Social Rocket
The Trade Desk is reducing its global workforce by around 15 percent. CEO Jeff Green informed employees on the 3th of September 2026; the affected staff will leave the adtech company on the 4th of September. Green describes the measure as unusual for The Trade Desk and justifies it with more focus, smaller teams and faster decisions.
The news matters for advertisers and agencies because The Trade Desk is one of the most important independent demand-side platforms in the programmatic advertising market. The job cuts also come at a time when the company is simultaneously placing greater emphasis on AI, CTV, retail media and new Kokai features.
Q2 growth fell to 3 percent
The move follows a markedly weaker second quarter. The Trade Desk generated revenue of 715 million dollars in Q2 2026, 3 percent more than the year before. In the second quarter of 2025, growth had still been 19 percent. Adjusted EBITDA fell from 271 to 241 million dollars; the corresponding margin dropped from 39 to 34 percent.
In his published employee email, however, Green stresses that the restructuring is not driven by acute financial distress. The company holds around 1,5 billion dollars in cash and no debt. At the same time, teams are to be organised more closely in smaller pods and scrums in future.
Based on the previous headcount, Adweek estimates that the cut could affect roughly 585 positions. The Trade Desk itself, in the published message, only names the share of around 15 percent and no absolute figure.
More focus on AI and the "Open Internet" approach
The restructuring comes only a few days after the launch of Kokai Zuma. The update brings agentic AI functions into the buying platform and is meant to automate campaign changes more extensively. In doing so, The Trade Desk follows the same trend we described in our article on AI in media buying and platform automation.
For media teams this creates an interesting tension: on the one hand DSPs are automating more and more operational work, on the other providers have to reorganise their own cost structures and teams. How important control becomes with agentic systems is also shown by our current article on cost audits for AI agents in media buying.
The programmatic market remains under pressure
For years The Trade Desk has positioned itself as an independent alternative to platforms that also own advertising inventory. That is precisely why this development is also interesting in the context of the ongoing adtech debate. Only this week a US court ruled that Google's adtech business will not be broken up.
In the short term, the job cuts change nothing about the platform itself for advertisers. In the medium to long term, what will matter is whether The Trade Desk can actually develop faster with fewer staff while maintaining service, measurement and product quality.