CDP Institute

OpenAI is also cozying up to the news space, funding four new Axios newsrooms as part of a deal that could lead to as many as 100 locations. As part of the arrangement, OpenAI will draw on Axios content to answer user queries. OpenAI will also help Axios develop technologies to support journalists.

Google’s search market share has dropped below 90% for the first time since 2015 according to web traffic analysis platform Statcounter. This does not necessarily signal a migration of users to AI search, since Statcounter compares search traffic only among the main search engines.  The likes of Bing and Yandex are still way behind Google.

That doesn’t mean the AI chatbots aren’t commanding greater dominance, especially in the U.S. ChatGPT achieved 45% of the U.S. market share in Q4 2024, while competitors are performing well in emerging markets. Google Gemini now has over 50% of India’s download market.

Media networks continue to grow beyond retail with LiveRamp and casino resort chain Mohegan Sun launching the first casino media network. Mohegan’s first party data will allow brands to reach guests and players and measure campaigns across the casino’s digital channels and many on-premise experiences, including slot machines and kiosks. LiveRamp’s role is unifying data across sources, creating connected customer views.

T-Mobile will acquire out-of-home adtech business Vistar Media for $600 million. Vistar Media is managing advertising campaigns across over one million digital screens. Its capabilities will combine with T-Mobile’s customer insights and data and its extensive in-store retail media network.

Contextual intelligence platform Precise TV has secured $26 million in private equity funding from Lloyds Bank-owned PE investor LDC. Precise TV helps brands plan campaigns for CTV, social video and mobile games. It’s the London-based companies first receipt of PE funding.

Q4 2024 was the fourth consecutive quarter of increased deal activity in the digital Ecosystem according to a full year report by Luma Partners. Large strategic deals in the closing months of 2024 signalled optimism for 2025. Full year deal volume was up 13% on 2023 for digital content and MarTech and notably for adtech (up 73%).

Treasure Data will provide its system to free for companies that are stuck in contracts with other CDPs. The trade-up program is available to companies with roughly firms with $1 billion or more revenue, that already have a competitive CDP in place. There will still be some costs for services to make the conversion but Treasure Data says these are fairly small since it has considerable experience with such projects.

European DXP Ibexa has announced a strategic merger with CDP Raptor (both companies are owned by the QNTM Group). Raptor will complement Ibexa’s existing content and commerce capabilities, supporting data-driven personalization. It’s not an acquisition but still illustrates the trend towards merging CDP and DXP capabilities in a single system.

Craven pandering to right-wing overlords or enthusiastically doing what they always really wanted?  Either way, Meta has loudly proclaimed the end of efforts to support diversity among users, employees, and suppliers, while Amazon has moved more subtly in the same direction.  In other oligarch news, Elon Musk plans to add more defendants in his lawsuit to force advertisers to pay money to X.