The Quant
Marketplaces like Amazon and Walmart are officially the first place consumers go to shop for new brands, according to recent research from ecommerce fulfillment company Radial. Its research found that 44% of adults in the U.S. usually purchase a new brand via marketplaces, compared to just 21% who transact on the brand’s website and 17% who shop in person.
Deep Learning: Is The Trade Desk’s Turnaround Push Officially Underway?
The Trade Desk, adtech’s Wall Street darling-turned-flounderer, would seem to be gearing up for a concerted rebound effort.
The demand-side platform, which enables advertisers to buy ads programmatically across the open web, is focused on investing in and commercializing new agentic tools, according to a leaked H2 roadmap deck obtained by ADWEEK this week. The company’s big push is centered on a new central AI assistant that advertisers can turn to for help with a range of tasks; the assistant can tap into a suite of specialized Koa agents to aid users in campaign setup, audience building, frequency capping, performance measurement, and more.
That AI assistant is being given a privileged new home within Kokai, the company’s core ad-buying platform. This positioning is part of The Trade Desk’s larger makeover of Kokai, unveiled today in a refresh significant enough that the company felt the need to give it its own branding, Kokai Zuma.
