NEW REPORT: The State Of Ad Fraud 2026

How much of your traffic is real?

We analyzed 105.7 billion impressions and found a 20.64% global IVT rate — translating to roughly $37 billion in U.S. ad spend at risk. The report breaks down IVT rates across devices, browsers, operating systems, and 80+ countries so you can benchmark your own traffic quality.

IAB’s New AI Regulations Give Advertisers A Starting Point – But Plenty Of Questions Remain

It’s not exactly a secret that many advertisers are using generative AI in their marketing, from producing copy to editing images. What isn’t always as obvious is exactly when those tools are being used, and when advertisers ought to make AI usage clear to their audiences. (Joanna Gerber/AdExchanger)

In Graphic Detail: AI Licensing Deals, Protection Measures Aren’t Slowing Web Scraping 

New data is reinforcing a structural shift in how AI systems access publisher content: AI models are increasingly scraping publisher content, regardless of bot-blocking measures or content licensing deals meant to control usage, improve attribution or drive referral traffic. (Sara Guaglione/Digiday)

Google Presses Judge To Lift Data-Sharing Mandate

Google is pressing its bid to stay orders requiring it to share some data about users’ searches with “qualified” competitors and to provide syndicated search results and ads to those competitors. (Wendy Davis/MediaPost)

In Graphic Detail: The Scale Of The Challenge Facing Publishers, Politicians Eager To Damage Google’s Adland Dominance 

Last week, Google’s parent company Alphabet reported that 2025 revenue was an eye-popping $403 billion, making the last 123 months its highest-earning year – almost $114 billion in Q4 alone – with these sums representing a 15% and 12% respective annual increase. (Ronan Shields/Digiday)

Project Eidos arrives as new research from the industry group shows no buy-side buyers believe all paid channels are represented in current marketing mix models. (Aaron Baar/Marketing Dive)

Monetization (or, rather, the lack thereof) has been a hot topic, as LLMs unabashedly scrape publisher content while sucking up their traffic – a lose-lose for pubs. But Amazon is now planning to launch a marketplace where publishers can sell their content to AI companies, The Information reports, as per two people who spoke to Amazon. (AdExchanger)

More brands are set to bring the media expertise in-house this year, with some, including Danish advertiser Lego, even moving to build out internal programmatic expertise. (Sam Bradley/Digiday)

Traditionally, digital out-of-home (OOH) inventory is grouped by venue type. But programmatic buyers want to know exactly what they’re bidding on – which is why generic categories like “retail” or “transit” just don’t cut it anymore. (Anthony Vargas/AdExchanger)

Hearst is adopting a new approach to improve ad yield across its news outlets, properties that have historically been difficult to monetize, especially during politically polarized periods. (Ronan Shields/Digiday)