Media Tech Talk

Media Tech Talk #041 - Rob Hall (Parallel) Part 1

What does it take to build an ad tech company from nothing, sell it, and then come straight back to do it all again? Rob Hall has done exactly that. He co-founded Playground XYZ in 2015 on a bold bet that real, measurable human attention could be put on a scoreboard for advertisers, at a time when almost nobody believed it was possible. GumGum went on to acquire the business, Rob stayed on to lead its global data function, and then he did something most founders don't: he stopped, took a year off and travelled. Now he is back as founder and CEO of Parallel.

In Part 1, Daevid and Rob go back to the beginning: cold calling out of the Yellow Pages selling gym and pub ads, the phone trick that cracked one of the biggest accounts in the country, and why that early grind built the resilience and solution selling instincts that carried into every venture since. Rob opens up on leaving a stable managing director role to start Playground XYZ with his co-founders, the moment COVID brought the business closer to the wire than ever, and the values-driven call the team made when the obvious answer was to cut jobs.

From there the conversation turns to the exit. Rob explains why they chose to sell while the business was still accelerating, the market forces that made the timing right, how an exploratory look around quietly turned into a process, and why, despite a deal he is proud of, it remains the hardest decision he has ever made.

Part 2 picks up with Parallel and the big question: can an AI digital twin of a customer really tell a brand what a real customer will do, before a single dollar is spent?

Chapters:

(00:00) Cold open: build it, sell it, do it all again

(01:22) Welcome Rob Hall, calling in from London

(02:21) Starting from zero: the early sales grind

(04:34) The cold call that cracked a big account

(05:46) Resilience, adaptability and selling a new category

(06:59) Solutions over analysis paralysis

(08:06) 2015: betting a stable career on attention

(09:45) What nearly broke Playground XYZ

(11:10) One in, all in: a values test under pressure

(12:49) Staying hungry: the challenger mindset

(15:06) Why sell to GumGum while still accelerating

(17:33) Consolidation and competing with the giants

(18:34) The hardest decision a founder makes

(19:06) Keeping publisher trust through the transition

(19:41) How the deal actually came together

(20:37) When exploring quietly becomes a process

(21:26) Coming up in Part 2: Parallel and AI digital twins

💬 Guest: Rob Hall, Founder & CEO – Parallel

https://www.linkedin.com/in/hallrob/ | https://helloparallel.com/

🎧 Host:

Daevid Richards – https://www.linkedin.com/in/daevidrichards/

Media Tech Talk explores ad tech, digital media, AI in advertising, programmatic monetisation, audience engagement, and the technologies shaping the future of publishing.

🏷️ #MediaTechTalk #Parallel #PlaygroundXYZ #GumGum #AttentionMeasurement #DigitalTwins #AdTech #Founders #Startups #MergersAndAcquisitions #Leadership #DigitalAdvertising #Podcast

Part one introduced the agents. Part two asks the harder questions. When software is negotiating with software at machine speed, who is actually in control, and what happens when something goes wrong?

Daevid Richards is back with Andrew Mole, co-founder and CEO of pubX, and Andrew Gilbert, pubX Country Manager ANZ, to move the conversation on from what agentic advertising is to what it asks of the people trusting it.

Andrew Mole opens up a single deal between a buying agent and a sales agent to show what really passes between them, and why he sees it as the inverse of the bid request. He takes the guardrails question head on, and makes a counterintuitive case about where the real risk sits. Andrew Gilbert pushes back on how publishers should think about handing over control, and explains why Australia's history with the bid stream makes trust the first conversation, not the last.

From there, the pair take on the standards question and what agentic could mean for the walled gardens, and Andrew Mole defends the timeline everyone keeps quoting back at him. They look at why ANZ may move later but faster, where agentic goes well beyond display, and close with crystal ball calls on the industry, the independent agencies, and the publishers today's deals have left behind.

If you work in publisher monetisation, agency trading, ad ops or media strategy, this is the conversation about what it takes to trust the machines with the deal.

CHAPTERS

0:00 - When agents make the decisions, who's in control?

0:47 - Welcome back

0:54 - Inside one deal: what passes between two agents

3:17 - Why this is the opposite of programmatic

4:47 - What could go wrong at machine speed?

