MadTech Daily: Paramount Clears Legal Hurdle Ahead of Warner Merger; Amazon Bars Meta’s Muse From Agentic Shopping

In today’s MadTech Daily, we discuss Shopify tapping Meta’s Muse for agentic checkout, Brian O’Kelley’s startup pivoting to AI agents, and a Microsoft patent revealing plans to pause games for ads.

In today’s MadTech Daily, we look at Paramount clearing a legal hurdle ahead of its Warner merger, Amazon blocking Meta’s AI assistant in an agentic shopping standoff, and Ant Group reshaping Alipay for agentic commerce.

In today’s MadTech Daily, we cover Infillion acquiring Foursquare in a location data deal, McCann merging FP7 and MullenLowe in MENA, and OpenAI rolling out a youth safety plan for Australia.

In today’s MadTech Daily, we discuss the global programmatic DOOH market reaching $1.34bn, Shein shares sinking to a post-IPO low after an underperform rating, and Ozone launching Arc to enter performance marketing. 

Aly Nurmohamed, founder and CEO of Nodals AI, and Christer Ljones, director of advertising data capabilities at Schibsted, joined ExchangeWire COO Lindsay Rowntree before ATS London to discuss the future of the open web and which parts of it are worth fighting for.The open web was never one thing. It was premium publishers and everyone else, served by the same ad tech, with the good publishers effectively subsidising the rest. AI changes the terms of that arrangement because the models are becoming open and commoditised while the data is not. If the moat is the data rather than the model, the publishers with the closest relationships to consumers are suddenly the ones best placed to build advertising products, provided they own the system rather than rent it.Schibsted made that bet early, in 2019, before AI made it obvious. Nodals exists because of what that bet revealed. That’s the story of this episode.•••0:00 Introduction3:17 GDPR and Criteo: Nodals AI's origin story9:45 Premium publishers and first party data12:35 AI, ad tech, and the open web16:06 Building data and consumer relationships21:07 Publishers vs. Meta advertising27:41 Where do publishers sit within the open web?35:21 The next few years for publishing

In today’s MadTech Daily, we cover the global programmatic DOOH market reaching USD$1.34bn (£1bn), Shein shares sinking to a post-IPO low after an underperform rating, and Ozone launching Arc to enter performance marketing.

In today’s Digest, we discuss AI strengthening Big Tech’s hold on ad growth, China pulling ahead of the US in consumer AI adoption, and Amazon hitting the USD$1bn (£750m) sales milestone in India. 

In today’s MadTech Daily, we discuss Omnicom turning to outcome-based pricing amid workforce cuts, Anthropic forecasting its second straight quarter of profit, and Alipay unveiling a wallet agent for AI payments.

In today’s MadTech Daily, we look at Amazon Ads bringing advertisers to ChatGPT, new filings revealing Sony’s early sharing of the WPP rebate probe, and Omnicom planning 15,000 job cuts as ad integration stumbles.

In this special episode of The MadTech Podcast, Lisa Morgan, managing director at Generation Media, and Maxine Fox, managing director at Giraffe Insights, join ExchangeWire's head of content, John Still, to discuss the UK's upcoming youth social media ban.The UK plans to block under-16s from social platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram from 2027. Messaging apps such as WhatsApp will be exempt from the ban. Lisa and Maxine outline the differences in parental support for the ban by platform and age of child, and how much rework this creates for youth media plans. Should agencies now be marketing to parents rather than to kids directly?The government has framed the move as putting power "back in parents' hands." This prompts the question of where responsibility for children's online safety lies – with parents, the children themselves, or the tech platforms. The conversation also explores the link between content and commerce in the youth sector, with a growing trend of brands moving into YouTube and publishing.Finally, given the circumvention issues seen with Australia's ban, will the UK's age checks actually work? And can youth media ever be truly brand safe?•••0:00 Get your tickets to ATS London!0:14 Introduction1:43 Differences in parental support across platforms7:04 Impact of social media ban on youth media plans10:58 Where might attention and ad spend shift to?13:53 Legislation, age verification, and brand safety18:08 Content and commerce in the youth sector