SIGNAL BREAK: Tejas Manohar, Co-CEO of HighTouch Talks LiveRamp Data Purchase Proposition (from Publicis)

For weeks, reports that Publicis was exploring a relationship with Hightouch following its acquisition of LiveRamp circulated as an industry scoop. Until now, no one involved had publicly confirmed it.In this special Signal & Noise Signal Break, we sit down with Hightouch co-founder and CEO Tejas Manohar, who confirms that Hightouch has in fact been in discussions with Publicis.That confirmation adds an important new dimension to one of the biggest stories in adtech this year. What would a partnership between Publicis, LiveRamp, and Hightouch mean for identity, activation, clean rooms, and the future architecture of customer data?Rio Longacre, Brett House, and Tejas unpack the implications in a fast-moving, high-energy conversation between three practitioners deeply involved in modern marketing infrastructure. We discuss composable CDPs, warehouse-native activation, agentic workflows, and why the industry's center of gravity may be shifting yet again.To be clear, Hightouch is a sponsor of Signal & Noise, but sponsorship played no role in our interest in covering this story or inviting Tejas to join us. This discussion was driven entirely by the significance of the news and our belief that it deserves broader industry attention.This isn't the long-form Tejas episode we originally planned. That's still coming. Consider this an early dispatch—a Signal Break—to share an important confirmation with the market while it's still unfolding.Topics discussed:• Tejas confirms Hightouch has spoken with Publicis• What a Publicis–LiveRamp–Hightouch relationship could look like• Why composable architectures continue gaining momentum• How identity, activation, and measurement may evolve post-acquisition• The growing role of AI and agentic systems in marketing operationsIf you're trying to understand where the future marketing operating system is headed, this is one conversation you won't want to miss.