Microsoft may be shutting down its Xandr DSP early next year, but that doesn’t mean Microsoft is getting out of the ad tech game.
Quite the opposite, says Paul Longo, the general manager for AI in ads at Microsoft Advertising, on this week’s episode of AdExchanger Talks.
In mid-May, when Microsoft first made its announcement about the impending shutdown, “a lot of the focus was on what we’re moving away from versus what we’re moving toward,” Longo says.
Think of sunsetting Xandr as an evolution away from “a human internet,” he says, toward “an agent-assisted internet” and, eventually, a fully functional agentic internet where agents can converse with other agents to complete tasks.
Meeting that moment, Longo says, requires investing now to introduce more AI-powered elements into Microsoft’s ad tech.
“We wanted to bet on a buying platform that will get us there,” he says, “and that’s our Microsoft Advertising platform.”
But does the inevitable shift from a human internet to an agentic one mean human media buyers will be out of a job?
That’s really not what Microsoft has in mind, according to Longo. AI may be incredibly powerful, but it’s also just another tool, and one that can hopefully make a media buyer’s life a little easier.
“What I hear from a lot of media buyers is that they’re overwhelmed,” Longo says, citing a recent Microsoft survey, which found that 80% of people claim not to have enough time or energy to do the work that’s already on their plate.
In the near term, Longo says, and maybe even within the next year or two, we’ll see AI “bringing a lot of relief” into the media buying world.
“I still think [AI] is an enabler,” he says, “and not something that’s going to replace [people].”
Also in this episode: Creating conversational advertising experiences, digging into Microsoft Copilot and the difference between an AI assistant and an AI companion. Plus: Longo’s screenwriting credits!
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