The Trade Desk keeps beating that drum. Jeff Green has an announcement quota to fill, damnit! But seriously, this one’s smart—and pretty cool.
As TTD works to drive OEM adoption of its Ventura CTV operating system, it’s turning to incentives. The latest? A partnership with Anoki.
Anoki is a CTV adtech company that does two things, mainly, at least in the context of this partnership:
- It enables scene-level, AI-powered scanning of CTV content to identify contextually relevant, brand-suitable ad moments.
- It powers the creation of FAST apps through its LiveTVx technology.
LiveTVx is an interesting piece of tech: it’s AI-powered and embedded in select OEM devices. The platform dynamically recommends channels, movies, and shows based on individual viewing patterns. Content discovery is driven by a dynamic Electronic Program Guide (EPG), personalized using both app viewing history and ACR (Automatic Content Recognition) data. The AI analyzes content to understand preferences and serve up relevant programming.
Basically: while most CTV scrolling experiences are static and frustrating, Anoki’s LiveTVx is trying to fix that. Here’s what it looks like:
Under this new partnership, TTD is offering OEMs a clear value exchange—if an OEM signs on to Ventura, they’ll get their own white-labeled version of LiveTVx, complete with Anoki’s content library.
That’s a win for OEMs, who get an easy on-ramp to monetization. It’s a win for TTD, which makes Ventura more attractive. And it’s a win for Anoki, whose tech and contextual ad capabilities expand across more devices and apps.
Why This Matters:
There’s been some swirl around Ventura since its launch earlier this year, including chatter about challenges in onboarding OEMs after the Sonos situation. With that in mind, this Anoki deal feels like a smart play—using a FAST app as the hook to spark OEM interest.
And FAST is a big opportunity. Global FAST ad revenue reached $7.6 billion in 2023, according to Statista, and is projected to more than double to $16.5 billion by 2029.
Experts React:
See this take from Karsten Weide, founder and analyst at W Media Research:
Our Take:
Looking at Anoki’s tech, talent, and content library deals, it honestly feels like an ideal acquisition target for TTD. Speaking irresponsibly—and entirely speculatively—Ventura could benefit from having Anoki in-house. It would also strengthen TTD’s AI credentials, not just from a technology standpoint, but from a storytelling perspective, as well. (If a deal ever does happen, we get a point.)
