Podcast Summary: Next in Media

Episode: Reinventing Ad Tech—Criteo’s CEO on Retail Media, AI, and the Future of Addressability

Host: Mike Shields
Guest: Michael Komasinski (CEO, Criteo)
Release Date: October 7, 2025

Episode Overview

In this episode, Mike Shields sits down with Michael Komasinski, the recently appointed CEO of Criteo, to dissect the dramatic transformation of the ad tech landscape—especially in retail media. The conversation explores Criteo’s pivot from retargeting to a major player in retail media, the sector’s growth and challenges, the impact of AI and agentic buying, and the company’s evolving role as an independent tech provider. Komasinski also reflects on Criteo’s partnerships, notably with Google, and muses on the future of addressability, measurement, and AI’s practical role in advertising.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Criteo’s Reinvention and Strategic Acquisitions

• Legacy & Transformation:
  • Criteo, once synonymous with retargeting, faced existential threats from cookie deprecation and privacy changes.
  • Under former CEO Megan Clarkin, the company diversified via critical acquisitions:
    • HookLogic (2016): Laid the foundation for retail media business.
    • IponWeb: Brought advanced ad tech tools and the Commerce Grid (SSP).
  • Embraced the addressability challenge, investing in technology to leverage “weak signals” to preserve targeting (02:28).
• Quote:

  "The company did well...really embraced the addressability challenge...developing technology to harvest weak signal as a way to preserve addressability...In many ways, it future-proofed [Criteo] for whatever the ebbs and flows will be in that part of the ecosystem."
  — Michael Komasinski [03:50]

2. Role as an Independent Technology Provider

• Neutral Player in Retail Media:

  • Unlike Amazon or Walmart, Criteo doesn’t operate a marketplace; rather, they provide ad tech infrastructure across the ecosystem—both supply and demand sides.
  • Criteo now supports ~230 retailers with ~$160bn in gross merchandise volume (GMV), enabling especially midsize retailers to access state-of-the-art ad stacks (07:10).

• Quote:

  "We are an independent technology provider which makes us neutral...We support the entire ecosystem of retail media, both sell side and buy side."
  — Michael Komasinski [05:26]

• Why Retailers Don’t Go It Alone:

  • Building and maintaining sophisticated ad tech is costly and complex—most retailers lack the scale or expertise to self-provision.
  • Continuous innovation and demand generation require specialized technology partners.

3. Market Dynamics, Partnerships, and Growth Barriers

• Consolidation, Growth & Incrementality:

  • Amid rapid growth, the sector’s easy money—from digitizing in-store promotional budgets—has already migrated. Future growth depends on winning a share of broader, national media budgets (09:39).
  • Partnerships (e.g., Macy's+Amazon, Walmart+The Trade Desk) are about accessing incremental demand rather than simple consolidation.

• Quote:

  “[Now] the easy money is over.” — attributed to Melanie Zimmerman, Criteo GM of Retail [09:43]

• Unlocking Next-Phase Growth:

  • Reduction of friction in buying across retailers, standardized measurement, and the opening of new, programmatic “pipes” are essential.

4. The Challenge of Unifying Budgets and Teams

• Slow Organizational Change:

  • Brands and agencies are moving towards holistic measurement but still often operate with separate teams for trade/shopper and traditional media (11:08).
  • Overlays and coordination are increasing, but full convergence is incremental.

• Quote:

  “It's changing, but it is slow. I would describe it as somewhere in the middle innings. In terms of convergence...”
  — Michael Komasinski [11:08]

5. Programmatic in Retail—More Than Just Turning on Ads

• Holistic Page Optimization:

  • The “just bring programmatic to retail” mindset fails to account for the need to balance organic and sponsored placements on e-commerce pages.
  • 2–3% of retailers’ GMV typically comes from ads—so optimizing for both ad revenue and user experience is crucial (14:21).
  • Requires sophisticated algorithms (deep tech) that prioritize both shopper experience and revenue.

• Quote:

  “It's a deep technology solve that requires, you know, independent ad tech companies that have large engineering teams. Kind of like ours.”
  — Michael Komasinski [15:31]

6. Impact and Role of AI

• AI’s Current Use:

  • AI aids in signal processing and optimizing campaign logistics, but business intelligence—not “magical” general AI—is more relevant right now.
  • Internal example: Criteo’s product team built an agentic workflow—configuring, launching, and billing a campaign via conversational AI interface (Claude), making workflows more efficient and scalable for clients, especially SMBs (20:28).

