The Trade Desk beat revenue estimates with $689M in Q1 but growth slowed to its lowest rate since Covid. CSO Samantha Jacobson departed for OpenAI as VP of Partnerships (Monetization), signalling where programmatic talent sees the future.
When your chief strategist leaves for an AI company's ads division, it says more about where programmatic is heading than any earnings call.
The Trade Desk reported Q1 2026 revenue of $689 million, beating analyst estimates of $679 million. Growth of 12% year-over-year still represents the company's slowest growth rate since Covid. EPS came in at $0.28, below the Street's $0.32 expectation.
The numbers would have been the whole story in any other week. Instead, the earnings were overshadowed by the departure of Chief Strategy Officer Samantha Jacobson, who is leaving for OpenAI as VP of Partnerships (Monetization).
Jacobson will lead OpenAI's monetisation partnerships while retaining a seat on The Trade Desk's board. Her title at OpenAI tells you exactly what she will be doing: building the advertising infrastructure for ChatGPT.
The Trade Desk's Q1 year-over-year revenue growth, its slowest since the pandemic
The Trade Desk's core challenge is not revenue. It is relevance. CEO Jeff Green has been talking about a grand vision for an open internet alternative to walled gardens, but the Publicis partnership negotiations remain ongoing and the UID2 identity framework continues to face implementation issues. A recent report found a publisher had misconfigured its UID2 setup for months without The Trade Desk noticing.
Meanwhile, OpenAI's ChatGPT ads pilot is expanding aggressively. Average monthly ad spend on the platform already sits around $109 million, with the company forecasting $2.5 billion in ad revenue by end of 2026. Jacobson's move suggests OpenAI is serious about building a proper demand-side infrastructure, not just bolting ads onto a chatbot.
Why it matters
This is a talent signal, not just a personnel change. The programmatic advertising industry built its leadership bench over the past decade. Now AI companies are hiring directly from that bench. For Australian advertisers running programmatic campaigns through The Trade Desk, the immediate impact is minimal. But the strategic direction is clear: ad dollars are following attention, and attention is moving to AI interfaces.
The Trade Desk is still a strong business. But growing at 12% while your CSO walks to an AI company that barely existed three years ago is not a confidence builder.