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The ad industry’s job market has ended 2025 on a low note, following job cuts at the market’s largest employers. Jobs in the U.S. ad industry fell by 3,700 year-on-year, according to the latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Ad agencies are still hiring — but the skills they’re hiring for, and where they’re finding them, are beginning to change.

Unsurprisingly, generative AI tools are the motivating factor.

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After spending 2025 in regulatory limbo, TikTok is entering 2026 with a clearer ownership path in the U.S. Now, whether the new ownership structure is enough to satiate marketers (and continue to garner their ad dollars) is still an open question.

The deal, which was announced in late December and set to close on Jan. 22, according to Axios, ends the years-long saga of TikTok’s Chinese parent ByteDance to sell the company’s U.S. operation to domestic owners. Oracle, Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based MGX together will own 45% of the U.S. entity, 20% will be retained by ByteDance and nearly one-third of the company will be held by affiliates of existing ByteDance investors, per Axios.

If TikTok’s changing of hands is anything like Elon Musk’s chaotic takeover of X (formerly Twitter), some marketers fear they’ll start the year with whiplash. 

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