The data clean room space is evolving fast, but consolidation is the wrong frame. What is emerging is not a landscape with clear boundaries. It is an ecosystem of connecting nodes that brands will increasingly have to understand and navigate simultaneously.
The four layers
- The agency holdco play WPP acquired InfoSum, now a core part of WPP Open and WPP Media. Publicis acquired Lotame, bringing its total global reach to four billion consumer profiles across 91% of adult internet users globally. Omnicom absorbed Acxiom inside the IPG acquisition, bringing 2.6 billion verified IDs under one roof. Each acquisition follows similar commercial logic.
- The cloud layer consolidation Snowflake, AWS, and Databricks have built clean room capability directly into their data warehouse infrastructure. Amazon opened its Marketing Cloud to all Sponsored Ads advertisers in September 2025, removing the cost barrier that previously limited access to enterprise budgets. The cloud layer is attempting to become the default clean room for brands already living inside these environments.
- The rise of the independents LiveRamp remains the most interoperable option, connecting over 1,000 partners across cloud environments and walled gardens. Habu, now part of LiveRamp, strengthened its measurement capability. Optable is gaining traction in publisher and CTV environments. These players compete on neutrality: no holding company affiliation, no media inventory to protect.
- The emergence of cryptographic Decentriq, Duality Technologies, and Opaque are building on secure enclaves and cryptographic techniques that keep data encrypted throughout processing. Compliance is verifiable. This previously experimental layer is gaining relevance as regulation tightens and the demand for privacy-safe collaboration grows.
What this means for CMOs and CIOs
Establishing or plugging into a clean room ecosystem is the starting point. The baseline requirement of any partner relationship is that they access your sovereign data and it stays under your control.
But brands should be looking for more. The models, the audience logic, and the performance data should loop back into the orchestration infrastructure the brand owns, rather than accumulate inside a partner environment the brand cannot fully understand, control, or exit.
That is the configuration play that turns data collaboration into a growth enabler for the brand, not just a governance requirement.
For each category, the direction of travel is clear. For brands, the same clarity is worth building.
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