A (5:16)

The last week we had Ben Hoviness on the podcast, and he was very. He had observed a lot of people using AI to, like, translate a campaign brief into something that might be a media plan. I think he saw a lot of possibility in that realm. He was a bit more skeptical, I think, of using an agent to talk to an agent, you know, which doesn't really make at least that idea of, like, replacing Programmatic maybe replaces something else. And I'm wondering if you encountered anyone else who held that point of view, or are people really feeling like the future is, you know, an agent negotiating with an agent?

C (5:56)

Yeah. So I had a chat with Adam Ruben at Yahoo. Dsp. He kind of brought up the idea of, like, agentic AI as a replacement for Programmatic. And his take was like, it's something totally different. Like, it's not really like a replacement for Programmatic, really. It's just like a kind of new way of doing things. And he also was, like, bringing up how, like, you know, a lot of the stuff is, like, really focused on, like, the direct side. And he also felt that the more programmatic open auction agent to agent buying could be something down the road. But what that's going to look like is, in his opinion, going to be something totally separate from traditional Programmatic. So I think there's kind of a growing consensus around the idea of this talking point that Programmatic is going to be replaced by these AI solutions is maybe overblown.

B (6:46)

And the fact that we're having these conversations too, I think substantiates why. I've heard also at possible that AI and agentic AI especially is, you know, creating efficiencies, but it's also creating a lot of, you know, complexities. And the word fragmentation came up a lot in conversations all week. So, you know, it's kind of. It's kind of interesting to think about, you know, how emerging, emerging technologies, you know, serve a purpose and it's beneficial, but at the same time, the trade off is, you know, all these meetings about, you know, okay, how do we treat it? And, you know, also sometimes agentic AI or even AI search being treated like a different channel when, you know, convergence is what people are trying to do, but then, you know, there's too many channels and gets kind of hard.

C (7:25)

Yeah, yeah.

A (7:26)

I think that AI is getting a lot of these interfaces, I think can get you 80 to 90% there. You know, they still got the asterisk disclaimers about Things being incorrect. And if you're a media planner, that's millions of dollars on the line if something's just a bit off. So I guess the question is, who can kind of remove the, the vibe from the vibe coding.

C (7:50)

I was, I was talking with Paul Frampton Calero, the, the CEO of Goodway Group, a bit about this and he brought up like, you know, he, he was more in the camp of like, you know, everybody's talking about AI as like saving some of that initial setup work and like, you know, freeing up some time on all that. But like, he was really emphasizing like, you know, what he's reading and what he's kind of seeing in practice is like you have to do so much checking of the work, even when it's just like those kind of initial campaign setup things that it's like, you know, is this really saving time necessarily? Like, in a lot of cases it really isn't. So, you know, there are some serious trade offs in these early days with these AI solutions.

A (8:28)

I think a lot of the talk about AI, it's been, a lot of it's been in kind of the throat clearing realm. You know, people maybe weren't using it themselves a ton. And I feel like that has changed just because it's gotten so much better in recent months. So I'm wondering how people's talk about AI changed beyond just kind of this discussion around agentic or ui, like job loss, other kind of how it's changing agencies, all of that.

B (9:00)

I have a lot of stuff on this. Okay, so perfect segue into my little what I heard about AI at possible in a nutshell spiel here. Ready? So first there's some more critical conversations about where is all the energy and especially the energy it takes to power AI solutions and also how much it costs to be setting up all these AI and data warehouses that we keep hearing about in the media. So I've heard at least two people kind of raise concerns about sustainability impacts on all of that. And I kind of told Anthony about this when we were recording a recap video. But I can't, I'm permanently going to think of AI as almond milk now because of how much water it takes to like make almond milk. And that's why everyone's like, is it really worth it? I mean, should we really be, you know, can't we, you know, we really

A (9:42)

have switched from cow's milk. Okay, right, exactly.

