Netflix is reshaping CTV economics as sports, live events, podcasts, and a potential WBD acquisition push its ad tier toward 10% of spend, with $3 billion in sight this year.

Mid-market marketers (companies with 10 to 499 employees) have high expectations for artificial intelligence and see AI as a productivity lever for lean teams, according to new data from WARC and MailChimp—but adoption lags behind enthusiasm. AI is still in its early days, leaving a wide gap between the largest companies with capital to invest in proprietary resources and smaller teams with more limited resources.

The news: Global ad spend growth is slowing but staying positive, with WARC projecting a 6.2% rise to $1.16 trillion in 2025 and MAGNA forecasting a 4.9% climb to $979 billion. Retail media is outpacing linear TV for the first time, and Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon continue to control the majority of digital revenues. Measurable channels like short-form video, retail media, and ad-supported VOD are gaining ground. Our take: Amid economic pressures and trade concerns, advertisers are prioritizing performance, shifting budgets geographically and platform-wise. With elections, AI, and major global events on the horizon, platforms that prove outcomes—not impressions—will shape the next era.

Global ad spend slows compared to initial expectations: The downtrend is attributed to stagflation, looming recessions, and intensifying tariffs threats.

Podcasts were one of the few areas to have weathered the pandemic without sustaining ad spending losses.

Out-of-home advertising is weathering the digital storm better than other legacy ad mediums. It offers measurability and continues to evolve by embracing digital technologies like automated ad buying.

Marketers rely heavily on third parties for analytics and technology building. Many are looking to trim their overall vendor counts when it comes to demand-side platforms and supply-side platforms, but are looking for new partners for customer data platforms, while others are building their own tech in-house.

About two-thirds of brand marketers surveyed by Sizmek prioritize reducing the number of middlemen they do business with.

According to a new study, CMOs will likely pay more attention to technology strategies and making their interactions more human in the next year.