TLDR
Google, Meta and Amazon absorbed 98.27% of incremental ad spending across the top five platforms in Q2 2026. The Trade Desk, the largest independent buyer outside those walls, grew just 3% while the broader programmatic market expanded 20.5%.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
The 98-cent problem
The top-line number for U.S. digital advertising in 2025 looks healthy: total internet ad revenue hit $294.6 billion, up 13.9% year-on-year, according to the IAB and PwC.[1] Programmatic alone added $162.4 billion, growing 20.5%.[1] Somewhere inside those numbers, most of the growth went to three companies.
Axis Intelligence tracked where the new money actually landed. Its Digital Ad Growth Concentration Index reached 98.27% in Q2 2026, meaning Google, Meta and Amazon claimed 98.27 cents of every new dollar added by the top five platforms, $27.18 billion out of $27.68 billion in incremental revenue.[4] The remaining two platforms split the 73 cents left over.
David Cohen, CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, said that artificial intelligence is rapidly moving from theory into practice, emerging as a meaningful driver of efficiency and effectiveness across the industry.[1] That efficiency is flowing almost entirely to the platforms that built the AI.
How AI is doing the work
Google's ad revenue reached $81.6 billion in Q2 2026, up 14.4% year-on-year, according to its US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing.[2] Meta grew faster: its advertising revenue came in at $59.4 billion for the quarter, a 27.5% year-on-year rise.[3] Amazon's advertising services business added $19.8 billion, up 26.2%.[4]
Mark Zuckerberg attributed Meta's run directly to its AI investment. "AI is accelerating our core business today, powering our next generation of products, and opening the door to entirely new enterprise opportunities," he said on the company's Q2 earnings call.[3] Meta, Google and Amazon have each built AI tools that close the loop between creative production, audience targeting and conversion measurement inside their own platforms, giving advertisers running those tools little reason to buy elsewhere.
Bernstein analysts forecast in September 2025 that Meta is on track to surpass Google Search in total ad dollars, a reversal that would have seemed implausible five years ago. Meta's Q2 trajectory makes that forecast look conservative.
| Platform | Q2 2026 revenue | Year-on-year growth |
|---|---|---|
| Google (Alphabet) | $81.6 billion | +14.4% |
| Meta | $59.4 billion | +27.5% |
| Amazon Advertising | $19.8 billion | +26.2% |
The Trade Desk gap
For Australian media buyers, the number that cuts closest is The Trade Desk's quarterly result. The largest independent demand-side platform grew Q2 2026 revenue to $715 million, up 3% year-on-year.[4] The broader programmatic market expanded 20.5% over the same period, a 17-percentage-point gap that reflects structural concentration rather than a one-quarter anomaly.[1]
The Trade Desk grew at roughly one-seventh the rate of the programmatic market it operates in during Q2 2026, while the three walled-garden platforms each posted growth between 14% and 27%. Agencies that built programmatic strategies around independent pipes are watching that argument compress in real time.
Google, Meta and Amazon are making the measurement case for leaving their platforms harder to write by improving the measurement inside them. Every AI-powered attribution tool they ship tightens that argument by one more step. The Trade Desk's next quarterly result is due in November 2026.
SOURCES & CITATIONS
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What is the Digital Ad Growth Concentration Index?
Why did The Trade Desk grow so slowly compared to the programmatic market?
Is Meta really on track to surpass Google Search in ad revenue?
Xaviery Malinao writes for Prompt the Market on how brands and agencies are adapting to answer engines, drawing on Bushnote's work with clients across search, AI search and content.
