OpenAI ad jobs point to SMB importance

John Ebbert

Earnings and AI

LLMs & CHATBOTS

OpenAI ads jobs reveal SMB importance

After OpenAI formally announced a bevy of updates for ChatGPT’s ads product on Tuesday — as tipsheet noted yesterday — OpenAI CTO of Applications Vijaye Raji said that his team was hiring for ads.

And indeed, a review of OpenAI’s “Careers” website showed 32 available roles related to advertising:

  • 2 “ads” Product Managers
  • 1 “ads” Solutions, Client Partner
  • 7 “ads” Solutions, Customer Success Managers
  • 1 “ads” Head of SMB Marketing
  • 6 “ads” Solutions, Regional Client Partners
  • 1 “ads” Revenue Operations Lead
  • 1 “ads” Solutions, Solutions Engineering
  • 2 “ads” Finance roles
  • 1 “ads” Trust & Safety Operations Analyst
  • 6 “monetization” engineering roles
  • 1 “monetization” product designer
  • 1 “advertising” marketing science role
  • 1 “advertising” product marketer

Among the listings, the “Head of SMB Marketing” job description emphasizes the importance of the SMB customer to OpenAI and its ad plans:

“We are hiring a Head of SMB Ads Marketing to define and scale OpenAI’s marketing strategy for small and medium-sized business advertisers globally. This leader will own how SMBs discover, evaluate, adopt, and grow with OpenAI’s advertising platform.

This is a highly strategic and hands-on leadership role at the intersection of product marketing, growth marketing, demand generation, lifecycle marketing, and sales enablement. You will build the SMB advertiser growth engine from the ground up—developing segmentation, positioning, onboarding journeys, education programs, partner programs (including agencies), acquisition campaigns, treatments and retention strategies that help millions of businesses unlock value through OpenAI’s self-service ads platform.”

From tipsheet: There are three pools of demand that OpenAI appears to be cultivating for its ads product: agencies, ad tech platforms and SMBs.

Pursuit of the SMB customer is not a surprise. OpenAI already has massive distribution (900 million+ users across its paid and free user base) and can identify businesses already using ChatGPT for copywriting, customer support, brainstorming and operational workflows.

That existing behavior could make advertising a natural extension of the product rather than a standalone ad tech decision. The opportunity for OpenAI may not simply be targeting precision, but simplifying operations: i.e. reducing the labor and expertise traditionally required to advertise online.

Related: “The Class of 2026 will be the first graduating class to have ChatGPT on hand for their entire university experience.” (May 6) – OpenAI

LLMs & CHATBOTS

Developments

  • New Compute Partnership with Anthropic (May 6) – xAI
  • Introducing Finance Search in the Agent API (May 6) – Perplexity
  • New in Claude Managed Agents: dreaming, outcomes, and multiagent orchestration (May 6) – Anthropic’s Claude

LLMs & CHATBOTS

Earnings reports (6 companies)

More companies with exposure to the AI in advertising and marketing opportunity reported financial results yesterday including:

AppLovin

  • Markets: AppLovin stock was down .3% in after-hours trading yesterday.
  • Stat: Q1 revenues grew 59% year-over-year on $1.842 billion in revenue.
  • Results: AppLovin Announces First Quarter 2026 Financial Results (May 6) – AppLovin
  • Earnings call transcript: AppLovin Q1 FY2026 earnings call transcript – Yahoo Finance
  • Earnings call quote: “We’re never going to get into branding.”
  • Read: AppLovin soars after Q1 results and Q2 guidance exceed estimates – Sherwood News

Criteo

  • Markets: Criteo stock was down 21.1% yesterday.
  • Stat: “Criteo’s media spend was $4.4 billion in the last 12 months and $1.0 billion in Q1 2026, up 8% year-over-year at constant currency”
  • Results: Criteo Reports First Quarter 2026 Results (May 6) – Criteo
  • Earnings call transcript: Criteo Q1 FY2026 earnings call transcript (May 6) – Yahoo Finance
  • Earnings call quote: “Our guidance does not assume any material revenue contribution from agentic AI initiatives given their early stage, although we are seeing strong early traction.”
  • Read: “Criteo Faces Tough Headwinds Until Agentic AI Ad Revenue Materializes” (May 6) – AdExchanger

Snap

  • Markets: Snap stock was down 9.4% in after-hours trading yesterday.
  • Stat: “First quarter revenue increased 12% year-over-year to $1,529 million”
  • Results: “Snap Inc. Announces First Quarter 2026 Financial Results” (May 6) – Snap
  • Earnings call transcript: Snap Q1 FY2026 earnings call transcript – Yahoo Finance
  • Earnings call quote: “What’s important for us strategically is that chat’s not just another inventory pool. It really gives us a differentiated environment where brands can engage users in a more direct and personal way. AI Sponsored Snaps are really an extension of that because they can make those interactions and conversations more useful and relevant over time.”
  • Read: “Snap issues cautious guidance as Perplexity deal ends, Middle East ‘geopolitical situation’ causes uncertainty” – CNBC

