He said this has resulted in the company's marketing department honing in on content creation, since they know it's the best way to get in front of the AI models. There has been this whole shift in how people find agents, Raveis said. I got a call from my sales manager in my Danbury, Connecticut, office and they said someone had just walked in because they asked ChatGPT for the best real estate office in Danbury and we were it.
"Whichever media company, if any, ultimately secures it controls the calculus of the streaming wars and so much more," said Mike Proulx, vp and research director at Forrester. Most buyers expect that should Netflix's acquisition go ahead after Q3 2026 - creating a "Goliath" in the streaming market, according to Proulx - the company would gain leverage in pricing discussions.
The all-cash offer of $30 per share works out to a valuation of more than $108 billion, or an equity valuation of $78.7 billion, for WBD's entire operation, putting it in the upper echelons of hostile takeover attempts in recent decades. In fairness, the $82.7 billion deal, or $72 billion equity valuation, from streaming giant Netflix is also pretty massive. That was the one WBD's board had agreed on, and it excluded certain pieces of the business.
The acquisition marks a dramatic strategic shift for Netflix, which has never made a deal of this scope. The streaming pioneer grew to become Hollywood's most valuable company, without the benefit of a library or studio, by licensing programs from others and then expanding into original content. With the purchase, Netflix becomes owner of the HBO network, along with its library of hit shows like The Sopranos and TheWhite Lotus.
Last week, one of Dentsu's media agencies, iProspect, said it had expanded an existing relationship its sibling Merkle has with BJ's Wholesale Club to now include performance media duties handled by iProspect. The news follows wins of BMW Group's media across Europe, also led by iProspect, back in July, and Dollar General (along with its retail media network) in May.
Marc Sirkin is a former CEO, CMO, and digital transformation leader known for driving growth, innovation, and exits at iconic brands including Microsoft, PwC, and Autism Speaks. As Founder of Marc Sirkin Consulting and host of the "Playbook Broken" podcast, he helps executives navigate existential change by integrating AI, aligning teams, and accelerating outcomes. He led the integration of Third Door Media into Semrush post-acquisition by preserving editorial independence while transforming virtual events and launching AI-powered products.
At first, it sounds like a design problem. Or maybe a customer service one. Add new markets, new systems, new customers, and suddenly the challenge is keeping what was working while trying to understand what the future needs to become. But underneath, it's a question about honesty. What if the kind of growth that stretches empathy and deepens awareness (the kind we expect from people) could guide how organizations grow too?
The combined company aims to deliver an open data infrastructure - unifying data movement, transformation, metadata and activation - while preserving freedom of choice for analytic compute and AI, according to the announcement. The company's vision for an open data infrastructure will reduce engineering complexity by automating data management end-to-end, and work across any compute engine, catalog, BI tool or AI model.
There's just one problem, though: While many know how to declare an initiative, far fewer understand what it takes to carry the project through the friction of daily workflows. What separates those rare successes from the long list of initiatives that fade into half-measures is not only leadership and resourcing, but also the way organizations adapt, measure, and learn as they go.
You know, the consolidation happens for a simple reason. I know these companies are a little bit different from each other. Upstream, downstream, production, exploration. But listen, basically. They're all brothers and sisters, or first cousins of one another's. So the fact that you're getting roll-ups in industries where you've got related companies, isn't that surprising. What's, what's going on there in the last few months?
"Any businesses that are looking for FCC approval, I would encourage them to get busy ending any sort of their invidious forms of DEI discrimination," Carr told Bloomberg in an interview.
"We're working on one merger acquisition now, and that's their phase one. They want to check out the staffing first to make sure that their I-9s are in order before they go forward with the rest of the deal."
Blockchain technology enables companies to create a trusted architecture for sharing data across networks securely and reliably, thereby addressing master data issues more effectively.
There is a complete reset in how data is managed and flows around the enterprise. If people want to seize the AI imperative, they have to redo their data platforms in a very big way. And this is where I believe you're seeing all these data acquisitions, because this is the foundation to have a sound AI strategy.
Morris, Manning & Martin is poised for highly strategic and transformational options for growth," Malko said. "We are in advanced discussions with a national Am Law 100 firm...
This month's rate cut will ease some pressure for businesses under strain, especially following recent National Insurance changes, and provides hope for a more stable environment that can foster long-term growth and investment.
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