Rocketium

Meta unveils AI creative tools; WPP to test

At Cannes Lions 2026 Meta unveiled a new generation of AI-powered creative tools that close the loop between campaign analysis, optimization and automated creative generation. Meta presented a system that identifies successful ads, learns a brand’s identity and tone, and autonomously produces new creative variants. WPP will be the first agency group to test the solution, integrating it into its enterprise platform WPP Open; initial advertiser customers include Unilever. The announcement highlights an industry trend toward combining data-driven analysis with creative automation, sparking debate over efficiency gains versus potential homogenization of creative work.

Emergent Hits $100M ARR in Just 8 Months!

Emergent, an AI-driven "vibe-coding" platform founded eight months ago, says it has reached an annual run-rate revenue (ARR) of over $100 million driven by small businesses and non-technical users. The company reports more than 6 million users in 190 countries, including roughly 150,000 paying customers, and claims users have created over 7 million applications on the platform. Emergent recently launched a native mobile app for iOS and Android (in testing) that enables app creation via text or voice and direct publishing to the App Store and Play Store. The San Francisco–headquartered startup, with an office in Bengaluru, raised $70 million in January in a round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Khosla Ventures, which tripled its valuation to $300 million. Revenue comes from subscriptions, usage-based pricing, and deployment/hosting fees.

AdTheorent Goes The SPAC Route; Facebook Stops Targeting Those Under 18

AdTheorent is pursuing a SPAC merger that could value the New York-based ad-tech firm at about $1 billion, with a Nasdaq listing and an estimated $121.5 million in funding to fuel expansion and potential acquisitions. The company expects roughly $150 million in revenue in 2021, per The Wall Street Journal. Separately, Facebook announced it will stop advertisers from targeting users under 18 based on interests and activity on other sites, though under-18 targeting remains possible by location, gender, or age; Instagram is exploring a tweens experience with greater parent transparency. The ecosystem is also advancing in a cookieless world: Google postponed third-party cookie deprecation to 2023; Comscore and Nielsen unveiled cookieless solutions leveraging first-party data, contextual signals, hashed emails, and Unified ID 2.0. Other items include NBCUniversal makegoods after Tokyo Olympics ratings, Rocketium raising $3.2M, and Search Nurture integrating with Instacart Ads.