"From an ad tech perspective, 2025 will be remembered as the year Google quietly recalibrated - retreating from some of its longest-running bets while accelerating decisively in others. The most visible reversal came with the effective end of the Privacy Sandbox experiment and Google's decision to walk back plans to fully deprecate third-party cookies in Chrome. After years of insisting that Privacy Sandbox represented the future of web advertising, Google instead opted for optionality,"
"That disappointment was partly offset by rapid progress in AI. Gemini emerged as the connective tissue across Google's ad stack, touching everything from creative generation to bidding and optimization. Tools such as AI Max underscored how aggressively Google is embedding generative AI into performance advertising, even as buyers began scrutinizing the trade-offs around control and transparency when evaluating Google's AI Max."
Google retreated from long-running privacy experiments in 2025, effectively ending the Privacy Sandbox and walking back plans to fully deprecate third-party cookies in Chrome. The company shifted to optionality after Privacy Sandbox failed to win broad industry trust, reinforcing the difficulty of re-engineering open web economics. Simultaneously, generative AI advanced rapidly: Gemini integrated across the ad stack for creative, bidding, and optimization, and AI Max accelerated AI-driven performance advertising while prompting buyer scrutiny over control and transparency. YouTube solidified its role as a default TV platform, moving sales toward TV-style guarantees, reach commitments, and upfront-like deals. Federal antitrust setbacks did not alter commercial momentum.
Read at Digiday
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