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Below is a roundup of last week’s notable industry news, with summaries and our opinions. We have a Q2 earnings bonanza!

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Q2 Earnings Bonanza!

Meta (👍): Revenue was up 22% to $47.52B, beating estimates. Ad revenue was up 21% to $46.56B, driven by higher ad prices, strong demand, and AI-driven efficiency gains. Daily active users for all apps grew 6% to 3.48B. Meta raised Q3 guidance above Wall Street estimates, despite heavy AI investments. Shares rose 10%+ after hours.

Amazon (👎): Revenue was up 13% to $167.7B, beating estimates. Advertising revenue was up 23% to $15.7B. Amazon’s CEO revealed that it plans to eventually add ads to Alexa+ conversations. AWS revenue is growing slower than competitors. Q3 guidance trailed Wall Street expectations. Shares fell 7%+.

Apple (👍): Revenue was up 10% to $94.0B (the biggest growth since December 2021), beating estimates. iPhone revenue was up 13% to $44.6B. Apple's Services division, which includes advertising, rose 13% to a record $27.4B. Apple will "significantly grow" AI investments. Shares rose 3%.

Microsoft (👍): Revenue was up 18% to $76.4B, beating estimates. Azure revenue grew 39%; annual Azure revenue topped $75B for the first time. AI boosted business software sales. Search and news advertising revenue was up 21%. Shares rose 9% after hours.

Roku (👍): Revenue was up 15% to $1.11B, beating estimates. Platform revenue surged 18% to $975M, driven by video ads and the Frndly acquisition. Roku posted a surprise net profit. Streaming hours reached 35.4B. Roku raised full-year platform revenue guidance and announced $400M stock buyback. Shares rose 7% after hours.

Reddit (👍): Revenue was up 78% to $500M, beating estimates. Advertising revenue surged 84% to $465M, driven by new AI-powered marketing tools. Advertising now accounts for 93% of Reddit's revenue. Daily active users inched up to 110.4M. Data licensing revenue jumped 24% to $35M from AI deals. Shares are up 25%+ since the report.

Snap (👎): Revenue was up 9% to $1.34B, missing estimates. Snap said a platform glitch let some advertisers win bids at lower prices, hurting revenue. Global daily active users were up to 469M, beating expectations, but global average revenue per user ($2.87) fell short of Wall Street estimates ($2.90). Q3 guidance exceeded expectations. Shares fell 15%.

SiriusXM (👎): Revenue was down 2% to $2.14B, beating estimates. Podcast revenue was up nearly 50% due to "expanded video and social monetization" and new signings. Pandora's ad revenue was down 1.5% from lower ad demand. SiriusXM maintained its full-year guidance. Shares fell over 7%.

Comcast (👍): Revenue was up 2.1% to $30.3B, beating estimates. Peacock subscribers were flat, but revenue was up 18% to $1.2B. Peacock lost $101M, compared to $348M last year. NBCUniversal revenue was up 2%, but ad revenue fell 7% due to weak linear ad revenue. Broadband subscriber losses weren’t as bad as expected. Shares rose 3%

Criteo (🤷): Revenue was up 2% to $483M, beating estimates. Retail media revenue, minus traffic acquisition costs, was up 11% to $60M. Retargeting revenue was up 6% to $232M. Criteo raised full-year guidance. Shares were flat. 

Stagwell (👍): Organic growth was 0.6% to $598M. The challenger agency holding company reported a $5M net loss as it doubled down on tech and AI investments. New clients like Samsung, New Balance, ServiceNow, and Volkswagen added $117M in net new business revenue. Shares rose. 

Zeta Global (👍): Revenue was up 35% to $308M, beating estimates. The marketing cloud + ad tech company delivered its 16th straight "beat and raise" quarter. Zeta raised full-year revenue guidance. Shares rose by single digits after hours.

DoubleVerify (👍): Revenue was up 21% to $189M, beating estimates. Activation revenue grew 25% to $109M, measurement revenue up 15% to $63M, and supply-side revenue grew 26% to $17M. The ad verification vendor raised full-year revenue growth to ~15%. Shares rose 8% after hours.

Digital Turbine (🤷): Revenue was up 11% to $130.9M, beating estimates. The company touted strong demand for its Ignite platform and better device sales. Digital Turbine raised full-year revenue guidance. Shares spiked before falling by double digits. 

Fox Corp. (🤷): Revenue was up 6% to $3.29B, beating estimates. Ad revenue grew 7% to $1.1B, driven by Tubi and Fox News. Fox will launch its Fox One streaming service on August 21 at $19.99/month. Despite the positive results, shares fell 3%. 

Opinion: These earnings reports are better than we expected given the economic uncertainty we saw in Q2, when the tariff wars were raging. Sixty percent of the reports this week were positive, meaning that the companies largely beat analysts' expectations and were rewarded with stock price gains. Three reports fell short, and another three were a bit unclear.

But our big takeaway from Q2 earnings is the emergence of what we’re calling the "AI dividend". 

Mark Zuckerberg specifically credited AI technology for "greater efficiency and gains across our ad system", which led to 22% revenue growth and a huge stock price jump for Meta. Google's AI Overviews now support over 2 billion monthly users and drive more than 10% of global search queries, and Google is pushing search more aggressively towards “AI Mode”. Amazon's 22% ad revenue surge to $15.7 billion was powered by "AI-enhanced targeting" and "AI-powered bidding algorithms". This feels like the first earnings cycle where executives can draw direct lines between AI investments and ad revenue growth—not future promises, but actual dollars today. And it’s leading to tons more investment in these companies. This is the “AI Dividend”.

We’re seeing the market bifurcate. Google, Meta, and Amazon are selling AI-powered outcomes while platforms like Pinterest and Snapchat are stuck explaining traditional metrics. The effect compounds in either direction. Platforms with better AI today generate more revenue and raise more money, which funds better AI tomorrow, which attracts more users and advertisers, which generates more data to train on, which leads to better AI. Meanwhile, platforms without compelling AI narratives face the opposite, downward spiral. 

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