Taboola (NASDAQ: TBLA) announced on February 18, 2026 that it has added a heavyweight from the digital‑media arena to its senior ranks. Krishan Bhatia, a veteran who previously spearheaded global video advertising at Amazon and ran NBCUniversal’s advertising and partnership division, will take on the newly created role of Chief Business Officer. In the capacity of CBO, Bhatia will oversee Taboola’s worldwide sales engine and partnership strategy, with a mandate to drive revenue across the company’s expanding portfolio that now includes the Realize performance‑advertising platform, a network of publisher relationships, CTV solutions, and a suite of generative AI tools.
A strategic hire at a pivotal moment
The timing of the appointment coincides with Taboola’s push to broaden its reach beyond the traditional search‑and‑social stronghold that dominates performance advertising. The firm has been positioning Realize as a scalable alternative that promises measurable outcomes for advertisers while delivering value to publishers. Simultaneously, Taboola’s DeeperDive offering—an AI‑powered suite designed to help publishers create and monetize content—has entered the market as generative‑AI gains traction across ad tech.
“Krishan is joining Taboola at a pivotal moment in our journey,” said Adam Singolda, Taboola’s chief executive. “We are redefining performance advertising on the open web and beyond. Realize is gaining real momentum as advertisers look for scalable growth beyond search and social. At the same time, DeeperDive is bringing generative AI directly to publishers in ways that are helping them innovate and thrive. The opportunity in front of us is massive.”
Singolda’s remarks underscore a broader industry shift: advertisers are increasingly seeking inventory that sits outside the crowded search and social ecosystems, while publishers look for technology that can unlock new revenue streams without compromising user experience. By enlisting Bhatia, Taboola signals its intent to capitalize on these trends with seasoned leadership that has navigated comparable transformations at Amazon and NBCUniversal.
Bhatia’s track record and the expectations at Taboola
Krishan Bhatia’s résumé reads like a roadmap of modern ad‑tech evolution. At Amazon, he built and led the global video advertising business that spanned Prime Video, live‑sports broadcasts, Twitch, and third‑party programming. In that role, he was responsible for integrating video ad products across a diverse set of high‑engagement platforms, a task that required both technical fluency and deep relationships with brands and agencies.
Before his Amazon stint, Bhatia served as President and Chief Business Officer of NBCUniversal’s Global Advertising and Partnerships division. There, he managed the company’s digital, streaming‑TV, and advanced‑advertising operations, overseeing the rollout of addressable TV solutions and data‑driven ad formats that catered to both advertisers and content creators.
“Krishan has helped build and scale some of the most important advertising businesses in the world at Amazon and NBCUniversal,” Singolda continued. “He understands how to operate at scale, how to partner with brands and agencies, and how to execute with discipline. We’ve spent years building a powerful foundation for long term success, surpassing two billion dollars in revenue under the strong leadership of Eldad Maniv, our President and COO. With that momentum, I’m excited to welcome Krishan Bhatia to the team as our first Chief Business Officer and for what he will bring as we scale the company and take our go‑to‑market execution to the next level.”
The comment about “surpassing two billion dollars in revenue” references Taboola’s recent financial milestone, suggesting that the company is now looking to translate that scale into deeper market penetration. Bhatia’s experience with high‑growth, data‑centric ad products is expected to accelerate Taboola’s efforts to sell Realize and DeeperDive to a broader set of advertisers and publishers.
What Realize and DeeperDive bring to the table
Realize, Taboola’s flagship performance‑advertising platform, is designed to deliver measurable outcomes—click‑throughs, conversions, and sales—by leveraging the open web’s vast inventory. Unlike traditional search or social placements, Realize taps into a network of premium publishers, offering advertisers a way to reach audiences in a brand‑safe environment while maintaining performance‑based pricing.
DeeperDive, on the other hand, represents Taboola’s foray into generative‑AI‑enhanced publishing tools. The product suite helps publishers generate content, personalize recommendations, and optimize ad placements using AI models that learn from user behavior. By automating parts of the content creation pipeline, DeeperDive aims to reduce operational overhead for publishers while increasing the relevance of ad units.
