The week of February 7–14, 2026, delivered probably the most consequential stretches in latest promoting expertise historical past. OpenAI formally launched promoting inside ChatGPT. Google pushed deeper into AI-powered commerce with new buying advert items in AI Mode. A Uncover-specific algorithm replace landed on publishers like a chilly wave. And Spotify revealed that its senior engineers haven’t manually written code since December, elevating laborious questions on what software program firms will seem like within the months forward.

None of those developments occurred in isolation. Collectively, they sign an accelerating convergence between synthetic intelligence platforms and the promoting infrastructure that funds them—a convergence that’s redrawing how manufacturers attain customers and the way publishers maintain their companies.

ChatGPT now exhibits advertisements, and never everybody stayed to look at

On February 9, OpenAI announced it had begun testing ads in ChatGPT for logged-in grownup customers on the free and Go tiers in the USA. The advertisements seem on the backside of ChatGPT responses, matched to dialog matters, previous chats, and former advert interactions. Plus, Professional, Enterprise, Enterprise, and Training subscribers don’t see them. The Go subscription tier, priced at $8 monthly, had expanded globally in mid-January earlier than arriving within the U.S. alongside the advert check.

The mechanics are simple on paper. Advertisers pay a $60 CPM—a charge comparable to premium streaming and NFL inventory, as media patrons instructed Digiday, and effectively above Meta’s typical CPMs, which regularly are available in underneath $20. Early individuals embody Goal, Ford, Mrs. Myers, and Adobe, with main holding firms WPP Media, Omnicom, and Dentsu amongst confirmed companions. The minimal dedication stands at $200,000.

However the rollout has been something however clean. Solely a subset of eligible customers are presently seeing advertisements. AdExchanger reported on February 13 that when requested the place advertisements would seem, ChatGPT itself gave incorrect solutions—an OpenAI spokesperson confirmed the chatbot’s clarification was fully unfaithful. Throughout the subsequent a number of weeks, advertisements will increase to all qualifying customers, together with logged-out ones.

The fallout prolonged past technical bugs. Former OpenAI researcher Zoë Hitzig resigned on February 11, publishing a New York Instances commentary titled “OpenAI Is Making the Errors Fb Made. I Give up.” Hitzig, who spent two years engaged on AI fashions and security pointers, warned that financial pressures from an upcoming IPO—deliberate for the fourth quarter of 2026—might create robust incentives to override the corporate’s personal privateness commitments. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had beforehand known as promoting a “final resort” and “dystopian,” language that has since softened significantly.

Then got here the query of companies. Search Engine Roundtable reported on February 12 that Asad Awan, OpenAI’s head of monetization, urged in an organization interview that advertisers might ultimately immediate ChatGPT to create advertisements and campaigns instantly—with out hiring companies or efficiency entrepreneurs. The response from the company group was quick and skeptical.

OpenAI has been tightly scripting how partners talk about the test, positioning it as a studying train reasonably than a proper product launch. Companions can not focus on pricing, efficiency knowledge, or inside outcomes, and should route delicate questions again to OpenAI. Supplies require pre-approval. As eMarketer’s principal analyst Nate Elliott identified, OpenAI is petrified of scaring away customers.

The Tremendous Bowl turned an AI battlefield

The promoting launch arrived with dramatic timing. Tremendous Bowl 60 on February 9 had already change into a proxy struggle between AI firms, with AI-related spots accounting for 23% of all Super Bowl ads, a focus that may have been unimaginable two years in the past. Thirty-second spots price as much as $10 million. NBC bought out 5 months early—the quickest sellout in Tremendous Bowl historical past.

Anthropic made its Tremendous Bowl debut with “A Time and a Place,” a marketing campaign created by company Mom. The four spots dramatized private moments—asking AI about well being, relationships, work—then interrupted them with jarring sponsored responses from fictional ad-supported chatbots. The tagline: “Advertisements are coming to AI. However to not Claude.”

OpenAI fired back before kickoff. In a 420-word submit on X, Altman known as the advertisements “misleading” and dismissed Anthropic as serving “an costly product to wealthy individuals.” OpenAI aired its personal 60-second spot throughout the first quarter, positioning its Codex coding assistant as the newest chapter in a protracted historical past of human innovation by code. Since August, Codex has grown 20x, with 1,000,000 individuals utilizing it final month to construct apps and web sites.

ADWEEK’s analysis noted a elementary rigidity: the advertising and marketing business preaches digital, fragmented, programmatic futures, but advertisers paid as much as $20 million for minute-long spots throughout a linear broadcast consumed in actual time with no skip button. Nike purchased 90 seconds. Anheuser-Busch took 2.5 minutes throughout three manufacturers.