5:27 - Governance and guardrails built into the protocol

6:59 - Where the real risk actually sits

7:57 - Trust, transparency and first party data

9:43 - Why ANZ publishers guard the bid stream

10:44 - Shared standards or a new set of walled gardens?

12:07 - Making the open web as easy to buy

13:31 - Could the walled gardens open up?

14:36 - Is the agentic timeline real, or just hope?

18:04 - The economic case behind the shift

19:13 - Does ANZ move first, or wait?

20:37 - Why change hits this market harder and faster

21:02 - Beyond display: CTV, audio, out of home and print

21:36 - Agents in print, and the bigger macro shift

23:11 - Crystal ball: Andrew Mole on the next five years

26:52 - When agentic just becomes normal

27:22 - Crystal ball: Andrew Gilbert on Australia

28:38 - Levelling the field for the long tail of publishers

29:43 - Thanks and wrap

30:33 - Next time on Media Tech Talk

CREDITS

💬 Guest: Andrew Mole, Co-Founder and CEO - pubX

🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-j-mole/

💬 Guest: Andrew Gilbert, Country Manager ANZ - pubX

🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewgilbert01/

🔗 pubX: https://pubx.ai/

🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/pubxai/

🎧 Host: Daevid Richards

🔗 https://linkedin.com/in/daevidrichards/

🏷️ #MediaTechTalk #pubX #AgenticAdvertising #AdCP #AdTech #Programmatic #AIAgents #PublisherMonetisation #AIGovernance #DigitalAdvertising #Podcast

For years, automation in advertising meant software following rules: bidding, buying, optimising. What is emerging now is something different. AI agents that reason, negotiate and strike deals on your behalf, on both sides of the trade.

This episode brings together the two people building that for publishers and advertisers at the same time. Andrew Mole is co-founder and CEO of pubX, his second ad tech company, built on five years and more than a trillion auctions of pricing data. Andrew Gilbert has just stepped in to lead pubX across Australia and New Zealand, after senior roles at Yahoo, Afterpay and IAS and a spell running his own AI advisory.

Across part one, Daevid Richards asks what advertising actually becomes when the buying and the selling are handled by machines talking to each other. Both Andrews trace how they got here, why an industry this inefficient was always ripe for disruption, and what a sales agent and a buying agent really do once you take the bid request out of the middle. Andrew Mole makes a call on whether agentic supplements programmatic or eventually replaces it, and Andrew Gilbert explains where the genuine ANZ appetite sits, why every publisher conversation starts from suspicion, and how AI assisted, autopilot and truly agentic are three very different things.

If you work in programmatic, publisher monetisation, agency trading or brand safety, this is the clearest look yet at where the supply chain is heading, and what happens to the people who have always managed those relationships.

Part two goes deeper into what really happens when two agents negotiate a deal, the honest question of what could go wrong when machines trade at this speed, and Andrew Mole's call on what it all means once this becomes the norm.

CHAPTERS

0:00 - The shift no one has explored on this show yet

1:17 - Welcome, and how many Andrews are at pubX

1:47 - Cotswolds shorts and the Central Coast commute

2:44 - Andrew Mole: Platform360, PubGalaxy and founding pubX

5:02 - Andrew Gilbert: Yahoo, Afterpay and going deep on AI

7:14 - Why agentic and AdCP moved this fast

8:51 - The swing back towards the publisher

10:47 - What is pubX, and the problem it is solving

14:08 - Signals agents, governance agents and the new stack

15:21 - Does this supplement programmatic, or end it?

