# Retail media platforms: what AI models recommend, October 2026

GTM AI Recommendation Index, October 2026 Edition. Asked as "retail media advertising platform" and as "platform to run and manage retail media ads", six framings each, to fourteen models with search on, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. Added to the October 2026 Edition on October 4, 2026; its answers are read by the distilled judge (ai-indexes-judge-qwen3-14b-run3), not the claude-opus-5 judge of the earlier categories. Page: https://gtm-ai-index.com/marketing/retail-media-platforms/

**Standing:** Amazon Ads leads with 33% of first choices; verdict contested. 55 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| # | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Amazon Ads | 33% | 2% | 43 |
| 2 | Walmart Connect | 16% | 18% | 56 |
| 3 | Pacvue | 7% | 0% | 17 |
| 4 | Skai | 5% | 10% | 10 |
| 5 | Instacart Ads | 2% | 14% | 29 |
| 6 | Criteo | 2% | 13% | 15 |
| 7 | Target Roundel | 0% | 31% | 29 |
| 8 | Kroger Precision Marketing | 0% | 19% | 16 |
| 9 | Amazon | 0% | 33% | 12 |

## Each model's first choice on the direct prompt

- Claude Haiku 4.5: Demandbase, StackAdapt; alternatives Amazon, Home Depot's retail media network
- GPT-5.4 mini: Walmart Connect; alternatives Amazon Ads, Criteo, Pacvue
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Pacvue; alternatives CitrusAd, Kevel, Mirakl Ads, Skai
- Perplexity Sonar: StackAdapt; alternatives Criteo Retail Media
- Grok 4.1 Fast: Amazon Ads; alternatives Walmart Connect
- Mistral Small: Amazon Ads, Walmart Connect; alternatives Pacvue, Quartile
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Amazon Ads; alternatives AdLib, Microsoft Advertising, Walmart Connect
- Llama 4 Maverick: no first choice
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Faire, Google Ads, LinkedIn Campaign Manager; alternatives Amazon Ads, Walmart Connect
- Kimi K2: Microsoft Advertising; alternatives Amazon Business Ads, Criteo, Google Ads, LinkedIn Campaign Manager
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Amazon Ads, Walmart Connect; alternatives Criteo, Target Roundel, Teikametrics
- MiniMax M2.5: Amazon Ads; alternatives Best Buy Ads, Criteo Commerce Media Platform, Walmart Connect
- GPT-6 Luna: Amazon Ads; alternatives Pacvue
- Muse Glimmer 30B: Criteo, Mirakl Ads; alternatives Moloco Retail Media Platform, Osmos

## Sources the answers cite

78 of 84 answers came back with a source list, from 14 of 14 models. Sites named in the most answers:

- guideflow.com: 40 answers, 40 citations
- improvado.io: 37 answers, 38 citations
- osmos.ai: 32 answers, 44 citations
- g2.com: 22 answers, 30 citations
- theretailexec.com: 22 answers, 23 citations
- moloco.com: 19 answers, 20 citations
- shopify.com: 17 answers, 23 citations
- digiday.com: 17 answers, 19 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://guideflow.com/blog/retail-media-platforms (39 answers)
- https://improvado.io/blog/top-retail-media-networks (37 answers)
- https://osmos.ai/blog/retail-media-evolution-the-complete-guide (20 answers)
- https://moloco.com/zh/blog/retail-media-platforms (18 answers)
- https://theretailexec.com/tools/best-retail-media-platform (17 answers)
- https://topsort.com/post/best-retail-media-platforms (17 answers)
- https://voyado.com/resources/blog/best-retail-media-software (17 answers)
- https://fitsmallbusiness.com/guide-to-retail-media-for-smbs (14 answers)
- https://gartner.com/reviews/market/retail-media-networks (14 answers)
- https://madgicx.com/blog/ad-tech-platform-for-retail-advertising (14 answers)

## Warned against

- Walmart Connect: 10 of 56 labels negative. "Avoid pure retail media platforms (like standard Amazon Ads or Walmart Connect)" (Kimi K2, direct prompt)
- Target Roundel: 9 of 29 labels negative. "Platforms like Amazon Advertising, Walmart Connect, Target Roundel, and similar retail media networks focus on: Consumer shopping behavior" (Claude Haiku 4.5, paraphrase prompt)
- Amazon: 4 of 12 labels negative. "Amazon if you don’t sell on Amazon, need more upper-funnel brand storytelling, or face high CPCs that break unit economics." (Perplexity Sonar, negative prompt)
- Instacart Ads: 4 of 29 labels negative. "such as Swiftly and Instacart Ads, have limited third-party review coverage, making it harder to validate their performance and reliability" (Mistral Small, negative prompt)

## Record

- Method: https://gtm-ai-index.com/methodology/
- Raw judge labels and full responses: https://gtm-ai-index.com/data/
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as GTM AI Recommendation Index, October 2026 Edition, gtm-ai-index.com.