Past the spectacle, new knowledge revealed one thing vital about how AI programs keep in mind promoting. ADWEEK partnered with Emberos to create the primary real-time AI Affect Index, testing how ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Grok responded to similar post-Tremendous Bowl questions. Rankings diverse by 20% to 30% throughout fashions. ChatGPT favored advertisements that could possibly be defined clearly in dialog. Claude prioritized emotional resonance and function. Perplexity leaned on citations and press protection. Gemini targeted on mainstream visibility and tech relevance. Neither OpenAI nor Anthropic cracked the highest 20 in AI affect regardless of spending tens of millions—Xfinity, Bud Mild, Squarespace, Ramp, and Dove dominated as a substitute.

The creator financial system additionally discovered its footing on the Massive Sport. Digiday reported on February 13 that manufacturers turned in-person activations into a brand new playground for creators. The NFL moved the Professional Bowl nearer to the Tremendous Bowl for the primary time, extending the week and rising deal alternatives. Jason Tartick, founder and CEO of Rewired Expertise Administration, famous that creator activations and IRL experiences have deeply developed.

Whereas OpenAI examined its first advertisements, Google was increasing a way more mature promoting ecosystem into AI territory. On February 11, Google Ads announced new shopping ad formats for AI Mode, giving retailers a option to seem naturally inside conversational search moments. The identical announcement revealed that Veo 3 video era assist arrived in Google Advertisements Asset Studio. In 2025, Gemini-generated asset creation grew 3x, and in This fall alone, the system produced practically 70 million artistic property in AI Max and Efficiency Max.

Maybe extra consequentially, Google’s Common Commerce Protocol-powered checkout went reside in AI Mode. U.S. customers can now buy objects from Etsy and Wayfair instantly inside AI Mode in Search and the Gemini app, with Shopify, Goal, and Walmart becoming a member of quickly. The protocol, first unveiled at NRF 2026 in January, carries endorsements from greater than 20 business leaders and is suitable with A2A agent communication requirements.

Vidhya Srinivasan, who leads Google’s advertisements and commerce division, revealed her third annual letter on February 11, outlining a imaginative and prescient the place AI reshapes buying from discovery by buy. The letter detailed how advertisers want AI-powered concentrating on options—broad match on Search campaigns, AI Max for Search, Efficiency Max, and Google Buying Advertisements—to point out advertisements in AI-powered search experiences.

For publishers and advertisers monitoring the intersection of AI and commerce, the panorama simply turned significantly extra complicated. Google is constructing checkout infrastructure inside conversational AI. OpenAI is promoting advertisements adjoining to conversational responses. The 2 approaches are architecturally totally different—one embeds commerce inside an AI buying expertise with product feeds and service provider knowledge, whereas the opposite locations conventional display-style advertisements under chatbot solutions—however each are competing for a similar {dollars}.

Google’s Uncover replace hits publishers laborious

On February 5, Google released the February 2026 Discover core update, its first algorithm adjustment of the 12 months. The replace targets solely English-language customers in the USA and introduces three adjustments: prioritizing regionally related content material from home web sites, decreasing sensational content material and clickbait, and surfacing deeper experience from specialised sections inside broader publications.

PPC Land reported that Google’s inside testing demonstrates customers discover the Uncover expertise “extra helpful and worthwhile with this replace.” However the impression on non-U.S. publishers could possibly be extreme, with geographic filtering doubtlessly decreasing site visitors from worldwide sources. The replace is rolling out over two weeks.

Business response was swift and important. PPC Land covered on February 7 how Vic Daniels, Co-founder and Govt Chairman at GRV Media Ltd, revealed a LinkedIn evaluation on February 6 characterizing the geographic filtering as “The Invisible Border”—a type of digital discrimination that contradicts a long time of web philosophy. The priority is that Google’s algorithm creates geographic echo chambers on what was designed to be an open, borderless internet.

Google’s replace frequency all through 2025 established patterns persevering with into 2026. Three core updates deployed final 12 months—March, June, and December—alongside steady smaller refinements. The March replace required 14 days to finish, June took 16 days, and December wanted 18 days. In the meantime, Search Engine Roundtable noted on February 10 that unconfirmed Google search rating volatility heated up once more, including to persistent instability that plagued publishers all through January.

Individually, Google AdSense added new triggers for vignette ads efficient February 9. There are actually six triggers as a substitute of three, designed to “unlock incremental income by figuring out further high-value impression alternatives.” Publishers have a one-month evaluate interval earlier than the brand new triggers activate mechanically on March 9, however opting out disables all present triggers as effectively—a selection that successfully penalizes publishers who decline the growth.

