The martech space saw some recovery during H2 2024 with some major M&A announcements and several IPOs according to research by Founders Advisors. They highlight the huge acquisition of IPG by Omnicom this month as well as Innovid’s acquisition by Mediaocean. An active 2025 is anticipated with entrepreneurs and private equity firms considering exit strategies.
There were few surprises in the five trends highlighted by a new Google report. Multimodal AI, the evolution of multi-agent AI systems, assistive search, AI powered CX and AI-improved security were all highlighted. The surprise might have been that the work for the report was done by Notebook LLM; then again, perhaps not.
It was by no means a sure thing that the Supreme Court would take up this case, but it has agreed to hear TikTok’s challenge to a law that would ban it in the U.S. (unless Chinese owner ByteDance sells its share). This is going to be a highly expedited process, with oral arguments due to be heard on January 10. The ban would go into effect on January 19, so it’s fair to assume the Court will rule promptly.
Changes in marketing channels and data access have made advertising measurement more important, and challenging, than ever. Taking advantage of growing interest in the topic, Bain Capital is selling Kantar Group’s audience measurement division, Kantar Media, to global investment firm H.I.G. Capital for “approximately $1 billion”. Kantar Media accounts for 4,500 of Kantar Group’s 25,000 employees.