The Signal Economy Goes Live: Takeaways from MAU Vegas 2026

MAU 2026 marked a turning point where the industry stopped debating whether attention is the bottleneck and started organizing around it.
Cross-platform attribution moved from 'someday' to 'this quarter' for brand teams, with AppsFlyer extending mobile-grade measurement to web, answering a long-standing question.
AI crossed from demo to production, exemplified by Square's Sara San Antonio showcasing six live workflows including an MCP integration for real-time queries, creative QA tools, and a UAC pacing engine.
Retention overtook acquisition as the headline story, with creator-driven, always-on programs becoming the new shape of subscriber growth.
Web-to-app emerged as a highly efficient top-of-funnel strategy for app businesses.
Practitioners emphasized the need for clean signal layers to feed AI agents, as fragmented data scales fragmentation across the business.
The event highlighted that attention, not building, is now the constraint, shifting competitive advantage to capital allocation across fragmented surfaces.