This week, advertising continued to expand with brands building their own ad businesses, AI opening new routes to consumers and digital spending reaching new heights across the UK. In today’s MadTech Daily, we discuss Google testing publisher payments for AI Search, a European TV initiative targeting programmatic barriers, and Goalhanger bringing advertising in-house.

McDonald’s is getting into the media business. The fast-food giant has launched McDonald’s Media Network, with ambitions to turn its digital platforms and physical customer touchpoints into a USD$1bn (£750m) advertising operation. 

Meanwhile, the advertising industry is preparing for a more automated future. New research from IAB Europe found that 58% of ad executives expect agentic buying to reach operational scale within a year, signalling growing confidence in AI agents taking on more responsibility across media planning and buying. OpenAI is also expanding its advertising footprint, rolling out ChatGPT Ads across seven new markets in Southeast Asia and Taiwan, taking its advertising reach to more than 60 countries.

The expansion of digital advertising is not happening without friction, however. Apple has blocked The Trade Desk’s advertising domain on Safari following the release of iOS 27, preventing the DSP from serving ads to users who have updated their devices. Elsewhere, AppLovin and Unity are locked in a legal dispute over data collected through Unity’s Ad Quality tool, with AppLovin alleging that the technology accesses and potentially uses data from its advertising business, claims Unity disputes.

The week also brought another reminder of how much money is flowing into digital media. UK advertisers spent £21.2bn on digital advertising in the first half of 2026, according to IAB UK and Mediasense, exceeding the total spent across the whole of 2020. Digital adspend was up 13% year on year, underlining how quickly the market has accelerated.

Away from the ad tech infrastructure itself, media assets are attracting serious interest. Letterboxd is reportedly being eyed by A24, Sony Pictures and The New York Times Company, with its controlling stake potentially valuing the film discovery platform at more than USD$300m (£225m).

Finally, the creator economy faced another credibility challenge after Temu dismantled a suspected USD$1bn (£750m) network of fake influencer accounts operating across Meta’s platforms, according to research from Online Risk Labs. The accounts had reportedly been used to promote Temu through partnership ads across the UK and EU, highlighting the continuing challenges around authenticity and transparency in influencer advertising.