Opinion

In an era marked by generative AI, algorithmic optimization and an obsession with outcomes, cloud infrastructure has become a competitive differentiator.

Remember when you could update your privacy disclosures and be in good shape for a few years? Well, those days are long gone.

The IAB Tech Lab video classification updates introduced much-needed clarity. But valuable inventory, now categorized differently, is being deprioritized or rejected, even though its performance hasn’t changed.

The competitive set has shifted and it’s stacked against independent DSPs. But, instead of chasing what competitors already own, TTD can own what they can’t: trust.

Today’s developers face mounting challenges: heavier workloads, complex tech stacks and an increasingly fragmented advertising landscape demanding automation at scale. This complexity limits their ability to adopt new products and innovate.

Human-made content will remain the most important source of information for consumers online. And our appreciation for human expression will only grow as we experience derivative outputs created by AI models.

Today’s biggest retail events are noisy, fast-moving and fiercely competitive. From back-to-school time and Prime Day to Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the entire holiday shopping season, success comes down to securing attention before the rush begins.

Television advertising has undergone a remarkable transformation in recent years, with connected TV (CTV) emerging as a powerful channel for marketers seeking the impact of traditional television with the precision of digital targeting.

New social media content moderation policies will enable connections with audiences that reflect a broader range of perspectives, expand inventory, and provide opportunities for contextual alignment.

In today’s digital advertising landscape, speed, scale and sophistication have become both a promise and a problem. Innovation has accelerated – but so too has fragmentation. Marketers are expected to drive performance across an ever-expanding universe of platforms, formats and data streams – often without the clarity or confidence they need to succeed.

Almost a decade ago, running multiple retargeters across the same user base was a recipe for inefficiency. But the landscape shifted, and the data makes that clear.

As the advertising industry races forward, core technology providers – particularly ad servers, dynamic creative platforms and attribution or measurement companies – play an increasingly critical role in powering the infrastructure that enables targeted, data-driven and performance-optimized campaigns at scale. But one outdated pricing model is becoming an obstacle to innovation, efficiency and effectiveness: CPM-based pricing.

As the quality of answer engines improves, people will click through to publisher websites less often. The solution isn’t to wage war against AI. It’s time to build a sustainable future for all stakeholders.

As marketing fails to speak the language of business outcomes due to an overemphasis on vanity metrics, it is increasingly losing its seat at the decision-making table.

With over $200 billion in programmatic spending on the table next year, maximizing yield is the name of the game for publishers in 2026. Capturing that opportunity demands maximum optionality across demand paths and signals. And with AI reshaping the landscape (referrals from ChatGPT to news publishers saw a 25x increase from the first half of 2024 to the first half of 2025, while traditional search traffic heads in the other direction) it is more important than ever for publishers to optimize their monetizable inventory.

Brands spend millions activating around Coachella. Then they spend the next three months trying to figure out if any of it actually worked. It’s a reflection of our industry’s broken approach to measuring media effectiveness.

For advertisers, the holiday season poses an optimal opportunity to reach a new and broader audience, boost sales and foster brand loyalty with customers. And this season, CTV should be a core area of focus.

AI agents and so-called “super signal aggregators” are being framed as the saviors of premium publishers and advertisers who prioritize high-quality media. But these technologies could perpetuate programmatic’s worst practices.

Overreliance on performance channels in pursuit of short-term gains creates fragility in the growth model, especially when brand equity is underfunded and unable to drive demand. 

The return of in-banner video has resulted in a deluge of cheap video supply flooding the open web, driving down CPM rates for dedicated video inventory and creating user experience and ad quality concerns.

TV audiences are rallying around CTV, and advertisers are following suit . But with this shift comes a persistent challenge: How can advertisers ensure brand safety, campaign efficiency and audience relevance in a fragmented, opaque streaming ecosystem?

Marketers today are operating in an outcome-obsessed world. For mobile app marketers, especially, the smallest screen in the home – the mobile phone – has become the default choice for driving lower-funnel outcomes.

Curated deals were once seen as a smart way to bring structure to programmatic chaos. Today, they’ve become table stakes.

With Amazon Prime Day in full force, marketers are navigating one of the biggest retail events of the summer. But this Prime Day isn’t just a moment to drive sales; it’s a critical opportunity to test and learn.

CTV advertisers have carried over one-to-one programmatic logic from display and online video into a channel that behaves nothing like them. We need to stop chasing CTV impressions and start chasing impact.

Measuring media quality is just the first step. A bigger challenge looms: assessing media quality against a marketer’s short-term and long-term goals.

Michelle Urwin, Chief Marketing Officer of Skai, joined Sarah Sluis at Cannes Lions 2025 to share the biggest shifts in commerce media . From Amazon’s expanding DSP and full-funnel capabilities to the rise of Agentic AI in campaign optimization, this conversation dives into how retail media is evolving fast, and how advertisers can keep up. […]

In this fast-paced and insightful conversation from Cannes, Michelle Urwin, Chief Marketing Officer at Skai, breaks down the top three trends shaping Amazon Ads and how advertisers are successfully targeting their rich data across platforms and devices driving more revenue and maximizing campaign performance.

The demise in recent years of legacy DSPs is not a glitch in the matrix; it’s a business model failure, leaving SSPs and publishers to pick up the pieces. 

In an omnichannel environment, managing and selling ads is becoming too complex for humans to handle alone. That’s why many are turning to AI tools to maximize ad inventory