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Episode 149: Steven Liss of OpenAds on AI Start-up, AdCP, UCP, and how The Trade Desk stole his name
Date: November 21, 2025
Host: Ari Paparo (with Eric Franchi)
Guest: Steven Liss, CEO of OpenAds

Episode Overview

This episode features Steven Liss, CEO of OpenAds, who joins hosts Ari Paparo and Eric Franchi to discuss the evolution of OpenAds as an AI-native ad tech company, the latest industry standards in AI and ad tech, and what happens when a major player “borrows” your company name. The conversation explores the realities of using AI in both advertising creative and targeting, new standards like ADCP and UCP, and the challenges of interoperability in the era of embeddings.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Origin and Evolution of OpenAds

• Steven’s Background:
  • Originally, OpenAds set out to be the first AI-native ad network for running ads inside AI search and chat platforms.
  • [05:08 | Steven Liss]: “We built the technology… to run ads in AI search. It worked great, but we needed more supply… So, we realized… we could use AI for ads. And we are now using the same ad tech we pioneered in AI and bringing it to the open web in Programmatic Display.”
• Pivot in Strategy:
  • AI supply was dominated by OpenAI, and the market was more limited than hoped.
  • The company is now leveraging its AI for ads in programmatic display—focusing on contextual targeting and creative optimization in the open web.

2. The Name Game: The Trade Desk Confusion

• Issue: The Trade Desk launched a product called “Open Ads,” causing name confusion.
  • [05:45 | Ari Paparo]: “So how does it feel about the Trade Desk stealing your name?”
  • [06:21 | Steven Liss]: “It’s very confusing… it is quite likely that we OpenAds the DSP could end up bidding into the Trade Desk OpenAds.”
  • Steven jokes that he even had to explain transaction IDs to his mom because of the confusion.
  • Suggests The Trade Desk should switch their product name to “Open Auctions.”

3. Running Ads Inside AI: Lessons Learned

• Market Reality:
  • Few meaningful consumer AI platforms at scale beyond OpenAI.
  • [07:15 | Steven Liss]: “The bet we made two years ago was that AI was like mobile where there’s going to be an explosion of new consumer apps, when in fact… AI happens inside mobile.”
• Alternate Approach:
  • Choices for AI ad platforms: pursue long-tail AI-specific supply (e.g., chatbot companions) or apply AI technologies in existing publisher environments.

4. AI Companions and Contextual Ads

• AI Girlfriend Market:
  • [08:10 | Ari Paparo]: “The AI girlfriend market is equivalent to… in-app gaming—there's just attention.”
  • Steven clarifies both AI girlfriends and boyfriends are popular, and real emotional intelligence in AI companions sometimes surpasses the dating scene.
• Skepticism About Conversational Ads:
  • [09:21 | Steven Liss]: "I'm still very skeptical that people are going to talk to ads... I think the best use case of display inventory is catching someone's attention and driving recognition or a discrete action."

5. The Golden Age of Contextual Advertising — With AI

• Why Now:
  • AI profoundly improves contextual understanding, enabling nuanced ad targeting and creative alignment.
  • [10:33 | Steven Liss]: “What’s changing now with AI is you can derive a lot more meaning from the context on a page… we're entering a golden age for contextual advertising.”
• Industry Prediction:
  • Surge in contextual classification/verification vendors, sometimes bundled with brand safety.

6. Generative Creative & the Role of Purpose-Built DSPs

• How AI-Driven Creative Works:
  • Generates unique creative for each URL/context, optimizing resonance.
  • [10:50 | Ari Paparo]: “Is it like the creative says, ‘Oh, you’re interested in sports scores…’?”
  • [11:29 | Steven Liss]: “It’s this combination of contextual targeting with contextual creative… That’s why we realized we had to build our own DSP.”
• Building an AI Native DSP:
  • Not built on Beeswax; recent advances in coding models made it possible for a small team.
  • Coding models are said to have “improved the efficiency of every engineer on our team by multiples.” (12:15)

7. Artificial Creativity in Practice — Memorable Example

• Premium Beauty Brand Case:
  • AI generated an ad with a luxury lipstick on a messy bathroom sink, tagline: “Brand Name: The Only Essential.”
  • [13:58 | Steven Liss]: “It’s relatable and it solves the brand's problem of making it feel accessible and real to their target audience… that’s the sort of thing where… it wouldn’t hit nearly as hard as it would given that URL-specific context.”

8. The Standards: ADCP and UCP

A. ADCP (Advertising Data Collaboration Protocol):

• [15:28 | Steven Liss]: “ADCP is really laying out the spec for the rest of the ecosystem… closing the performance gap between open web and the walled gardens.”
• Key value is automating, scaling programmatic-direct deals, and enabling data-rich, efficient campaign planning.
• Prioritizing support for creative-focused ADCP elements due to agency/brand demand.

B. UCP (Universal Cleanroom Protocol):

• Enables privacy-safe sharing of user/audience data through embeddings.
• Technical challenge: Embeddings from different models aren’t interoperable.
• [19:59 | Steven Liss]: “Embeddings… are powerful, but the embeddings generated by one model are not at all interpretable by another model.”
• For contextual use, open-source models can work, but for audience signals, industry-specific open models are needed.
• [22:08 | Steven Liss]: “These open source models… weren’t trained on our audience signals… so you could have a data provider… donate an embeddings model with open weights.”

9. Notable Quotes & Moments

• Steven Liss’s Mom Reacts to Trade Desk Name Drama:
  • [05:58 | Steven Liss]: “She said that this was bullshit. Like, any DSP should be able to deduplicate incoming bid requests…”
• On Generative AI Creative:
  • [12:39 | Steven Liss]: “It’s like telling your creative team, you know, go lock yourself in a room and give me a thousand good ads… When you expose these models to all of the variety of the web, it acts like human inspiration.”
• On the Embeddings Dilemma:
  • [21:03 | Steven Liss]: “Who gets to decide which embeddings models we’re using? Are they open source or do we end up… with a branded provider?”
• Ari on AI Hype:
  • [47:56 | Ari Paparo]: "Everyone's using AI. If you're not using AI in your products ... what are you doing?"

Timestamps for Important Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |-----------------------------------------------|--------------| | Introduction of Steven Liss & OpenAds | 04:54–05:39 | | The Trade Desk "Open Ads" Name Conflict | 05:39–06:43 | | Original AI Chatbot/AI Search Ad Model | 07:02–07:51 | | AI Girlfriend Market & Use Cases | 08:10–08:57 | | Contextual Advertising’s New Wave | 09:21–10:50 | | AI Creative and DSP Development | 11:29–12:39 | | Example: AI-Generated Premium Beauty Ad | 13:19–13:58 | | Standards: ADCP & UCP Explained | 15:17–22:47 | | Key Critique of Embeddings in UCP | 19:59–22:47 |

Tone & Style

The episode is candid, lightly irreverent, and packed with insider anecdotes—mixing high-level strategy with shop talk and occasional industry inside jokes. Ari and Eric keep the atmosphere collegial but challenge their guest’s ideas and provide their own perspectives.

Summary

This episode offers a deep dive into the practical and strategic implications of AI in advertising, from the limits of running ads inside conversational AI platforms to the emerging golden age of contextual and creative ad optimization powered by generative AI. It highlights the importance of new industry standards (ADCP, UCP), explores the technical challenges with AI interoperability, and provides an honest look at the evolving vendor landscape. If you’re interested in what the next wave of AI-driven ad tech looks like—and want a front-row seat to the debates shaping its standards—this episode is essential listening.