There's also option (2b) The new CTO is no-one special, but actually spends most of their time dealing with administrative bullshit related to the integration, leaving you more free to focus on managing your team and architecting ad-servers.
Given the only context we've got is that the new CTO has no background in design decisions related to your problem domain or affiliation with any of the acquired companies but is an ex-company leader with the trust of the CEO, I'd even speculate that's the most likely outcome.
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There's also option (2b) The new CTO is no-one special, but actually spends most of their time dealing with administrative bullshit related to the integration, leaving you more free to focus on managing your team and architecting ad-servers.
Given the only context we've got is that the new CTO has no background in design decisions related to your problem domain or affiliation with any of the acquired companies but is an ex-company leader with the trust of the CEO, I'd even speculate that's the most likely outcome.