Taboola

  • Markets: Taboola stock was up 24.6% yesterday.
  • Stat: “Revenues of $466.4 million, an increase of 9.1%.”
  • Results: Taboola Q1 2026 results (May 6) – Taboola
  • Earnings call transcript: Taboola Q1 FY2026 earnings call transcript – Yahoo Finance
  • Earnings call quote: “DeeperDive (…) is growing really fast. We just had a board meeting yesterday, and we talked about how much fun it is to start a startup within a startup like DeeperDive.”
  • Read: Taboola Q1 2026: $466M revenue and a $77M legal windfall change the picture – PPC Land

Magnite

  • Markets: Magnite stock was down .6% in after-hours trading yesterday.
  • Stat: “Revenue of $164.4 million, up 6% year-over-year. Contribution ex-TAC attributable to CTV of $82.3 million, up 30% year-over-year.”
  • Results: Magnite Reports First Quarter 2026 Results (May 6) – Magnite
  • Earnings call transcript: Magnite Q1 2026 Earnings Transcript – Motley Fool
  • Earnings call quote: “At the core, AI enhances how inventory is valued, how campaigns are executed, and how decisions are made in real time.”

DoubleVerify

  • Markets: DoubleVerify stock was unchanged in after-hours trading yesterday.
  • Stat: “Increased Revenue by 10% Year-over-Year to $180.8 Million, Driven by Social and CTV”
  • Results: DoubleVerify Reports First Quarter 2026 Financial Results (May 6) – DoubleVerify
  • Earnings call transcript: DoubleVerify Q1 2026 Earnings Transcript – Motley Fool
  • Earnings call quote: “Our AI Slop Stopper measurement solution for mobile and online video and display is already applied to over 40% of measured impressions, and the pre-bid tool is being tested by six of our largest advertisers.”

More earnings: “The New York Times announced our first-quarter earnings results today and I’m proud of our New York Times Advertising team for delivering another great quarter, with digital advertising revenues increasing 32%, to $93 million.” (May 6) – Joy Robins, Chief Advertising Officer, The New York Times on LinkedIn

SEARCH

CPCs on the rise through AI Max

Digiday’s Sam Bradley reported yesterday:

  • “In the 12 months since Google debuted AI Max for Search, brands have increased their search budgets and seen cost-per-clicks (CPCs) rise, while compounding search’s transition into a media channel ruled by automation. For some clients, search costs increased by as much as 15% in the last year, according to four media buyers who spoke with Digiday…”

Bradley said that AI Max is delivering incremental conversions and broader query coverage.

Read: “‘CPC pain is real’: One year on, Google’s AI Max has pushed up search budgets – and costs” (May 6) – Digiday (subscription)

From tipsheet: If Google’s AI can predict a higher likelihood of conversion, it can charge more per click — as long as marketers can prove the incremental outcomes are worth the CPC inflation.

COMMERCE MEDIA

Lipsman: The performance megatrend ahead

Collecting mounting evidence that retail media networks and the creator economy are converging into a new performance channel, analyst Andrew Lipsman makes the case for the coming “megatrend.”

He concludes:

“And as creator media adapts into a performance vehicle, it removes the final barrier to advertiser investment. CMOs now have the trifecta of scale, cultural relevance, and performance fully accounted for—precisely what they need to go all-in on the channel. Which is exactly what Unilever and other major advertisers appear ready to do.

That’s why creators + retail media now looks like a megatrend in the making.”

Read: “Creators + Retail Media = The Next Megatrend?” (May 6) – Andrew Lipsman on his Media, Ads + Commerce Substack

From tipsheet: Lipsman’s argument is compelling and another reminder that retail media is not going away because of AI (and in spite of what some Wall Street analysts have advocated).

If anything, AI makes the creator-retail loop more powerful by improving matching, accelerating creative testing and helping marketers operationalize creator-driven commerce at scale.

SELL-SIDE

Quotes appearing in Google’s AI Search

In a move many users likely assumed had already happened, Google announced that it is enhancing AI search results with publisher content — specifically conversations from community sites.

