For media, advertising, marketing, and brand executives, along with their sales teams, descending on Las Vegas the first week of January is a ritual. Going to the actual conference and seeing new tech is almost beside the point.

Our circuit runs laps between the Aria, the Cosmo, and Vdara—and, if we’re lucky, the Bellagio and Park MGM—all without ever sadly leaving the inside of a casino or hotel for days on end. The rhythm is either back-to-back 20-meeting days up and down elevator banks, or walking a Disneyland-level 20,000 steps between the infamous Chandelier Bar and the Aria Lobby Bar through the Shops at Crystals. After meetings wrap, it’s client happy hour at Chandelier, followed by dinner and a late-night event—unless you have to get up at 6 a.m. to do it all again.
Side note: I’ve never seen so few Chinese tourists in Vegas as I did this year, which can’t be good for the local economy.

The thousands who make up this “off-show” conference never see any CES technology or set foot in the Las Vegas Convention Center or Venetian Expo. I hear it’s fun, exciting, crowded, and generally worth visiting—but I wouldn’t know. In my 13 years in Las Vegas during CES, I’ve never been.

What I experienced at CES 2026 was a flood of agentic announcements across advertising—both client-facing and internal workflow tools. Commerce and retail media were the clear through-lines in nearly every conversation, alongside very open discussions about the long-term decline of the open web. One noticeable shift this year was fewer agencies and far more large media companies in attendance. Overall, the Aria–Cosmo–Vdara circuit felt more media than ad-tech, more marketers than agencies, and more retail-driven commerce than traditional branding.

I didn’t have much time for entertainment at CES, though it’s always something to look forward to in Vegas. One event I really wish I’d been able to attend was the Marvelous.works benefit for Fire Relief in Los Angeles. It was just one year ago, during CES 2025, that many attendees learned their homes, families, and lives were being threatened or upended by the Palisades and Altadena fires. Kudos to David Wade and the Marvelous team for using their time and platform to raise money for the thousands affected in Los Angeles. Learn more or donate here: https://linktr.ee/AdRelief .

For the few moments I had to absorb content at the Aria, here are five industry takeaways:

Ad Creative Has Become Software

AI now generates, tests, localizes, and optimizes video and ad units in real time, turning creative into a programmable system rather than a static asset.

CTV Is Becoming a Commerce Platform

Streaming television is evolving from a branding channel into a transactional surface where viewers can discover, evaluate, and buy products directly from the screen.

Data Is No Longer for People — It’s for Agents

Viewing, identity, and commerce data are increasingly consumed by AI agents that autonomously plan, buy, and optimize media for brands and retailers.

Agents Are Becoming the New Front Door to Brands
As consumers delegate shopping and discovery to AI, brands must design their marketing, content, and data to be readable and actionable by machines, not just humans.

Retail Media Is Becoming the Control Plane of Advertising

Retailers like Walmart and Amazon now sit at the center of advertising because they combine identity, purchase data, inventory, and fulfillment into a single closed-loop system.

Drop me an email (ryan.klinefelter@Woodsidecap.com) if you’ll be at Marketecture III in NYC this March.

Best regards,
Ryan Klinefelter
Woodside Capital Partners