Spotify stops writing code, raises questions on AI in manufacturing

Spotify disclosed throughout its This fall 2025 earnings announcement on February 10 that senior engineers stopped writing code manually in December 2025, utilizing solely AI-generated code by an inside system known as Honk constructed on Claude Code. Co-CEO Gustav Söderström acknowledged that the transformation “can be painful for a lot of firms” however emphasised that Spotify had been getting ready for AI-driven improvement “for at the least one and a half years.”

The numbers behind the shift are substantial. Spotify achieved file quarterly person development of 38 million month-to-month energetic customers, reaching 751 million complete. Premium subscribers hit 290 million. Income reached €4.5 billion, rising 13% year-over-year on a relentless forex foundation. Working earnings hit €701 million for the quarter. The corporate paid $11 billion to music rights holders throughout 2025.

For the primary quarter of 2026, Spotify forecasted 759 million month-to-month energetic customers—internet additions of 8 million—and 293 million premium subscribers. Complete income steerage of €4.5 billion represents roughly 15% year-over-year development. Forex headwinds stay vital, with roughly 670 foundation factors of headwind in comparison with prior-year trade charges.

A examine revealed January 29 by Anthropic discovered that builders utilizing AI help scored 17% decrease on coding comprehension exams regardless of finishing duties barely sooner. Söderström dismissed issues, suggesting that productiveness positive factors allow Spotify to extend software program output till “the limiting issue is definitely the quantity of change that customers are comfy with” reasonably than engineering capability. Co-CEO Alex Norström framed 2025 because the “Yr of Accelerated Execution” and 2026 because the “Yr of Elevating Ambition.”

Criteo faces a $75 million drawback

On February 11, Criteo reported Q4 2025 earnings that despatched its inventory dropping sharply. Income declined in comparison with the prior 12 months, internet revenue fell to $46 million from $72 million, and the take charge dropped. Most critically, two giant retail media shoppers pulled again from earlier agreements, making a $75 million shortfall in 2026 projections, largely frontloaded to the primary half of the 12 months.

CEO Michael Komasinski instructed AdExchanger that with out the forecast downgrade, Criteo’s core enterprise can be rising at excessive single digits. However traders weren’t reassured. Related TV represents one of many fastest-growing on-line advert markets, and Criteo has comparatively little enterprise there. The corporate is shifting into CTV and social media, with companions together with Meta including video codecs to its Criteo integration in 2026. At the moment, solely 37% of its Commerce Go! AI-based dynamic allocation product prospects lengthen to social media.

The earnings function a cautionary story for the retail media sector. The channel has been one of many promoting business’s strongest development tales, however shopper focus threat stays actual. When giant retailers pull again, the impression cascades by dependent advert tech firms.

The IAB pushes measurement reform and writer protocols

The IAB was energetic throughout a number of fronts this week. On February 2, the organization unveiled Project Eidos, uniting its quite a few measurement initiatives underneath one program. The title comes from the Greek phrase which means “to see”—an apt metaphor for an business that has relied on what Angelina Eng, VP of the IAB Measurement Heart, known as “digital duct tape” to repair its marketing campaign measurement issues for years.

On February 10, AdExchanger published a detailed Q&A with Anthony Katsur, CEO of IAB Tech Lab, who laid out what he known as the “Writer Protocol for 2026.” Publishers on the IAB Annual Management Assembly had been brazenly annoyed about an excessive amount of future-casting and never sufficient deal with how you can develop actual income this 12 months. Katsur pointed to sell-side decisioning as the foremost shift—after greater than a decade the place most decisioning energy sat on the purchase facet, smarter sell-side companions are utilizing AI to curate audiences, content material, and provide nearer to the person.

On agentic AI workflows, Katsur was cautiously optimistic. Very early exams are underway, however nothing scales till 2027 or 2028. He flagged a sensible concern: purchaser brokers and vendor brokers want to talk a standard language, or hallucinations might flip impression objectives into budgets—an end result he described as “a really dangerous cellphone name.”

Amazon opens its MCP server, GEO startups chase AI citations

Amazon Advertisements opened a beta program on February 2 for a brand new Mannequin Context Protocol server connecting present software program programs and their APIs to agentic AI programs. The MCP acts as a translation layer between promoting software program and AI brokers, permitting advertisers to deliver their very own LLM or agentic resolution whereas utilizing Amazon’s infrastructure. Paula Despins, Amazon Advertisements’ VP of advertisements measurement, mentioned the server can be natively built-in with Amazon marketing campaign administration instruments.

The MCP announcement arrived alongside a separate improvement in generative engine optimization. On February 11, AdExchanger reported that GEO startup Evertune launched a function letting advertisers run programmatic advert campaigns instantly on the websites and pages most frequently cited by AI chatbots. Evertune has partnerships with The Commerce Desk on the purchase facet and Index Alternate on the promote facet—notably, a lot of Evertune’s workforce beforehand labored at The Commerce Desk.

