The advertising industry is reorganizing fast, and three moves this week show how. First, OpenAI’s ad delivery inside ChatGPT keeps improving, which makes the AI assistant a more serious ad channel and a real worry for the search-and-social duopoly.
Second, Omnicom is pushing a fewer-middlemen strategy that reaches all the way to publishers. Third, Publicis closed its LiveRamp deal, doubling down on identity data.
Put together, the picture is an industry stripping out layers and betting on data and AI. The old chain of agency, network, exchange, and publisher had a lot of middlemen taking a cut. AI and direct data deals are squeezing that chain.
For marketers, the implication is about where ad dollars and attention will flow. A capable ad channel inside ChatGPT changes the math on where to spend.
Tighter agency-to-publisher links change who you buy through. And identity deals like Publicis-LiveRamp shape how well you can target as cookies fade.
The ad buyers on X are watching ChatGPT ads most closely, since a third major ad surface would reshape budgets that have long been split mainly between Google and Meta.
The move this week. Keep testing emerging channels like ChatGPT ads with small budgets so you learn before competitors do.
Diversify beyond the duopoly. And get your first-party data house in order, since identity is becoming the currency that decides who can target well.
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