• Quote:

  “The whole sort of agentic front end to planning and activation is here now...We're doing that today and then we'll start to expose that to our customers.”
  — Michael Komasinski [20:28]

7. CTV, Shoppable Media, and Google Partnership

• CTV as a Performance Channel:
  • Criteo is integrating commerce audiences and CTV inventory (e.g., Roku-WPP partnership), viewing CTV as a performance-driven channel and opportunity for crossing retail audiences into new media (17:09).
• Google Partnership:
  • The collaboration with Google (SA360) extends Criteo’s access to incremental demand—viewed as an additive, not competitive, relationship (18:42).

8. The Future of Agentic Shopping, Open Web & Rexis

• AI Agents Shopping for Consumers:

  • Komasinski is skeptical of fully autonomous agents taking over all shopping—some high-friction tasks are unlikely to be delegated, and low-friction tasks don’t need automation.
  • “Agentic Shopping” will become an incremental, not replacement, channel (24:06).
  • Digital consumer evolution is additive, not zero-sum—“Nothing ever goes away. We only get more.”

• Quote:

  “It only becomes more complex, more fragmented, more channels, more platforms. It's never winner take all, it's never zero sum game and nothing ever goes away.”
  — Michael Komasinski [24:08]

• The Need for Recommendation Data:

  • For agentic shopping to work well, AI platforms will need Rexis (recommendation engine) data—built on observing billions of user actions, not just language semantics.
  • Criteo’s roots: their platform began as a recommendation engine for DVDs, long before pivoting to advertising (27:11).

• Quote:

  “Critio is incredibly deep in the Rexis space. So the backbone of our platform is built on 20 years of showing different ads to people, understanding what they clicked on or didn't click on what they bought. Didn't buy.”
  — Michael Komasinski [25:53]

• Impact on Open Web:

  • The open web isn’t “dead” but is becoming more efficient as superfluous traffic gets cannibalized by AI and conversational search, leaving more valuable opportunities intact (28:46).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Criteo’s reinvention:

  “It just bolstered the addressability and targeting capabilities of the company in many ways. It future proofed it for whatever the ebbs and flows will be in that part of the ecosystem.” [03:50]

• On retailers’ reluctance to go it alone:

  “If you're a mid sized retailer like you can't build that kind of ad stack let alone then like you said, bring the demand side to it.” [07:10]

• On post-easy-money phase:

  “The easy money is over.” — Melanie Zimmerman, Criteo GM of Retail [09:43]

• On the complexity of bringing programmatic to retail:

  “There's a set of technologies that need to be developed that we call internally holistic page optimization…it's about the trade offs between organic and sponsored.” [13:37]

• On agentic shopping:

  “I think some of it's insane...Nothing ever goes away. We only get more.” [24:08]

• On what’s needed for AI-driven commerce:

  “Platforms will need to develop more advertising or recommendation oriented capabilities...to build a data reinforcement loop that really is the competitive advantage that those platforms will need to be built on.” [24:59]

• On the open web:

  “It’s getting more efficient than it [was before]...the cannibalization is in the part that wasn’t very efficient.” [28:52]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Criteo’s transformational journey: 02:28 – 04:52
• Criteo’s independent tech provider role: 05:26 – 07:10
• Retail media challenges & consolidation: 08:26 – 10:36
• Organizational/budget convergence: 11:08 – 12:36
• Programmatic & page optimization challenges: 13:31 – 15:31
• AI’s current & future impact: 15:40 – 20:28
• CTV’s retail media promise: 17:09 – 18:23
• Google partnership rationale: 18:42 – 19:32
• Agentic shopping future & Rexis importance: 22:52 – 27:15
• Open web’s continued value: 28:06 – 29:03

Tone & Vibe

Conversational, thoughtful, and honest—mixing big-picture industry analysis with concrete examples, while maintaining skepticism for hype (especially around AI). Both Shields and Komasinski bring candor and subtle humor to demystifying ad tech trends.

For Listeners Who Haven’t Tuned In

This episode offers a rich, nuanced look at how one of ad tech’s pioneering firms is both shaping and responding to seismic changes in retail media, privacy, and addressability. Komasinski’s insights will resonate for anyone interested in digital transformation, the realities behind AI in advertising, and what it takes to enable growth for retailers beyond the tech giants. The discussion is packed with industry context, historical perspective, and practical analysis of where retail media and ad tech are headed next.