B (9:45)

You know, so, you know, questionable. But anyway, so that's one thing that came up. Another thing was, yeah, I actually had A conversation with someone at Albertson's media collective. It was Elizabeth Perry, she's on their marketing team and she mentioned it still takes some, you know, discussion and some convincing to get some people, you know, really comfortable using AI. And that could be in a broad application too. Even from just typical AI use cases at work, you know, all the way to, you know, you name it. But it kind of just makes me think, you know, as a consumer and a person, I am also a little bit shy sometimes with my, you know, willingness to use AI just because I can't help but as a, you know, a journalist and a comedian like, fear that it's a threat to creativity. So I can see that in a lot of different ways. There are some just personal hesitations. And then to address your question about agency workflows, I had a great sit down chat with Dominic Benuto and that's Horizon Media's chief product and data officer. And we talked a lot about how AI is kind of a conversation starter really for how Horizon Media is trying to change, or rather reclaim the mantra, as he said, of agencies being a strategic partner to brands rather than vendors. And especially in like agency hold cos, where, you know, consolidation is only becoming more and more of a trend, it can be hard to really maintain those personal relationships with, with clients. So AI is kind of how they're seeing that rebalancing of the scales, if you will, between agencies and brands to, to use AI as a centralizing point of making sure everyone's the same language, using the same technology for, you know, disparate parts of campaign planning and workflows. So that was interesting. And then what else do I have? There was one other thing. Oh, this is probably the most obvious one, but I heard more conversations about how ads and ad strategy is starting to appear in LLMs like ChatGPT. So it wasn't anything too juicy, it was just more so I think it's interesting that people are willing to talk about it because before, you know, even just a month ago, it was like pulling teeth to get people to even admit, admit that they were seeing ads. So I also had a chat with someone at miq. It was Mo Chogtai who leads their advanced TV team. And we had a conversation about how MIQ was helping a tourism brand actually test ads on ChatGPT. And what's interesting he mentioned is that in the early stages we're kind of seeing strategy resemble search in a way because people, you know, might be looking for keywords or categories and maybe in this case it was you know, clusters of different categories and keywords. But what's interesting beyond that, and this is my, my perspective at this is I, I just feel like the search versus chatbot experience is very different from an emotional standpoint. So I have a hard time seeing how in the long term the search based strategy can really work. I can, I can kind of get into a whole bunch of examples of how it, even if you're not using ChatGPT to be like, you know, should I ask this person out on a date or something weird where you should probably ask a real person, even then I still feel like the fact that you're having a one to one interaction is, is just one of a few examples of why it feels more like an intimate conversation in a way rather than just, you know, using Google search to be like, hey, anybody out there? What's going on? What should I, what should I, I was having.

C (13:11)

So I, I was having an off the record chat with somebody about like, you know, because like a lot of people I talked to were very gung ho about ads and ChatGPT and like, you know, everybody's saying like, oh, I'm seeing way more of them now. You know, like the demand is flowing through. Like they're probably, you know, like ramping up the inventory to meet the demand. And this was actually an idea I brought up because somebody was talking about like, yeah, and like the early indication seems to be like, the ads are really performing well. People are actually clicking on them. And my take on that was like, yeah, that's because like the average end user hasn't learned to distrust the ads there yet. You know, like they have everywhere else on the Internet.

A (13:47)

Well, there's like human, human novelty. Right? Like everyone's curious.

C (13:52)

Yeah.

A (13:52)

Then it fades away.

C (13:54)

Yeah, yeah. You know, like we talk all the time about like ad blindness and how like. No, especially banner blindness. Like people like just ignore like where they expect to see those banner ads on websites and different things like that. So like, you know, that's over years of training of being online of people like seeing that stuff and coming to understand how they can just kind of phase it out. And you know, the ChatGPT stuff is new and it's novel, so that's why people are interacting with it. But you know, given enough time, that same ad blindness will set in eventually, I'm sure.

B (14:24)

Great.

A (14:25)

Well, let's take a quick break and then we're going to talk more about AI and also about the things that people were not talking about at possible. Stay with us. I'm Sarah Sluice, Editorial Director of Ad Exchanger. And with me today is Samantha Dasher, SVP of Publisher Strategy at Verve, where she works with publishers on audience development in what may be one of the most interesting moments that Open Web has had in a decade. So welcome, Samantha.

