The Trade Desk Announces Audience Unlimited: What You Need to Know

Key Points

• Audience Unlimited promises AI-scored audience data with simpler, predictable pricing.

• Its new adaptive trading modes give buyers either a performance co-pilot or full manual control -- both aided by advanced agentic AI.

• This arrives following a sharp stock sell-off.

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The Trade Desk (NASDAQ: TTD) operates the largest independent ad-buying platform on the open internet. On Monday, the company unveiled Audience Unlimited, a major upgrade to how advertisers access and apply third-party data on its platform. The new approach aims to push data from a nice-to-have to the default setting -- removing cost surprises, reducing guesswork, and tightening the connection between data and campaign outcomes.

Below are five things investors should know.

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1. What Audience Unlimited actually changes

The core shift is from a la carte segment fees to an inclusive, predictable structure. The company is rolling out artificial intelligence (AI)-scored audience selection across thousands of curated segments from hundreds of data providers so buyers can layer in as much relevant data as they want without playing "pick the perfect segment." In short, the marketplace becomes broader, cheaper, and easier to deploy in real campaigns.

Samantha Jacobson, The Trade Desk's chief strategy officer, framed the goal simply: "Audience Unlimited is going to transform the way marketers think about the value and cost of third-party data. ... the complexity of the data marketplace to date has made the deployment of data somewhat anemic."

The message to advertisers is clear: Use more high-quality data, get better performance, and stop worrying about unpredictable add-on fees.

2. Pricing and how buyers will access it

Pricing is explicit. In Control Mode (details below), advertisers who use Audience Unlimited will pay tiered rates of 3.3% and 4.4% of impression costs. In Performance Mode, Audience Unlimited is included at no additional cost. Importantly, a la carte pricing remains available for teams that prefer to keep their existing workflows. Predictable, transparent pricing should encourage broader data adoption, which -- if it consistently improves performance -- can deepen advertiser reliance on the platform.

3. New "Koa adaptive trading modes"

Alongside the marketplace overhaul, the company introduced two campaign approaches. Performance mode turns Koa (The Trade Desk's AI for its ad-buying platform) into a co-pilot -- an agentic AI that continuously optimizes bids and allocation within buyer-set guardrails, with full transparency and the ability to override changes. Control mode is for traders who want to steer every lever themselves, with AI suggestions surfaced but not automatically applied.

Notably, performance mode also ties together the company's broader innovations -- Audience Unlimited, Predictive Clearing, Identity Alliance, Prism, and free measurement -- so the stack compounds rather than operates in silos. This dual-track design should help the platform serve both hands-on traders and marketers who want automation at scale.

4. Timing: when it rolls out

Audience Unlimited and the Koa adaptive trading modes will debut with select agencies on the Kokai platform in late 2025, expanding to all users in early 2026. That staged rollout gives The Trade Desk the ability to work with large customers to validate performance, adjust workflows, and build case studies -- things that will be useful for broader adoption in 2026.

5. The business backdrop: stock pain, solid fundamentals

This launch lands after a tough stretch for the shares. The growth stock plunged nearly one-third in early August following management's caution about macro pressure on major brand advertisers -- an example of how sensitive investor sentiment remains around ad-budget volatility.

But the underlying business is still growing. In Q2, revenue rose 19% year over year to about $694 million, with adjusted EBITDA of roughly $271 million for a 39% margin. Customer retention remained above 95%.

For investors, Audience Unlimited is more than a feature refresh. It's a structural attempt to make third-party data an always-on ingredient in programmatic advertising campaigns, backed by simpler pricing and tighter AI integration. If cheaper, AI-scored data reliably delivers measurable lift -- and if performance mode lowers activation friction -- this upgrade could support steadier advertiser spend and deepen platform stickiness over time.

After a steep reset in the share price, this kind of product work is exactly what investors should want to see: clearer customer value, cleaner pricing, and stronger ties between tools that already differentiate the platform.

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Daniel Sparks and his clients have no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends The Trade Desk. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.