Google’s VP, Product Management for Search, Hema Budaraju, explains, “For example, if you’re researching how to take great pictures of the northern lights, you might see quotes from a photography forum advising on exposure time, along with clickable links – featuring the specific community name – so you can jump to the full conversation.” Read Google’s The Keyword blog. (May 6)

Google VP of Search, Liz Reid, chimed in on LinkedIn: “Our goal is to make it effortless to explore beyond an AI response and engage directly with original content and authentic voices from creators all over the world.” Read more. (May 6)

The Verge’s Jess Weatherhead summarized:

“Google says this update aims to address that ‘people are increasingly seeking out advice from others’ when searching for information online. This will be relatable for anyone who’s added ‘Reddit’ to the end of Google Search terms to find experiences from real humans instead of SEO-optimized web results. It also backs up claims made by Reddit CEO Steve Huffman last year that ‘just about anybody using Google at this point will end up on Reddit.’”

Read more on The Verge. (May 6)

From tipsheet #1: The economic negotiation that’s playing out:

  1. Google is trying to balance outbound traffic to publishers while incorporating publisher content directly into AI answers.
  2. At the same time, publishers are weighing what an AI search referral is actually worth versus restricting access through robots.txt.
  3. Google’s bet is that AI can reduce lower-value clicks while increasing the intent and quality of the referrals that remain.

From tipsheet #2: This is roughly the same argument swirling around Meta (covered in tipsheet yesterday) where Wall Street assumes “more users” is better. Meta’s argument is that more AI-driven personalization can increase monetization yield more effectively than simply adding more users.

TECH

Signals from the stack

  • India: “We’re currently mapping the emerging landscape of agentic AI companies across the Indian ad tech, martech, intelligence and orchestration ecosystem.” (May 6) – Karthik Shankar, SVP, WPP Media on LinkedIn
  • Publishers: “High CPMs at the premium end make sense, but why do low-quality pubs clear so well in today’s open prog ecosystem? My hypothesis is twofold.” (May 6) – William Cichowski, entrepreneur on LinkedIn
  • Payments: “While we see automation opportunities, we think the biggest wins will come from doing things that weren’t viable before AI. Like building our own marketing content localization workflows or creating thousands of personalized insights to help users get the most out of Stripe products.” – Seth Berman, Head of Growth Marketing, Stripe on LinkedIn

PLATFORMS

TikTok expands in DOOH with Vistar

Earlier this week, Vistar Media, which manages a digital-out-of-home marketplace and was acquired by T-Mobile in early 2025, announced that it has joined TikTok’s Out-Of-Phone partnership program.

TikTok started the reach extension program in 2023 in an effort to extend engagement beyond its mobile app with consumers.

Vistar’s press release on Monday explained:

“TikTok’s Out of Phone initiative brings the platform’s culture-defining content into premium, real-world placements, while Vistar’s technology enables that content to be delivered programmatically, at scale, across a wide range of DOOH formats, including large-format screens, urban panels, shopping malls and more. These executions bring to life captivating video inspired by TikTok’s creators, culture, and unmistakable visual style.”

A spokesperson said, “This initiative will have campaigns active in several markets, including the US, UK, Canada, Germany, Thailand, reaching around 2 billion screens.”

Read: “Vistar Media and TikTok collaborate to bring Out-of-Phone creativity to DOOH at scale” (May 4) – Vistar Media

Reminder: TikTok today operates across three geopolitical structures: China’s Douyin, the U.S. TikTok joint venture and the broader international TikTok business.

From tipsheet: TikTok is extending its recommendation engine beyond the smartphone screen. The same AI systems that optimize creative and engagement for in-feed experiences are increasingly shaping what appears in physical environments like DOOH (a.k.a. Out-of-Phone in TikTok parlance).

PEOPLE MOVES

Now hiring

  • “…That’s a big part of why I’ve joined CloudX as Head of Demand Partnerships, helping shape the buy side and build more direct, transparent connections across the app ecosystem. I’m especially excited about creating new paths for publishers to buy from one another and unlock more value across the market.” (May 6) – Former Meta and Mopub executive Janae Redmond on LinkedIn
  • “I’m extremely excited to announce that I’ve joined IQVIA as Head of Measurement Product. The opportunity is massive. In an AI-first ecosystem, the quality, the accuracy, the scale, and the privacy compliance of your data will increasingly be what differentiates winners from everyone else. That’s exactly what IQVIA is sitting on: the best healthcare data in the industry.” – Former Ampersand executive Justin Rosen on LinkedIn

MORE

  • New ‘AI Creator’ Account Labels (May 4) – Instagram
  • Google Analytics Data API adds cross-channel conversion reporting (alpha) (May 6) – Search Engine Land
  • Nexxen partners with Unity on in-app videos for advertisers (May 6) – Gamesbeat
  • People Inc. Looks Inward For Growth As Its Search Traffic Downsizes (May 6) – AdExchanger
  • Additional Data Providers Sign Up for AppsFlyer’s Signal Hub (May 6) – The Measure