Host Darshan Radia, VP of Media & AdTech at Zimetrics, speaks with Ken Weiner, CTO of GumGum, and Vaibhav Puranik, EVP of Software Engineering at GumGum, two of the leading voices at the forefront of advertising technology. Together they unpack how the industry is shifting from knowing who a user is, to understanding what they're thinking.
From the early days of keyword-based targeting to AI-powered mindset signals, from CTV's inventory fragmentation problem to fully agentic media buying, this episode covers the full arc of what's broken, what's changing, and what will win. Whether you're a marketer, an AdTech operator, or a technology leader, this conversation is packed with real-world insight on the future of advertising.
Tune in as we explore:
(01:53) Contextual Advertising: From magazines to AI
(05:07) The unsolved scale problem in AdTech
(07:14) CTV: Why Ad dollars stay with household names
(10:11) CTV Ad format innovations
(13:17) IAB Tech Lab and standardizing CTV ad formats
(13:42) Agentic Media Buying: From RFP to activation, fully automated
(15:58) Will Agentic AI replace RTB?(17:12) Defining what a true AI agent actually is
(18:36) AI-assisted Engineering: Where the real gains are!
(20:26) The Future of Contextual: mindset-based targeting
(22:37) Who wins? Whoever drives outcomes for the
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