17:12 - Who actually captures the media dollar

18:10 - What a sales agent does on a publisher's behalf

20:54 - Why pubX's pricing heritage matters here

22:38 - The ANZ reaction: appetite, and suspicion

24:53 - AI assisted, autopilot, or truly agentic

26:04 - brands.json and a new level of advertiser control

26:47 - How the buying agent works for an agency

28:15 - Collapsing the pre DSP and the activation layer

29:09 - Wrapping up, and what is coming in part two

CREDITS

💬 Guest: Andrew Mole, Co-Founder and CEO - pubX

🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-j-mole/

💬 Guest: Andrew Gilbert, Country Manager ANZ - pubX

🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewgilbert01/

🔗 pubX: https://pubx.ai/

🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/pubxai/

🎧 Host: Daevid Richards

🔗 https://linkedin.com/in/daevidrichards/

🏷️ #MediaTechTalk #pubX #AgenticAdvertising #AdCP #AdTech #Programmatic #AIAgents #PublisherMonetisation #DigitalAdvertising #Podcast

Media Tech Talk #038 - Alex Storey (Google) Part 2

Alex Storey, Senior Client Manager at Google, returns to Media Tech Talk to take on the topic causing the most anxiety in publishing right now: zero click search. If the answer appears on the page, what happens to the click? Alex doesn't dodge it. She makes Google's case that its AI features are built to point back at the web rather than away from it, and walks through the newer mechanics designed to keep readers moving through to publishers, including one feature rolling out now that hands control over which publications show up in your AI results straight back to the user.

From there the conversation moves into agentic commerce, and Alex's line that Google is the matchmaker, not the merchant. She explains the open standard being built so retailers, payment providers and AI agents can finally speak the same language, then runs a live worked example that starts with a 90s colour blocked ski jacket that doesn't exist yet and ends with an agent completing the purchase on her behalf while she's doing something else entirely. She is also clear about which parts of this are already switched on in Australia and which are still US only, and why one unglamorous piece of retail infrastructure has quietly become the most valuable asset a merchant owns.

The final stretch turns to the paid layer and the future. Alex breaks down what happens to search marketing when the manual keyword goes away, and what conversational ads inside AI Mode mean for brands that are used to buying a slot rather than an answer. Then comes the crystal ball. In 2022, a nervous client made a bet with Alex about whether search would still matter a year later. Alex tells you how that turned out, then makes a new bet with Daevid for September 2031, and shares the piece of career advice she wishes she'd taken far earlier.

Chapters:

(00:00) Cold open: picking up on zero click search

(00:55) Welcome back Alex Storey

(01:11) What zero click search actually means

(01:35) Publisher anxiety and the open web

(02:35) How AI responses link back out

(03:47) Preferred sources: pick your own publishers

(04:57) Agentic commerce: matchmaker, not merchant

(06:42) The shared language behind agentic shopping

(07:31) The ski jacket test: from prompt to purchase

(09:12) Virtual try-on and letting an agent buy for you

(10:44) What is live in the US versus Australia

(11:20) The retail data that now decides everything

(12:10) The advertiser toolkit: the paid layer

(13:03) What happens when the keyword disappears

(14:49) Conversational ads in AI Mode

(15:56) Closing the loop the internet was built for

(17:06) Crystal ball: the 2022 bet, and a new one

(19:43) Voice, screens and the Star Trek device

(21:33) The advice Alex would give her younger self

(22:55) What the future of media looks like

(23:52) Wrapping part two

(24:30) Coming next on Media Tech Talk

💬 Guest: Alex Storey, Senior Client Manager – Google

https://www.linkedin.com/in/storeyalex/ | https://www.linkedin.com/company/google/ | https://ads.google.com/intl/en_au/start/

🎧 Hosts:

Daevid Richards – https://www.linkedin.com/in/daevidrichards

Media Tech Talk explores ad tech, digital media, AI in advertising, programmatic monetisation, audience engagement, and the technologies shaping the future of publishing.

🏷️ #MediaTechTalk #Google #ZeroClickSearch #AgenticCommerce #AIMax #AIMode #GoogleAds #AdTech #DigitalMarketing #Ecommerce #ArtificialIntelligence #SEM #MarTech #Podcast