Both products are positioned as answers to two converging pressures in the ad‑tech ecosystem: the demand for transparent, performance‑driven spend, and the need for publishers to stay competitive as AI reshapes content workflows. Bhatia’s mandate will be to align Taboola’s sales strategy with these product narratives, ensuring that the company can articulate clear ROI to advertisers and tangible efficiency gains to publishers.
Industry context: performance advertising beyond the giants
The performance‑advertising market has long been dominated by Google’s Search and Meta’s social platforms, which together command a large share of digital ad spend. However, advertisers are increasingly allocating budgets to “open‑web” inventory to diversify risk, reach niche audiences, and avoid the brand‑safety concerns that sometimes accompany social feeds.
Taboola’s Realize platform is part of a broader wave of “performance‑native” solutions that blend the editorial context of publisher sites with the data‑driven targeting of programmatic ads. Competitors such as Outbrain, Revcontent, and TripleLift have been pursuing similar models, but Taboola differentiates itself through its scale—over 1 billion monthly users across its network—and its recent AI investments.
Generative AI, the technology underpinning DeeperDive, is also reshaping the ad‑tech landscape. Publishers are experimenting with AI‑generated articles, video scripts, and ad copy to keep up with the demand for fresh, personalized content. By embedding AI capabilities directly into its publishing tools, Taboola hopes to lock in partners who might otherwise turn to third‑party AI vendors.
Potential impact on advertisers and publishers
For advertisers, the combination of Realize’s performance metrics and DeeperDive’s AI‑enhanced placements could translate into more predictable spend and higher conversion rates. The ability to run campaigns across a diversified set of publisher sites—while still measuring outcomes in a way comparable to search—offers a compelling proposition for brands seeking to stretch budgets beyond the “big three” platforms.
Publishers, meanwhile, stand to benefit from a two‑pronged value proposition. First, Realize brings higher‑quality, performance‑based ad demand that can supplement traditional CPM‑driven programs. Second, DeeperDive’s AI tools can streamline content creation, allowing smaller editorial teams to produce more articles or videos without sacrificing relevance. The net effect could be a healthier revenue mix and reduced reliance on third‑party ad exchanges.
Outlook and next steps
Taboola has not disclosed a timeline for Bhatia’s integration into the organization, but the company’s leadership has signaled that the CBO role will be central to its go‑to‑market strategy for the coming year. As the ad‑tech sector continues to grapple with privacy regulations, cookie deprecation, and the rise of AI, Taboola’s ability to align its product roadmap with market demand will be a key determinant of success.
“Taboola has a bold vision for the future, built on global scale and innovative technology, to become a powerhouse for performance advertising and publisher success,” said Krishan Bhatia during the announcement. “Over the past year, Taboola has hit exciting milestones. The introduction of Realize further solidified Taboola’s place as the leading player in performance advertising outside of search and social. Taboola’s launch of DeeperDive, pace of innovation with generative AI, and continued commitment to drive success for advertisers and partners are the types of strong signals that today’s market demands. I’m excited to come onboard at this pivotal point of growth for Taboola and to work alongside the entire team.”
Bhatia’s arrival adds a layer of operational expertise that could help Taboola translate its product innovations into sustained revenue growth. If the company can effectively leverage his background in large‑scale video and TV advertising, it may be poised to capture a larger slice of the performance‑ad pie that is currently fragmented across a handful of dominant players.
Bottom line
Taboola’s decision to bring Krishan Bhatia on board as its first Chief Business Officer reflects a strategic push to accelerate sales of its Realize platform and AI‑driven DeeperDive suite. The move aligns with broader industry trends toward diversified performance advertising and AI‑enabled publishing. While the company has already crossed the $2 billion revenue threshold, the real test will be how quickly Bhatia can translate his experience at Amazon and NBCUniversal into measurable growth for Taboola’s open‑web inventory.
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