Reading the tea leaves at CES

It’s 2026, which means it’s out with the old and in with the new. There’s no shortage of industry preview stories this week, including one from Business Insider offering five big predictions for the year ahead.

Alongside AI soul-searching and whatever comes of the Google DOJ trial, we’re told that 2026 will finally be the year we all realize the open internet isn’t just about display ads, but also streaming TV. Is it Crawler, or did 2020 call and want its prediction back? Did I stream several seasons of Love Is Blind for nothing?

Speaking of the New Year and exciting new things, you may have spotted Crawler this week at CES. I wasn’t there for the gadgets. Nor was I tempted by the latest AI-powered smart glasses, even if they do come with the swagger of black Ray-Bans. Mr. Crawler still has PTSD after trialing Google Glass back in 2014 (vertigo, vomiting, etc.).

This year’s CES was the most ad tech-y show I can remember. As expected, no shortage of breathless hype at the Aria around “agentic AI,” a phrase almost certainly uttered more often than “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”

Crawler knows better than those who don’t always make it past the press release. I went looking elsewhere. Over a cup of tepid tea, the chief innovation officer of a well-known agency explained that agentic AI currently struggles with three minor impediments: persistent memory, reliability and trust. Being married to Mr. Crawler, that hat trick hits home. Still, we live in hope.

On that note, I was tickled by a few of Mike Shields’ predictions for 2026. Among them: “Something will go way wrong with agentic ad tech buying.” Also, “Reels will struggle on TV,” says he.

You don’t need me to tell you where to find the good stuff. For that, you could do worse than The Trade Desk’s Jeff Green who was holding forth in a fireside chat with Terry Kawaja. He suggested that the “premium side of the internet [will] be grounding for the first dollar that spent for more and more brands.”

Before I trot off to rescue Mr. Crawler from the noisy slot machines, a final note. One of my resolutions for 2026 is “less pitching, more listening” — which also happened to be the headline of a Digiday piece kicking off their CES coverage this week.

The only problem was that they listened so closely to Amazon’s talking points they forgot to ask a single follow-up question.

Crawler is a satirical take on the biggest ad tech news of the week. It’s penned by editors of The Current, which is owned by The Trade Desk. Have your own take? Reach us at [email protected].