Microsoft publicly launched its Publisher Content Marketplace (PCM) yesterday with the goal of helping publishers monetize their content with AI companies or as Microsoft put it, “supporting licensed access to premium content while preserving publisher control, independence, and sustainable revenue.”
PCM had been rumored since last September as agreement coalesced between publishers and Microsoft.
Tim Frank, Corporate VP, Microsoft AI Monetization, discussed the launch on the Microsoft Advertising blog.
In a post titled, “Building Toward a Sustainable Content Economy for the Agentic Web,” Mr. Frank addressed key features such as:
- Who can join: “PCM will support publishers of all sizes, from large national and international organizations to specialized and independent voices.”
- Who has already joined: “Over the past several months, we have been co-designing PCM with leading U.S. publishers, including The Associated Press, Business Insider Inc, Condé Nast, Hearst Magazines, People Inc, USA TODAY Co., and Vox Media Inc, among others.”
- AI companies participating: “We started with a focused set of scenarios in enterprise and consumer versions of Microsoft Copilot by grounding specific responses with licensed content and running experiments to validate assumptions before scaling. And now, we are beginning to onboard demand partners, including Yahoo.”
- Publisher terms: “Participation is voluntary, with transparent usage reporting, and publisher-defined licensing terms. And, publishers always retain ownership of their content and editorial independence. All of this is intended to scale to avoid the challenge of pairwise agreements between every publisher and every AI builder and agent.”
- Microsoft claims AI “high ground”: “We will expand PCM to those who share our principles that the AI web should respect quality content for the service it provides the consumer, ensuring the work of journalists, creators, and subject-matter experts plays a durable role in the future of the AI web.”
Read the blog post. (February 3)
More:
- Publisher Content Marketplace – Interest Registration Form – Microsoft
- Microsoft launches Publisher Content Marketplace for AI licensing (February 3) – Search Engine Land
From tipsheet: I’d assume Yahoo’s new chatbot, Scout, is the demand partner referenced.
The biggest unanswered question remains: how much can a publisher make in $$$ from PCM?
LLMs & CHATBOTS
Developments
- xAI joins SpaceX to Accelerate Humanity’s Future (February 2) – SpaceX
- Xcode 26.3 unlocks the power of agentic coding (February 3) – Apple
- What is the ‘social media network for AI’ Moltbook? (February 2) – BBC
Publicis touts “agentic” and MVP
Agency holding company Publicis reported its Q4 2025 financial results yesterday and delivered a “solid” 5.9% organic growth for the quarter and 5.6% for all of 2025.
See Publicis Investor Relations.
The company discussed its AI plans — and positioning — in the earnings press release:
“Now, looking ahead, we have one ambition: to be the industry’s Most Valuable Partner.
We will be the MVP for our clients by building agentic solutions that truly deliver business outcomes at a moment when 95% of AI projects fail. We will be the MVP for our people by treating them as our key differentiator, not a commodity, giving them the tools and training they need to progress in an AI-driven world. And we will be the MVP to our shareholders by focusing on delivering transformational growth through new addressable markets, not legacy asset consolidation…”
Read the release. (February 3)
On LinkedIn, analyst Ian Whittaker of Liberty Sky Advisors provided a favorable breakdown of the Q4 results and noted that even though Publicis stock declined (market cap stood at ~$20 billion USD) after the earnings release, the ad holding company beat Wall Street expectations.
Mr. Whittaker said:
“Investors are generally sour on the agencies. As I type, the shares are down nearly 7%. That is despite a beat on numbers and positive guidance. That reflects more investors’ attitude towards the agencies as a group than Publicis in particular, which is driven by fears over the impact of AI. Until that improves – and a key driver of that is likely to be WPP’s recovery – sentiment will likely remain the same.”
Read his full analysis of Publicis on LinkedIn. (February 3)
More: Publicis CEO: We Won’t ‘Marry’ Our Business to One Single AI Player (February 3) – Adweek
From tipsheet: If you believe Mr. Whittaker’s take — what an odd turn of events, i.e. for Publicis to succeed (at least with its stock price), agency holding company competitor WPP must succeed.
WPP reports “2025 Preliminary Financial Results & Strategy Update” on February 26.
For any ad holding company to succeed, they must get ahead of service to the marketer in an AI world where workflow and the role of the human agent is being roiled.
LLMs & CHATBOTS
Google earnings today, Gemini vs. ChatGPT
After the market closes today, Alphabet/Google will report its Q4 2025 earnings. A webcast with Google executives begins at 4:30 ET.
Visit Alphabet Investor Relations.
In preparation for the earnings release, eMarketer Chief Content Officer Vladimir Hanzlik said on LinkedIn yesterday that we should keep an eye out for Google’s Gemini user numbers:
“When Gemini reveals its new monthly active users number tomorrow (my guess is north of 900 million), we’ll have a better read on how much smaller the gap to ChatGPT has gotten.
ChatGPT is now realistically at 800-900 million weekly active users, translating to 1.2-1.35 billion monthly active users.”
Read more on LinkedIn. (February 3)
MOBILE
Podcast: CloudX co-founders on SSP rollout
On YouTube video podcast The Signal, WildCard Games co-founder Josh Chandley, a mobile games publisher/marketer, spoke to co-founders Jim Payne and Dan Sack of mobile SSP CloudX.
The CloudX team told Chandley (see summary on LinkedIn) that the CloudX product is going “GA” (general availabilty) today and reiterated its plans to make it easier for mobile publishers to monetize in an agentic world:
JIM PAYNE: “Our tool is designed to help bring incremental demand to the publisher. We’re taking a ‘big tent’ approach. And what that means to me is anybody who wants to spend and enter the mobile in-app space, we’re going to give them a warm welcome to do that. Why do we do that? Because it’s best for the publisher.”