Alex Storey, Senior Client Manager at Google, joins Media Tech Talk to unpack the biggest era of change in search since the search box first appeared. From starting on the AdWords billing desk 13 years ago to leading Google's advertising relationship with Canva, Alex has had a front row seat to a decade of change compressed into 12 months.In part one, Alex takes us back through the eras of Google Search: the story of the very first search ad (a live mail order lobster business in the year 2000), the shift from desktop to mobile, the rise of vertical and visual search, and the 25 billion searches now flowing through Google Lens every year. She explains how AI has quietly powered search for more than a decade, from BERT's breakthrough in understanding conversational language in 2019 to Smart Bidding's 70 million auction-time signals that turned paid search from manual day trading into a predictive engine.Then we address the elephant in the room: ChatGPT's 2022 launch and the obituaries written for search. Far from shrinking, the search pie has expanded. AI Overviews now serve 2.5 billion monthly users, AI Mode has scaled past a billion monthly active users in its first year, and Google is seeing 5 trillion searches a year, with query volume in AI Mode doubling every quarter and queries running three times longer than traditional search. Alex closes part one with a look under the hood at search fan-out, and why one conversational paragraph can now do the work of a dozen searches.Chapters:(00:00) Cold open: the search box you now talk to(01:18) Welcome Alex Storey(01:58) From Nielsen to Google's AdWords billing desk(05:13) Keeping up with a decade of change in 12 months(07:30) The lobster ad: Google's first ever search ad(09:50) Three eras of search: mobile, vertical and visual(12:10) Smart glasses, privacy and augmented reality search(14:24) BERT and the AI quietly under the hood since 2019(16:46) Smart Bidding rebuilds paid search(18:47) The ChatGPT elephant in the room(21:08) The Jevons paradox: searching more, not less(22:54) AI Mode and the rise of conversational search(24:07) Search fan-out: one query, many searches(27:25) Wrapping part one💬 Guest: Alex Storey, Senior Client Manager – Googlehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/storeyalex https://www.linkedin.com/company/google https://ads.google.com/intl/en_au/start🎧 Host:Daevid Richards – https://www.linkedin.com/in/daevidrichards/Media Tech Talk explores ad tech, digital media, AI in advertising, programmatic monetisation, audience engagement, and the technologies shaping the future of publishing.🏷️ #MediaTechTalk #Google #GoogleSearch #AIMode #AIOverviews #SearchAdvertising #AdTech #DigitalMarketing #ArtificialIntelligence #GoogleAds #SEM #MarTech #Podcast

In part two of our conversation with Tom Dover, Senior Director and Head of Monetized Partnerships at Microsoft Advertising, Daevid Richards and Paul Luckett dig into what comes next for publisher technology now that Microsoft Invest has been retired. Tom walks through Microsoft Monetize's new Copilot-powered MCP server, how AI is opening new audience and revenue verticals for publishers, and how curated marketplaces are reshaping supply path optimization. The conversation moves through identity and addressability in a post-cookie world, why trust is the real currency between platforms and publishers, and how a company the size of Microsoft keeps moving fast on AI. Tom closes with career advice for the next generation of ad tech professionals.This conversation is essential viewing for publishers, ad tech leaders, and anyone navigating programmatic advertising, identity resolution, and AI-driven monetization strategy.

Chapters:00:00 Welcome Back & Recap: Setting Up Part 200:53 Automating Floor Pricing & the New Monetize MCP Server04:29 How AI Will Reshape Publisher Monetization07:48 Curated Marketplaces & Supply Path Optimization10:05 Content Marketplaces: Programmatic's Next Frontier11:33 Identity & Addressability After the Cookie15:05 Trust, Safeguards & the Microsoft Ecosystem15:31 Moving Fast: AI as Microsoft's Gravitational Pull16:16 Advice to a Younger Tom Dover21:04 Wrap-Up & Thank You21:44 Season Outro: What's Next on Media Tech Talk💬 Guest: Tom Dover, Senior Director & Head of Monetized Partnerships – Microsoft Advertisinghttps://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-dover-9b3a3122/🎧 Hosts:Daevid Richards – https://www.linkedin.com/in/daevidrichards/Paul Luckett – https://www.luckettmediaconsulting.com | https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-luckett/🔗 Links:Microsoft Monetize – https://about.ads.microsoft.com/en #MediaTechTalk #MicrosoftAdvertising #AdTech #ProgrammaticAdvertising #PublisherMonetization #AI #Copilot #SupplyPathOptimization #Identity #DigitalAdvertising

What happens when one of the world's most influential technology companies turns its focus to the future of advertising?

