Ad mogul sees Meta rebounding ‘extremely strongly,’ Amazon ad revenue hitting $100 billion
Sir Martin Sorrell, Executive Chairman, S4 Capital.
Eóin Noonan | Sportsfile | Getty Images | Web Summit
Advertising titan Martin Sorrell believes Meta will rebound “extremely strongly this year” and sees a promising outlook for U.S. tech giants, despite a bruising 2022 and mass layoffs.
U.S. tech companies have let go of more than 60,000 employees in the last year, as slowing economic growth, higher interest rates in response to soaring inflation and competitive challenges squeezed margins and hammered the stock prices of tech behemoths.
Facebook parent Meta in November announced plans to eliminate 13% of its staff, amounting to more than 11,000 employees. It also issued bleak fourth-quarter guidance that wiped out around a quarter of its market cap, pushing the stock to its lowest since 2016.
A broad slowdown in online ad spending and competition from new rivals such as TikTok, along with challenges associated with privacy changes to Apple’s iOS, have hampered the social media group’s business over the past year.
The company has also taken a substantial hit from its massive investment in building its augmented reality world known as the metaverse — a strategy that has proven divisive among analysts and investors.
Sorrell, executive chairman of U.K. advertising agency S4 Capital, expects Meta to address most of its business challenges in 2023, while benefiting from China’s reopening.
“I think you’ll see Meta come back extremely strongly this year, on the back of reels and business messenger, to deal with the competition from TikTok and other short form video competitors,” Sorrell told CNBC on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
“Google had a solid year last year, and I think they’ll have a strong year this year. Amazon increased its advertising revenues from $31bn to $41bn, and I think [it] will hit $100bn in time, despite what you’re seeing in terms of jobs and hiring.”
He also suggested that the reopening of the Chinese economy would be “huge” for big tech firms, noting that outbound Chinese business, or Chinese companies expanding their businesses abroad, were historically the second-largest profit centers for the likes of Meta, Amazon and Google parent Alphabet.
Sorrell launched S4, which operates in both the digital advertising and digital transformation spaces, after leaving ad giant WPP in 2018. S4 on Wednesday confirmed its full-year guidance, and Sorrell said his clients’ advertising spending priorities in 2023 would be “topline growth in activation and performance” and “reducing [the] cost of digital transformation.”
Technology
OpenAI to launch ChatGPT for teens with parental controls as company faces scrutiny over safety
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman walks on the day of a meeting of the White House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence (AI) Education in the East Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., September 4, 2025.
Brian Snyder | Reuters
OpenAI on Tuesday announced it will launch a dedicated ChatGPT experience with parental controls for users under 18 years old as the artificial intelligence company works to enhance safety protections for teenagers.
When OpenAI identifies that a user is a minor, they will automatically be directed to an age-appropriate ChatGPT experience that blocks graphic and sexual content and can involve law enforcement in rare cases of acute distress, the company said.
OpenAI is also developing a technology to better predict a user’s age, but ChatGPT will default to the under-18 experience if there is uncertainty or incomplete information.
The startup’s safety updates come after the Federal Trade Commission recently launched an inquiry into several tech companies, including OpenAI, over how AI chatbots like ChatGPT potentially negatively affect children and teenagers.
The agency said it wants to understand what steps these companies have taken to “evaluate the safety of these chatbots when acting as companions,” according to a release.
OpenAI also shared how ChatGPT will handle “sensitive situations” last month after a lawsuit from a family blamed the chatbot for their teenage son’s death by suicide.
“We prioritize safety ahead of privacy and freedom for teens; this is a new and powerful technology, and we believe minors need significant protection,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote in a blog post on Tuesday.
In August, OpenAI said it would release parental controls to help them understand and shape how their teens are using ChatGPT. OpenAI shared more details about those parental controls on Tuesday, and it said they will be available at the end of the month.
The company’s upcoming controls will allow parents to link their ChatGPT account with their teen’s via email, set blackout hours for when their teen can’t use the chatbot, manage which features to disable, guide how the chatbot responds and receive notifications if the teen is in acute distress.
ChatGPT is intended for users who are ages 13 and up, OpenAI said.
“These are difficult decisions, but after talking with experts, this is what we think is best and want to be transparent in our intentions,” Altman wrote.
If you are having suicidal thoughts or are in distress, contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 for support and assistance from a trained counselor
WATCH: FTC launches inquiry into AI chatbots acting as companions
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