DAN SACK: “I’d just add that I think by the end of this quarter we’ll be well beyond what I would consider critical mass on the buy side. It’s been a great reception from the buy side…”
Listen: “CloudX: The New Neutral | Jim Payne & Dan Sack, the Founders of MAX, on What Comes Next” (February 3) – “The Signal by Josh Chandley” on YouTube (73 minutes)
Related: “Why is mobile mediation broken? Jim Payne: Here is whats next!” (early January) – two & a half gamers video podcast on YouTube
From tipsheet: A great in-depth discussion led by Mr. Chandley who knows well Mr. Payne’s and Mr. Sack’s past mobile ad tech companies Mopub and MAX. (At one point, Payne admits in that Mopub was “too complicated” and MAX was an effort to reduce that complication.)
The CloudX co-founders appear to be making a concerted effort to create interest for their new product among members of the mobile gaming community.
TECH
PubMatic, Chalice AI partner on agents
The IAB Tech Lab’s containerization project, which is now the Agentic Real-Time Framework (ARTF), has a new Model Context Protocol (MCP) use case.
Sell-side platform PubMatic said that it is using ARTF for deployment of Chalice AI bidding agents in its SSP servers.
According to a press release, “PubMatic becomes first to connect MCP to ARTF, demonstrating how agent-driven decisioning and programmatic execution work together.” The new integration is powered by PubMatic’s AgenticOS, the SSP’s agentic execution system announced last month at CES.
Read the release. (February 3)
Chalice AI CEO Adam Heimlich provided some history behind the new partnership on LinkedIn:
“In under 2 years, Containerized RTB has gone from an experiment, to a standard, to a movement.
PubMatic today announces adoption of the Agentic Real-Time Framework (ARTF) for deployment of Chalice AI bidding agents in their SSP servers.
PubMatic will combine the ARTF with API-based agentic frameworks to unite workflow and event-level automation in their Activate platform.
Agents are not new to advertising. Agencies and algos already spend on advertisers’ behalf.
What’s new is brands’ ability to determine ALL the rules that go into buy decisions, and to deploy agents with the level of transparency and service required to build trust in new technology…”
Read more on LinkedIn. (February 3)
Read: “Chalice AI and PubMatic Advance Agentic Interoperability Across the Open Internet” (February 3) – press release
Related:
- “The Container Explainer” explaining ARTF (February 2) – Adam Heimlich and Gareth Glaser on the AdTech AdTalk podcast on YouTube
- Heimlich on ARTF at the IAB ALM event yesterday: “A bento box that works at the edge” (February 3) – Lou Paskalis on LinkedIn
From tipsheet: PubMatic has been a core member of the consortium behind Ad Context Protocol (AdCP) which, at times, has been positioned by some as a competitor to the Agentic Real-Time Framework (ARTF). Clearly, the message from PubMatic is that ad industry participants can do, or use, both protocols.
PROTOCOLS
AdCP adds a creative founding member
“Our focus in this effort is advancing creative intelligence. Media signals should actively shape creative decisions, and creative quality and structure should feed directly back into performance outcomes. This is not just an operational shift; it’s how media and creative finally connect into a single performance loop for the entire ecosystem. We’re proud to help shape what comes next with AdCP and the broader industry…”
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Creative automation firm Celtra announced that it has joined AgenticAdvertising[dot]org, the governance organization behind AdCP, as a founding member (February 3) – Celtra on LinkedIn
TECH
CEO thought leadership
- Opinion: “The Fastest Path To Agentic AI In Advertising Isn’t Reinvention. It’s Using Existing Standards” (February 3) – Anthony Katsur, CEO, IAB Tech Lab on AdExchanger
- “The ‘black box’ problem in performance advertising” – Jason Fairchild, CEO, tvScientific on Beehiiv
- Video: “The next episode of my series on native advertising: Innovation can come from places you may not have been expecting.” (February 3) – Omar Tawakol, CEO, Rembrand on LinkedIn
PEOPLE MOVES
Mediaocean aims to improve AI game
Digital advertising infrastructure company Mediaocean announced yesterday that Innovid CEO Zvika Netter will take on the additional title of “Chief Innovation Officer” for the company.
The Mediaocean LinkedIn account explained: “In this newly created role, Zvika will help scale cross-platform, AI-powered innovation across Innovid, Prisma, and Protected by Mediaocean—bringing greater connectivity, intelligence, and execution across the advertising lifecycle.”
A press release provided more detail:
“Netter will work closely across Mediaocean’s portfolio to align innovation priorities, incubate new projects, scale proven approaches, and develop more cross-platform offerings that span the advertising lifecycle. One example is the recently launched Orchestrator, an AI-powered orchestration framework that unites humans, data, and specialized agents in a single, coordinated system. Serving as the connective layer across the advertising lifecycle, the Orchestrator helps marketers move beyond siloed tools and toward more adaptive, outcome-driven media execution at scale.”
Read the release. (February 3)
Related: “The MEDIAOCEANscape: Assembling Best-in-Class Vertical Advertising Software” (January 5) – Bill Wise, CEO, Mediaocean on LinkedIn
From tipsheet: Older, “legacy” ad tech firms are feeling the pressure to stay relevant within the broader AI narrative which is sweeping over the enterprise.
MORE
- Analyst Eric Seufert on why any Amazon-OpenAI partnership will be about advertising not agentic commerce (February 3) – Mobile Dev Memo (subscription)
- What AI-driven Super Bowl marketing taught 3 brands (February 3) – Ad Age (subscription)
- A year on, Vistar is finding its place inside T-Mobile & redefining future of physical media (February 3) – The Drum
- How Sell-Side Decisioning Drove a 75% Drop in Cost per Visit for a Major Retailer (February 3) – Index Exchange