D (14:59)

Thanks so much, Sarah. It's great to be here.

A (15:02)

Audience development is going through a real shift right now. How are you seeing discovery actually happen today?

D (15:10)

Discovery is no longer a one way highway and honestly I think that's a very good thing for publishers. A reader might find a story through Google, a friend texting them a link, a newsletter, a podcast mentioned TikTok, or increasingly through ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini. What's changed is that there are now more surfaces rewarding quality content instead of fewer. If you create something useful, authoritative or genuinely interesting, there are multiple ways for that content to travel to the consumer. At Verve, we have a unique lens into this because we see roughly a billion publisher searches and LLM prompts every day. That means we can watch behavior shift in near real time. And what we're seeing is that the strong content tends to win everywhere. A well reported article might rank in search, get cited by an AI assistant, show up in a newsletter and spark discussion elsewhere. And that compounding effect is real. And for publishers, it means the opportunity today is broader than it was during the era where everyone relied too heavily on one channel. So diversified discovery is healthier, more durable, and frankly, way more exciting.

A (16:15)

So one of the biggest shifts that you just alluded to is that if I'm looking for information, I'm not typing it into a search engine as often anymore. I'm putting it in a prompt and it's giving me that full answer. So what does that open up? How does that change things?

D (16:33)

Oh, a lot. Search queries were often really shorthand, two or three words with very little context. And prompts are very different from that. People are telling AI systems exactly what they want, often in full sentences with details, preferences, constraints and intent layered in. And that gives a much richer understanding of what consumers actually care about. Someone isn't just typing running shoes anymore. They're saying that they need marathon shoes under a certain budget because they over pronate and train four days a week. That's a completely different level of signal. Because we sit across both search and LLM activity at scale, we get to see that evolution happen side by side. It's one of the clearest indicators of where audience behavior is going. And for publishers, I think this creates real opportunity. The sites with actual Expertise, niche, authority, and content that answers nuanced questions well are positioned to win. This is a much better environment than the old game of chasing keywords and volume for the sake of volume.

A (17:39)

So with discovery changing so much and happening in so many places and new places, how are the publishers that you think are the most forward looking and innovative thinking about where to invest?

D (17:53)

The smartest publishers we work with are doing two things at once. They're protecting and optimizing the channels that still matter today, while also investing in assets that compound tomorrow. Search still matters. It drives meaningful traffic and revenue, and publishers doing it well should absolutely stay focused there. But we're also seeing real momentum behind newsletters, registered users, first party data strategies, direct relationships and content built to perform across AI surfaces. Those investments travel further because they create value across multiple channels at once. And part of what we help publishers do at Verve is understand where they already appear in search and LLM environments, where white space exists and where they can grow. When you can see a billion of these moments a day, patterns become very clear. I genuinely think this is one of the most interesting moments publisher has had in years. And I've been doing this for 16 years now. There are way more ways to reach audiences, more ways to monetize quality, and more value being placed on what great publishers do best.

A (18:58)

So audience development is expanding and it's important to think of audience development as something that's encompassing AI as well as all of these other tactics that people have been using for a long time. So thank you Samantha and thank you to VERB for supporting Ad Exchanger podcast.

D (19:16)

Thanks so much Sarah. It was a real treat.

C (19:19)

Foreign.

A (19:24)

And we are back. So we've talked a lot about how AI is impacting the marketing industry. So let's drill in a little bit. What kind of pressure might that put on DSPs and SSPs?

C (19:38)

