DoubleVerify

Walmart to Acquire Vibe.co, Linking Retail Data and CTV

This Week in Review covers multiple industry moves that accelerate CTV, streaming measurement and retail‑media scale. Comcast‑owned Sky reportedly reached terms to buy ITV’s linear and streaming TV business, with ITV Studios set to acquire Sky’s Love Productions. At Cannes, Omnicom unveiled cross‑platform clean‑room capabilities and partnerships with Netflix, Disney Advertising (with Innovid) and Paramount to improve identity, AI creative and sequential ad experiences across CTV. US retailer Walmart agreed to buy French performance CTV ad tech Vibe.co and will integrate it into Walmart Connect; founders Arthur Querou and Franck Tetzlaff are expected to join (reports value the deal around $1.4bn). Other notable items: Samba acquired GenAI ad platform Bestever AI; AppsFlyer raised a $1bn+ round with Moloco, Google, Meta and Unity taking minority stakes. Collectively these deals underscore consolidation of data, measurement and commerce into CTV and streaming advertising stacks.

Agencies Turn to AI Agents, Brands Move In‑House

Agencies are showcasing AI agent pilots, partnerships and products to speed media planning and buying — but face competition from advertisers building their own agentic capabilities. WPP is testing a media‑buying and planning agent for premium video, while Dentsu has partnered with Newton Research to trial media‑buying agents and faster analytics via Dentsu.connect. Independent agencies and consultancies such as Butler/Till and Dept are also deploying agent tooling (including Claude agents and a productised 'Agent Studio') and using Google models to accelerate delivery. Advertisers including Hyundai have built in‑house bidding agents with partners (Chalice and Canvas) using a containerized OpenXBuild solution, reporting a 67% reduction in online video CPM and a 20% decline in cost per defined 'high value action' during pilots. The piece cites WFA research on broad in‑house AI adoption and frames the trend as a strategic threat and opportunity for agencies.

Five AdTech Stories to Watch at Cannes

Chris Harihar of Mod Op outlines five adtech storylines to follow at Cannes Lions 2026: Yahoo DSP's Agent Network, DoubleVerify's DV Neura AI engine, upstream supply-side measurement via Media.net's Elevate, OpenAI's growing advertising ambitions and festival presence, and questions around LiveRamp following Publicis' acquisition with reported interest from Hightouch. The piece highlights agentic advertising adoption challenges (interoperability, integrations, measurement), examples of agent integrations (e.g., DV data used in Claude via MCP), and how upstream measurement and neutrality concerns in agency-owned identity assets could shape buying and valuation across the open web and publisher ecosystem during Cannes week.