AdExchanger

The biggest obstacle to AI transformation may not be disorganized data but the messy workflows around it, says Rebecca Sykes, a partner at The Brandtech Group, where she leads the emerging tech practice.

Lara Cohen, Cloudflare’s VP of Strategic Partnerships for Media, Creators, and AI, brings experience from journalism, Twitter, and Linktree. She explores how publishers can identify AI bots, control access to content, and get paid when machines use it. The conversation also covers answer engine optimization, AI training controls, agentic shopping, and the future of authoritative online content.

Courtney Glaze, VP of Revenue Operations at The New York Times, brings a competitive streak and sharp publishing perspective. She explains why premium value beats programmatic volume, how first-party data and carefully chosen partners protect inventory, and how Brand Match connects advertisers with relevant audiences. She also explores thoughtful ad expansion at The Athletic and practical AI that streamlines revenue operations.

Abby Klassen, CEO of performance agency Tenuity and former advertising trade journalist, explores the unglamorous foundations behind effective AI. She discusses unified measurement, holistic ROAS, fragmented marketing stacks, and why reliable AI agents need clean data and governed workflows. She also examines agency talent, creativity, and the risks of fully autonomous advertising.

Jennifer Quigley-Jones, founder of Digital Voices and a creator-marketing strategist at PMG, traces her journey from humanitarian work to YouTube and beyond. They explore creator partnerships becoming a scaled media channel, streaming platforms’ pursuit of creator IP, the limits of automation, smarter influencer spending, transparent pricing, ethical guardrails and the evolving relationship between brands and creators.

Tim Frank, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President for Monetization, Commerce, and the AI Economy, explores how businesses can thrive across the human, LLM, and agentic webs. They discuss AI-powered shopping, richer product data, publisher protection, agent-aware measurement, and the balance between automated convenience and meaningful human choices.

Jana Meron and Scott Messer, publisher monetization consultants and co-founders of AdTech Therapy, unpack the sell side’s biggest headaches. They explore Google’s antitrust remedies, AI-driven traffic declines, publisher data co-ops, shifting impression metrics and media quality. They also discuss creator-focused AI, curation, agentic tools and collective action to restore publisher leverage.

Emily Steele, co-founder and CEO of Hummingbirds, helps brands turn local word of mouth into measurable creator marketing. She discusses why nano creators build trust, how influencer fatigue is reshaping endorsements, and where brands should draw the line on creative control. She also explores recruiting hyperlocal talent, TikTok and Instagram discovery, AI influencers, and using receipt scanning to connect creator campaigns with in-store purchases.

Scott Ensign, Chief Strategy Officer at Butler Till and AI-driven programmatic lead, talks agentic AI running a CTV campaign end-to-end with less manual optimization. He covers ethics vs efficiency, Ad Context Protocol and standards, how media roles will shift, DSP evolution for richer signals, and Butler Till’s innovation fund and curation wins.

Thousands of advertisers are taking Google to arbitration over alleged ad overpayments. Attorney Ashley Keller of Keller Postman explains the legal strategy and what a positive outcome could mean for claimants.