The convergence of GEO and programmatic concentrating on represents a significant evolution. Moderately than merely optimizing content material in order that AI fashions cite a model favorably, Evertune is inserting conventional programmatic advertisements on the locations AI chatbots ship customers to. It’s a pragmatic acknowledgment that influencing AI fashions instantly stays troublesome and unpredictable, whereas reaching customers who observe AI suggestions by established promoting channels affords measurable, quick returns.

Lego and different manufacturers deepen in-house programmatic groups

Digiday reported on February 4 that Lego is constructing an in-house programmatic media shopping for workforce, hiring 5 programmatic roles throughout January together with a worldwide programmatic media supervisor and associates in the USA and Denmark. Publicis One handles Lego’s world media account, however the Danish toymaker reportedly spends $469 million a 12 months on media and already manages programmatic and search spending for its direct-to-consumer enterprise.

Lego will not be alone. UK retailer Boots has constructed a 27-person-strong workforce dealing with programmatic, CTV, affiliate PPC, and audio, and was hiring a digital media supervisor to deliver paid social in-house as the ultimate piece. Paper producer Georgia-Pacific started in-housing in 2019 and now handles every thing besides TV.

The broader development means that programmatic—as soon as thought of the ultimate frontier of in-housing—is more and more inside attain for big advertisers. Digiday’s follow-up analysis on February 9 famous that the promise of agentic media shopping for is including gasoline, with CMOs quietly watching efforts from DSPs like Yahoo to develop AI programs that automate spending choices.

OOH will get a programmatic improve

On February 10, the Out of Home Advertising Association of America introduced an updated version of its OpenOOH venue taxonomy, first launched in 2020. The replace addresses a longstanding drawback: generic classes like “retail” or “transit” don’t give programmatic patrons sufficient details about what they’re bidding on. When publishers and SSPs lump collectively media of various high quality, it undermines transparency and makes patrons assume twice about digital out-of-home. The OAAA is folding its taxonomy working group into its broader OAAA Taxonomy Committee, which can develop and keep the usual going ahead.

iSpot launches SAGE for agentic measurement

Advert measurement agency iSpot introduced SAGE on February 10, an agentic AI platform with a conversational interface that media patrons can use to generate marketing campaign planning concepts. SAGE consists of separate brokers for artistic planning and efficiency evaluation, together with aggressive intelligence options. iSpot joins a rising checklist of advert tech firms launching conversational AI dashboards that permit shoppers question marketing campaign knowledge instantly—a part of a wider effort to make media planning and measurement accessible to nontechnical customers.

Publishers see This fall positive factors however face an unsure street

Digiday’s Media Briefing on February 5 explored how a powerful This fall 2025 gave publishers their first vital win in a protracted stretch of belt-tightening. Digital promoting income was up for a lot of, buoyed by a extra secure financial system and advertisers feeling extra assured to spend. However site visitors erosion, a unstable open-web programmatic market, and AI-driven shifts in content material discovery imply development needs to be earned in a different way.

Individuals Inc. CEO Neil Vogel singled out InStyle’s social video franchise “The Intern”—launched final February, now in its seventh season—as a mannequin, with advertisers paying between $500,000 and $700,000 to sponsor the present, which prices subsequent to nothing to provide. That form of diversification away from Google referral site visitors dependency is changing into important.

In the meantime, the Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina opened February 6, and Digiday reported that programmatic entry is drawing smaller advertisers to what was once the unique protect of the business’s largest spenders. NBCU bought out its Olympics advert stock with a month to spare, setting a brand new Winter Olympics advert gross sales file. ADWEEK noted that 70% to 75% of Tremendous Bowl advertisers can even seem within the Winter Video games.

The week that redefined how advertisements meet AI

The previous seven days compressed what may usually take months right into a single week. OpenAI crossed the Rubicon into promoting—a transfer that already price it a researcher and raised uncomfortable questions on belief, privateness, and the commercialization of intimate AI interactions. Google expanded its AI commerce infrastructure in ways in which make the corporate much more central to how individuals uncover and purchase merchandise. A Uncover algorithm change reminded publishers that their site visitors exists on the discretion of a single firm’s rating choices. And Spotify demonstrated that AI-driven software program improvement is not theoretical.

U.S. advert income development for 2026 is projected at 6.6% excluding political advertisements, per Madison & Wall’s forecast featured in Digiday on January 8—roughly half of 2025’s 11% surge. WPP tasks 7.4%, Morgan Stanley analysts 10%. The midterm elections will drive vital political spending, and the FIFA World Cup in Mexico, Canada, and the USA will present one other enhance.

However the huge story is structural, not cyclical. The promoting business is reorganizing itself round AI interfaces—some that present advertisements, some that don’t, and a few which might be nonetheless deciding. The alternatives being made this week will form what that business seems like for years.

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