Yeah, so I, I had a lot of really interesting conversations around this because like in the run up to the show I felt like I was reading a lot of stuff that was saying, like, the big pressure is on DSPs to really kind of prove their value here because if you can spin up a buy side agent that basically serves a lot of the functions of a dsp and all of the agents, the major agency, hold codes and a lot of the indie agencies are investing in building their own agentic AI tools on the buy side that can essentially replace a lot of those functions. So it's like, all right, well how are DSPs going to stand out here? And then also I was asking people, is there more pressure on DSPs or SSPs. The take I got on the SSPs was like SSPs are always under pressure to prove their value in like a commoditized marketplace. So like it's the same old environment they're used to. So like they're, they've always kind of been in that milieu but like the DSPs now are under, are under the most pressure it feels like. And the big thing that's going to be A differentiator for DSPs is what their data, their data foundations are. You keep seeing this talking point come up like all over the place. It's like the DSPs that are, that have the strongest data foundation right now are the ones that are dominating in the discussions between how all the DSPs are competing with each other. It's part of the reason why Amazon is getting so much play right now. Because, you know, Amazon has that wealth of, of retail media data that they can use to build attribution out. They have their first party data source from Amazon Prime Video and also just like Amazon.com so they have that really strong data foundation that can prove that like kind of full funnel audience journey at least when it comes to like their walled garden platform. But also, you know, they work with third parties too. And like that was another reason why like on the open Yahoo DSP kept being shouted out among the agency people that I was talking to as someone who's really standing out on the open website because they have that identity spine that goes back to like all their Yahoo email logins and you know, all the information that they can get from that. So the big differentiator for DSPS is going to be like how they can differentiate on their data foundations. Because everybody wants to know, like everybody wants the best data for training AI. And so if you have that data, that's how you're going to kind of stand out. And if you don't have that data as a dsp, then you're going to have to kind of stand out in other offerings. And we're seeing the trade desk kind of do that too. There's all this discussion about where's the trade desk, source of data, source of truth when it comes to that. But they're really kind of going more into the media quality measurement piece and spinning out these kind of publisher tools to help publishers surface more inventory, premium inventory that buyers really want. So that's the way that the trade desk is kind of doing it. But there's a lot of skepticism on how effective that's really going to be when it comes to competing with these really well sourced data foundations that these other platforms have. And then I think related to this there's also the question of just who's most susceptible to job market pressures resulting from AI. I actually heard some positivity about this now. The consensus seemed to be like, if you're senior enough to be at a show like possible, given that so much of this true agentic end to end buying seems to be more on the horizon than immediate, you're probably feeling a little bit better about your job security right now than you maybe were a year ago.

A (23:01)

So if I had to guess, I feel like as someone who's a cloud user, it's kind of giving you back intern junior level insights that then you have to use your senior judgment to determine whether or not it's on target or not. So.

C (23:18)

Yeah, exactly. Everybody kind of was like, like aligned with that sort of perspective that it's like definite pressure on like the entry level positions and stuff. But like, if you're a more senior kind of like strategic role, you're probably pretty safe for the time.

A (23:33)

So we'll, we'll see. I feel like that could change depending on how smart AI gets.

B (23:38)

Well, so entry level, but. Entry level but also like the freelance economy. That too.

C (23:44)

Oh yeah, that's totally, totally imperiled for sure.

A (23:48)

And Alyssa, do you feel like, I mean, what's your take then on AI and job loss? Like, have you, what did you hear from people?

B (23:56)

I wouldn't, I think the main comments that I heard was just really, I guess highlighting that like the freelance economy. And I can, I can definitely see that, you know, entry level aside, now we're talking about, you know, going, you know, looking for a third party. I feel like that's even less likely.

C (24:20)

Yeah.

B (24:20)

Especially when we're talking in the sphere of entry level positions.

C (24:24)

I was talking before about like the, the just like the glut of like AI startups that have come into the space and also just like all of these like incumbent tech companies and like just agencies that are like really investing in building out their own kind of solutions. This was something that came up in a conversation I had with Matt Burash, who's working on a new AI startup around creative optimization now called Nova Studio. And he was saying it feels like a great job market if you're someone of his kind of experience or that kind of level where you're sort of a proven commodity in the industry. Because all of these startups are looking for advice, they're looking for knowledgeable people. And even the incumbents are looking to just expand their knowledge base and bring in more smart people. So it feels like a hot market as far as, you know, the Matt Barashas of the ad tech world are concerned.

B (25:13)

I'm sure he'd love to be a category.

C (25:15)

Right?

B (25:18)

I'd be flattered.

