AI won't be a panacea in advertising, Digitas North America CEO Amy Lanzi says, comparing the current hype to the rise of programmatic advertising, which failed to fully automate processes. Lanzi says AI could improve workflow and data analysis, but human creativity remains essential for compelling storytelling. "I think the minds and complexity of humans make great stories that you are attracted to," Lanzi says. "I'm not using the word creative. I'm using stories.

But using hindsight to inform your future plans means better foresight, too. That’s the idea behind Blueprint, a campaign-planning tool built on over a decade of past campaign data. Advertisers can buy an individual platform or brand’s proprietary data off the shelf, but it can be challenging to find a way to “daisy chain them all together."

Across panellists at this year’s IAB Commerce and Retail Media Summit, more consistency and standardisation is gaining momentum, and industry leaders agree common definitions, metrics and measurement frameworks are essential to build trust. But they’re equally clear: Complete standardisation is unrealistic.

The MRC, which is in the process of a major reevaluation of its existing standards and guidelines related to the acceleration of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine-learning models and their impact on media measurement, this afternoon released some interim guidance focused on nine core principles related to AI in media measurement

OpenAI's ad business has quickly evolved in its first four months, introducing features such as cost-per-click bidding and a conversions API based on market feedback, says global head of ads David Dugan. The company plans to continue this rapid development, leveraging its AI-first approach and lack of legacy infrastructure. "We started with the principles about being super focused on user trust," Dugan says.

Advertisers are interested in programmatic pause ads, but widespread adoption is hindered by the lack of a unified buying method. The IAB Technology Lab is working on standardizing signals for pause ads and other streaming TV formats, with updates expected later this month.

Everyone in the industry is going through the same thing right now. Your content team ships a solid asset, but traffic stays flat or declines. You pull up the analytics, see the line trending sideways, and conclude that AI content has stopped working. That verdict is often wrong. The data may be accurate, but the numbers don’t reflect what the content is good at.

Dollars keep slipping away to brand-unsafe corners of YouTube. It’s time broadcasters did a better job of reminding advertisers that where a brand appears matters.

Twelve months ago, the industry was betting on which AI platform would win discovery. Perplexity looked like the search-native challenger. Copilot looked like the enterprise Trojan horse. Neither bet paid off. The data shows consolidation. Monthly LLM sessions grew 9.9x, reaching 644,478 in May 2026. And 92.4% of that traffic comes from one platform.

We may be seeing the signs that Gen Z, the first digital native generation, is finding digital media lacking in terms of expected experience and return. If so, the ramifications for digital advertising and engagement could be significant

They can be salacious, scandalizing or downright silly — what matters most is that they’re short. Enter the world of microdramas, a genre heavily indebted to soap operas and steamy romance novels, but with content chunked up into small bites for the era of vertical video scrolling.

Amid ongoing discussion around teenage social media bans and measures to protect young users online, Pew Research conducted a survey of more than 9,000 U.S. adults to get their perspectives on potential restrictions, and gauge support for implementation. And the results were definitive.

Meta wants to steal TV viewers, Amazon and Apple are meddling with content, and traditional media companies are pursuing megadeals to try and survive.

Artificial intelligence, creators and a bounce-back in craft were some of the shared themes identified by attendees across the sweltering weeklong confab in France.

The World Out of Home Organization Congress in London formally launched Version 2.0 of its Global OOH Audience Measurement Guidelines — the most substantial update to the medium’s measurement framework since the original WOO guidelines were published at Congress in 2022.