefing: Maximising Agentic AI, Closed-Loop Outcomes & Creator-Led Commerce
Campaign Middle East’s Retail & Commerce Media 2026 briefing gathered nearly 200 marketers to examine AI‑assisted shopping, agentic commerce, retail‑media orchestration, and creator‑commerce convergence. Speakers warned that AI assistants now shortlist products, shrinking the shelf to a handful of recommendations and making machine‑readable content, clean taxonomy and trust signals essential. They called for common KPIs, cross‑platform measurement and a move beyond last‑click attribution to capture full‑funnel impact. The event emphasized that creators must be treated as full‑funnel partners, not merely media inventory, to sustain trust and drive conversion.
AI Needs Humans In The Lead, Not Just In The Loop, Says JPMorgan Chase Programmatic Lead
JPMorgan Chase’s programmatic lead Melissa Bonnick argues that AI in financial‑services marketing must operate under explicit human leadership, not merely a human‑in‑the‑loop model. Strict industry regulations provide clear guardrails that tell the machine where it can and cannot operate. While...
CIMM Calls for Industry-Aligned Frameworks Around Media Quality
The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) released its paper "Quality Matters," arguing that Media Quality (MQ) signals—such as attention and context—are essential for valuing ad placements in a signal‑constrained ecosystem. The authors contend that traditional metrics like viewability are...
Samba TV Launches Project Gravity, an Independent Data Activation Platform for the Agentic Era
Samba TV unveiled Project Gravity, an independent data‑onboarding and activation platform that matches advertisers' first‑party data to its proprietary Identity Graph. The service assigns a universal identifier that can be deployed across more than 40 major DSPs, SSPs and walled‑garden...
Google Explains How It Will Infuse Ads Into AI Answers
Google announced new AI‑driven ad formats as part of its Gemini 3.5 Flash upgrade to Search. The company will embed Conversational Discovery ads and Highlighted Answers within AI Mode responses while keeping traditional SERPs as the default. Advertisers will use...
Prog AI Live: AI’s Slippery Slop
At the Prog AI Live event in Las Vegas, AdExchanger editors debated how AI‑generated content is reshaping the notion of “premium” media. They noted that viral, low‑production “slop” often garners higher engagement than traditional high‑budget entertainment, forcing brands to reconsider where they allocate...
Google's New AI Search Ads Are Designed to Look Like Helpful Answers
Google is rolling out AI‑driven search ads that appear as conversational answers within its new AI Mode. The ads will be labeled as sponsored but blend with AI‑generated responses, including short product descriptions for shopping queries. Users will still see...
Veritonic Launches Instant Insights: AI-Powered Creative Intelligence
Veritonic unveiled Instant Insights, an AI‑powered self‑service platform that delivers immediate creative performance feedback across audio, video, podcast, CTV, social and digital media. Built on more than a decade of proprietary benchmark data, the tool evaluates emotional resonance, engagement potential...
DoubleVerify Delivers Global Media Quality Measurement for LinkedIn Audience Network, Elevating Transparency for B2B Advertisers
DoubleVerify has launched global post‑bid media quality measurement for the LinkedIn Audience Network, giving advertisers independent visibility into invalid traffic, viewability, brand suitability and geographic delivery. The new offering complements pre‑bid avoidance controls, allowing brands to block unsuitable inventory before...
Samsung Ads Southeast Asia Overlays Eyeota Data for Greater Connected TV Ad Effectiveness
Samsung Ads Southeast Asia has teamed up with data‑technology firm Eyeota to overlay viewership data from millions of Samsung Smart TVs with Eyeota’s consumer insights. The alliance, the first data partnership for Samsung Ads in the region, covers Singapore, Thailand...
Your Campaigns Span 12 Channels. Why Does It Feel Like 12 Jobs? By AdPlus
Paid media managers now juggle up to 12 ad platforms, spending 5‑9 hours a week on manual data entry, spreadsheet reconciliation, and duplicated campaign setup. This administrative load creates hidden costs, introduces errors, and delays optimization decisions, eroding ROAS and...
Tackling Last-Mile Ad Compliance in Streaming
Ad‑supported streaming in the UK now exceeds $51 bn in total digital spend, with video advertising alone reaching about $11.8 bn. Brands are drawn to the precision and measurability of programmatic video, but the fragmented, dynamic nature of streaming makes last‑mile compliance—ensuring...
Premium Live Event CTV Expansion Leads to Increases in Upfront Spending: A Q&A With JamLoop?s Jeff Fagel
JamLoop’s 2026 survey of 120 brand and agency leaders shows a decisive shift toward premium live‑event CTV, with 73% planning higher Upfront allocations despite rising CPM pressure. Marketers are demanding price protection, early access to sports and tentpole inventory, and...
ACM Links with Passendo to Overhaul Newsletter Advertising
Australian Community Media (ACM) has partnered with Passendo to overhaul its newsletter advertising across more than 80 regional, rural and suburban titles. The integration makes ACM the first Australian publisher to use Passendo’s end‑to‑end ad‑serving technology inside email. By leveraging...
OpenAI Gives ChatGPT Ads a Visual Upgrade
OpenAI is piloting a visual upgrade to its ChatGPT ad units, adding larger images and optional dynamic call‑to‑action buttons. The company also introduced a dedicated e‑commerce format that can appear in portrait or landscape orientation and supports carousel‑style placements. A...