For nearly 50 years, Microsoft has helped shape personal computing, enterprise software, search, gaming, and cloud technology — and today it's investing heavily in AI. Our guest has had a front-row seat to that evolution: from AppNexus and the rise of programmatic advertising, to helping build Xandr's video and connected TV business across Asia Pacific, and now leading Microsoft's Monetize Partnerships business across Japan and Asia Pacific.

Tom Dover, Senior Director, JAPAC Partner Sales Lead at Microsoft Advertising, joins Daevid Richards and Paul Luckett to trace his 15+ year career across IBM, AppNexus, Xandr and Microsoft — and unpack what Microsoft's advertising stack actually looks like today, from the buy side to the sell side, LinkedIn's data spine, Xbox and gaming monetization, and how Microsoft is helping publishers navigate an AI-driven internet where referral traffic is down and content usage by LLMs is reshaping the economics of publishing.

Chapters:0:00 – Cold Open: Microsoft's Bet on the Future of Advertising0:44 – Meet Tom Dover1:25 – Welcome to Media Tech Talk1:35 – Calling In From North Sydney2:16 – From a Humanities Degree to IBM to AppNexus4:43 – Working Alongside AppNexus Co-Founder Brian O'Kelley6:53 – Inside the Early Days of Programmatic Advertising10:46 – From Servers Under the Desk to Cloud-Scale Data Centers12:17 – Building Xandr's APAC Video & BVOD Business16:50 – One of the Few Ad Server Challengers to Google17:42 – What Microsoft Advertising Actually Does Today20:15 – Xbox, Gaming & In-App Monetization24:10 – What Publishers Are Telling Microsoft Right Now26:38 – Referral Traffic, Microsoft Clarity & the Publisher Content Marketplace29:07 – Microsoft Invest Is Gone — What Comes Next?30:02 – Coming Up in Part 2Guest:

• Tom Dover, Senior Director, JAPAC Partner Sales Lead – Microsoft Advertising

• https://linkedin.com/in/tom-dover-9b3a3122

• https://about.ads.microsoft.com/

Hosts:

• Daevid Richards

• https://linkedin.com/in/daevidrichards/

• Paul Luckett
• https://linkedin.com/in/paul-luckettHashtags:#MediaTechTalk #MicrosoftAdvertising #AdTech #Programmatic #Xandr #AppNexus #CTV #Publishing #AI #DigitalAdvertising #Podcast

Adele Wieser (Index Exchange) — AI, Publisher Traffic & the Future of Curated Marketplaces (Part 2) — Media Tech Talk #034

Adele Wieser, Senior Regional Managing Director APAC at Index Exchange, returns to Media Tech Talk for Part 2 of her conversation with host Daevid Richards — this time tackling the challenge she says is reshaping the internet faster than she ever anticipated: the impact of AI on organic traffic and publisher supply.

Picking up from Part 1's history of programmatic advertising, Adele and Daevid go deep on how AI-generated search summaries are constricting the flow of organic traffic to publishers — down 30–40% for some partners over the last two years — and why that scarcity is, paradoxically, driving a new premium on trusted, high-affinity supply. The conversation moves through supply path optimisation's evolution beyond cost, the unresolved (and maybe unresolvable) fragmentation of identity and privacy, wearables and the value exchange of personal data, the looming security questions posed by quantum computing, and Adele's five-year outlook for Index Exchange and the wider programmatic ecosystem — including her take on AI turning ad tech teams into "AI translators" who unlock more time for strategy and creativity.

Whether you're a publisher grappling with shrinking organic traffic, an advertiser thinking through curated marketplaces, or a technology leader trying to plan for an unpredictable AI-driven future, this episode offers a candid, experienced perspective on where the industry goes next.

