Each day, New Digital Age gathers the most interesting marketing and ad tech news from around the world…
HOLDCOS
The Drum – Sam Anderson, 7th May 2026
‘Agency landscape more unstable than ever’: Can holdcos land centralizing pivots?
WPP and Omnicom both released their first financial results of 2026, as both pursue strategies driven by consolidation and productization. Are those strategies landing? Short-term boons belie more pain long-term, say analysts.
BIG TECH
Financial Times – Ryan McMorrow, Rafe Rosner-Uddin, Stephen Morris and Hannah Murphy, 8th May 2026
Big Tech’s $725bn AI spending spree sends free cash flow to a decade low
Silicon Valley giants have transformed from asset-light cash machines to huge infrastructure investors
BBC – James W Kelly, 7th May 2026
Meta brings High Court challenge over Ofcom fees
Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is challenging the UK media regulator Ofcom in the High Court over fees and potential fines introduced under the Online Safety Act.
RETAIL MEDIA
The Media Leader – Charli West, 8th May 2026
Retail media grows 17.5% to reach £3.7bn, finds AA/WARC Expenditure Report
Retail media is one of the fastest-growing media channels in the UK, the latest AA/WARC Expenditure Report finds.
CTV
Advanced Television – 8th May 2026
LinkedIn CTV Ads available through Amazon DSP
Amazon Ads and LinkedIn have announced that advertisers in the US can now reach professional audiences with LinkedIn’s Connected TV (CTV) Ads through Amazon DSP. The solution brings LinkedIn’s first-party audience signals from more than 1 billion members – including job title, industry and seniority – to streaming TV inventory through Microsoft Monetize.
AI
Performance Marketing World – Joseph Arthur, 7th May 2026 (also in DIgiday, Adweek)
An upcoming expansion of the ongoing pilot will make the ad format available to UK advertisers for the first time.
Performance Marketing World – Bethany Lee, 7th May 2026
Google expands AI Search features to boost website and community discovery
Five new features roll out to help users “connect with authentic voices” and explore information beyond AI Overviews.
EMARKETER – Marisa Jones, 7th May 2026
AppLovin’s Q1 earnings show its AI ad pivot is paying off
Ad tech company AppLovin reported double-digit Q1 revenue growth a year after it exited the gaming business to go all-in on mobile and AI-powered advertising.
Digiday – Sara Guaglione, 7th May 2026
This week’s Media Briefing will examine how AI licensing revenue is starting to emerge as a meaningful growth driver for publishers this year, even as traffic declines continue to put pressure on some advertising businesses.
AdAge – Asa Hiken, 7th May 2026
AI agents are making media buying mistakes—how to catch and prevent them
Marketers experimenting with media buying agents risk wasting ad spend and damaging campaigns if they don’t know how to spot when these AI systems make mistakes and prevent them from messing up again. To avoid those risks, marketers need to understand where AI agents are most likely to fail, how to audit their decisions and what guardrails to put in place before mistakes scale.
PLATFORMS
BBC – Joe Tidy, 8th May 2026
Instagram privacy tech is turned off today – what does this mean for your DMs?
Instagram users will no longer be able to send ultra‑private direct messages, as the feature is switched off globally.
Advanced Television – 7th May 2026
WBD Q1 revenue flat, but takes $2.9bn hit on Netflix fee
Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) has reported its Q1 2026 revenues to March 31st – perhaps the last time the organisation reports results as a lone entity ahead of its Paramount Skydance merger. Total revenues were $8.9 billion (€7.5bn), a 3 per cent ex-FX decrease from the prior year quarter, in line with expectations.
