Author: Ronan Shields

The latest round of earnings calls from the cohort of publicly listed ad tech companies concluded this week, with the results helping observers to grasp the challenges and opportunities in the sector.

The numbers filed with each company’s respective stock exchange in recent weeks, as shown in the table below, indicate an annual average revenue increase of 17.4% across the sector in 2025.* Although anomalies such as AppLovin (70% growth) and Teads (46% growth post-merger with Outbrain), as well as Perion and PubMatic’s declines of 12% and 2.88%, respectively, warrant closer inspection.

Closer analysis shows that revenue-weighted growth across the sector was 26.6% in 2025, although subsequent stock ratings were not reflective of this, with prices largely heading south after market disclosure as concerns around AI and Big Tech’s influence swelled.

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No one AI model class will do the best advertising for marketers without the skills of others. The future, according to Publicis Group-owned Epsilon, will be a carefully orchestrated ecosystem – a team of specialists not a single genius. 

Steve Nowlan, svp of decision sciences at Epsilon whose PhD is from Carnegie Mellon and whose thesis advisor was Geoffrey Hinton – the so-called godfather of neural networks and a Nobel Prize winner – has a favorite way of illustrating the mismatch. Imagine a college senior who has read everything on the internet. Every research paper, every Wikipedia entry, every forum thread. They walk into a room and seem, by almost any measure, extraordinarily smart. Now put them to work inside one of the most complex, fastest-moving financial markets in the world and watch what happens.

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