A (25:20)

So we're going to talk about now what people were not talking about, but I guess I'm going. Before we get into that, I'm going to mention something that I thought might not be discussed, but was in fact discussed, which is I feel like a lot of brands have leaned out a bit from, you know, working with marginalized communities, kind of talking about what they're doing with anything DEI related or how they're, they're reaching underrepresented audiences. But, Alyssa, you happened to moderate a panel about heated rivalry and what it meant for brands. And so the fact that that was there meant something to me perhaps as a signal. But I'm wondering if that dynamic came up at all during the, the panel.

B (26:05)

Oh, absolutely. Because, I mean, especially just think about how we're having this conversation in Miami. And then on the panel we had, we had a reporter, the assistant managing editor from the Miami Herald, Amy Reyes, on, on the panel. So she was able to really give us perspective on, you know, we've started reporting on the LGBT politics in Florida and we're losing sponsors because of it,

C (26:26)

you know, and, and then, yeah, another thing that Amy mentioned was also like, you know, they're, they're covering brands and companies and like, agencies like local Miami businesses that are like, being investigated by like, the local government for like, you know, not shutting down, like, DEI initiatives for like, prioritizing like, spending with certain minority owned, like, like, businesses and things and things like that. So like, the actual, like the, you know, the political, like, discussion that we always have around these things is like reality for a lot of like, businesses based in Florida. So it was like a really appropriate location to be having these kinds of discussions.

B (27:03)

So overall, I feel like where I would kind of, I guess summarize the way that that panel went is so, you know, over time, brands will, you know, stand behind or support with brand dollars, marginalized communities when it's trendy to do so. But of course, you know, we see that when there's more, I guess, political scrutiny or backlash going on throughout the community that brand dollars, you know, decline. And so that's why, you know, heated rivalry is actually, you know, relevant for work because it's like, hey, you know, this, this major, you know, Openly gay director produces a show and it's on hbo and it has all of this popularity behind it, even months after the premiere, the premiere. And so this is a testament to, and this is actually what Amy Reyes said of brands kind of becoming more self reflective and realizing that maybe there is, you know, an opportunity to start actually putting more, more money behind supporting these communities because the LGBT population only gets bigger and that means that they have more money. So.

C (28:01)

Yeah, and to put a finer point on it too, it's like, you know, after the, after the, the 2024 election, it's felt like the entire business world is just like acting as if like the Trump administration is going to be in power in perpetuity and that there was somehow this like massive cultural shift away from like anything having to do with like, you know, diverse audiences or like, you know, not legally cracking down on like the gay community and the, you know, the trans community. And so like, you know, like the idea that like the pendulum is never going to swing, like it's, it just doesn't really make a lot of sense. And you know, it's, it's obvious that like when you look at like demographic trends and like, you know, somebody brought up the stat that like, like a fully, like 25% of Gen Z identifies as like some kind of like lgbtq. So it's like those, those demographic numbers are only growing. People are just being more comfortable being who they are. And so like the idea that like somehow, you know, the momentum is like, you can't push against what the current discussion is, is just like it doesn't seem to. It's such short term thinking in terms of like other kind of like things that like people weren't talking about. That was like very missing from the conversation that had been like very prominent previously. Environmental sustainability, as Alyssa alluded to before, was completely missing from any kind of discussion. And a couple.

A (29:26)

Which is ironic given that AI is actually causing way more usage of data than Programmatic, I think does. Right?

C (29:36)

Well, it's definitely making it worse. I mean, it's like, you know, programmatic itself was like already like on the hook for like all these kinds of like emissions. And you know, Brian O' Kelly's startup Scope 3 was doing a really good job putting that storyline out there at a lot of events. And then I had like several people bring up to me, like, I wasn't even asking them this, but like they were bringing up like, oh yeah, isn't it ironic that now Brian o' Kelly is like fully behind this, like ad Context, protocol, initiative. That's all about like, you know, agent, agentic, AI. And isn't that stuff bad for the environment? Like what happened to, you know, environmental sustainability, Brian? How come you're not talking about that anymore? So it's like, you know it and when a big player in the industry like that just like kind of draws back from the conversation. Like he was really putting that stuff out there in front of everybody and now it feels like there's like almost no support for it. So it's like it's really fallen by the wayside.

A (30:27)

So sustainability has fallen away. What about transparency and looking under and all those dark corners? Are people, are people whipping out their

B (30:38)

flashlights or so I would say. As far as transparency, I think it was definitely lacking from pretty much any conversation that I've heard or had. I think it's on my mind because I took note of the scores of announcements leading up to possible and purposely timed for possible. And there was one I noticed that was addressing transparency, whereas the others were very AI focused. And so it was integral ad science. They have something called IAS Total tv. It's a ad product suite. And essentially the point is, and why I'm even bringing it up right now is it was interesting that they mentioned the purpose is to bring quote, linear, like transparency to streaming because it's, it's just shining a light on exactly what is is missing. And marketers have been demanding it for so long, I'm almost wondering if they're getting sick of talking about it because it didn't come up impossible. But it's still an issue. And I think that's kind of substantiated by the conversations I did have about measurement and fragmentation being an issue because those are kind of two sides of the same coin. But I also thought it was interesting that this is announcement also mentioned that their platform is VPPA compliant. So if anyone forgot or if you missed, in case you missed it, it's a. The Video Privacy Protection act is sort of this blockbuster era privacy law that prohibits a company from disclosing someone's identity tied with viewing history. And there's been some amendments since then that make it kind of relevant for a digital age. But it is an excuse that publishers actively give to not share with an advertiser where their ad ran.

A (32:12)

I think solving for fragmentation and measurement across multiple platforms is going to be the most AI proof area to lean into because you have all of these platforms with their own measurement or just kind of more, you know, Google Meta, they all have these very simplified interfaces. But then a lot of brands and agencies still don't really trust the outputs because they're going to take credit for everything. So I think that being able to stitch together and kind of analyze and realize, I guess when the AI is just kind of overstating its influence or being a little bit too nice about its impact, I see that as being an area where there's just been a lot of attention even before AI. But I think it's going to be even more important as AI becomes more common.

C (33:05)

I have something to add there. This was another thing that kind of came up a bunch around the idea of MMM media mix modeling or marketing mix modeling, whichever one you prefer. The thing we've always heard about MMM is that it's like, very expensive to do. And so like, as a result, brands and agencies can really only kind of like, do their mmm like, you know, maybe every six months or like once a year, that kind of thing. But like, one thing that I heard a lot of people express a lot of positivity around AI was like, the idea of making MMM easier, cheaper and like, more immediate to do so that like, you can, you can do it even more like on a, like a weekly basis or even like, you know, like, we might get to the point where like, more brands and agencies can have almost like an always on MMM agent running, where it's really pulling in like the insights from all these different platforms and trying to come up with like a ground truth that isn't so dependent on the platforms creating their own homework. Like you were alluding to, Sarah. And then I, I have one more thing that was very different from the discussion at Possible. Every publisher contact that I talked to at the show was very disappointed with the publisher representation. They felt like there weren't a lot of publishers in the audience, in the crowd mix. There weren't a lot of publishers like, you know, really featured on, in, in the content and the programming and like, just the concerns around, like, publisher modernization, search traffic falling off of a cliff from AI search, all these other different big pressures on publishers. There really wasn't enough said about that. So, like, as an industry, I think, like, we really have to like, be on board with the idea that like, without publishers, like, there's so much, there's so much opportunity to connect with audiences that marketers are going to be missing out on. So, like, we really need to do better about helping publishers survive in this new era.

B (34:50)

Maybe the publishers will be at Cannes though, because the question that I was asked the most throughout the week was are you going to be at can and then also, how does it feel to be back? And I said it's awesome, so take it away. Sarah, bring us home.

A (35:01)

Okay. Yeah. The, the T, the it's the tee up for can possible, then can and pro AI, obviously in between. So thanks for listening. We know AI and measurement are the areas we're going to be seeing and hearing a lot more of. And transparency is conspicuously absent, as is sustainability and publishers. We got a media conference without media. How interesting. Thanks, Alyssa and Anthony, for going down and reporting back. Today's episode was sponsored by Verve. Find out more@verve.com that's V E R V E dot com.