Chapters

0:00 Recap: Adele Wieser & the Story So Far0:44 The Biggest Change Facing Publishers Right Now0:57 How AI Search Is Disrupting Organic Traffic2:10 Quality Over Scale: The New Publisher Divide4:26 Why Curation Is Filling the Gap5:05 Has Supply Path Optimisation Moved Beyond Cost?5:26 SPO 2.0: Efficiency, Scale & Control6:32 Identity, Privacy & Signal Loss6:54 Why There's No Single Framework for Identity9:59 GDPR, Wearables & the Identity Graph Problem11:15 User Control & the Privacy Value Exchange12:50 AI Assistants, Data Risk & the Quantum "Q-Day" Question14:05 Why Industry Collaboration Is the Only Way Forward15:53 Crystal Ball: Index Exchange & Programmatic in 5 Years16:07 Becoming the "AI Translators"19:41 Automation, Creativity & Where Humans Still Win20:15 Advice to Your Younger Self21:40 Thank You, Adele22:11 Next Time: Tom Dover (Microsoft Advertising) Previews

💬 Guest:Adele Wieser, Senior Regional Managing Director APAC – Index Exchange
https://www.indexexchange.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/adelewieser/

🎧 Host:Daevid Richards
https://www.linkedin.com/in/daevidrichards/

Media Tech Talk explores ad tech, digital media, AI in advertising, programmatic monetisation, audience engagement, and the technologies shaping the future of publishing.

#MediaTechTalk #IndexExchange #AdeleWieser #ProgrammaticAdvertising #AdTech #SupplyPathOptimisation #AIinAdvertising #PublisherMonetisation

Adele Wieser (Index Exchange) What's Happening to Programmatic Supply? - Media Tech Talk #033Adele Wieser, Senior Regional Managing Director APAC at Index Exchange, joins Media Tech Talk to discuss the evolution of programmatic advertising, supply-side platforms (SSPs), transparency, header bidding, supply path optimisation (SPO), publisher monetisation, artificial intelligence, and the future of digital advertising.Adele joins Daevid Richards to reflect on nearly two decades at the forefront of advertising technology. From the early days of Yahoo!7, Right Media and Rubicon Project through to helping establish Index Exchange across the Asia-Pacific region, Adele shares how programmatic advertising evolved from an experimental technology into one of the world's most sophisticated digital marketplaces.The discussion explores the origins of programmatic trading, why transparency and trust remain fundamental to the ecosystem, how Index Exchange built its APAC business from the ground up, and why the next generation of supply-side innovation will be driven by quality, efficiency and stronger publisher outcomes.Whether you're a publisher, advertiser, agency or technology leader, this episode provides a fascinating look at the history of programmatic advertising and the lessons shaping its future.Chapters0:00 The Evolution of Programmatic Advertising0:29 Meet Adele Wieser & Index Exchange1:33 Building Index Exchange Across APAC1:50 The Future of Supply Path Optimisation (SPO)2:05 Adele's Journey into Ad Tech3:31 From Yahoo!7 to Programmatic Advertising4:32 Machine Learning Before AI Became Mainstream5:35 Why Programmatic Was Created6:26 AI, Automation & Human Relationships7:02 Removing Friction Through Technology8:33 The Early Days of Programmatic Trading9:26 Transparency, Trust & Brand Safety10:05 The Wild West of Programmatic11:00 Why Trust Still Matters Today12:04 Building Index Exchange from the Ground Up12:42 Growing from One Person to an APAC Business13:40 Hiring the Right People for Ad Tech14:52 Scaling Across Japan & APAC15:28 Why Local Markets Need Local Strategies16:18 Becoming a Trusted Business Partner16:32 What Index Exchange Actually Does17:39 The Role of a Supply-Side Platform (SSP)18:00 Curated Marketplaces & Supply-Side Innovation18:23 Why Transparency Is Essential19:00 Building Trust Through Data20:13 Part 2 Preview – AI, Publisher Traffic & Curated Marketplaces💬 Guest:Adele Wieser, Senior Regional Managing Director APAC – Index Exchangehttps://www.indexexchange.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/adelewieser/🎧 Host:Daevid Richards – https://www.linkedin.com/in/daevidrichards/Media Tech Talk explores ad tech, digital media, AI in advertising, programmatic monetisation, audience engagement, and the technologies shaping the future of publishing.#MediaTechTalk #IndexExchange #AdeleWieser #ProgrammaticAdvertising #AdTech #SupplySidePlatform

Joe Lanzerotti, VP of Media Planning, and Cam Dinnie, Managing Director APAC at Kargo, return to Media Tech Talk to explore how AI is transforming creative production, Connected TV, premium media, sustainability, hyper-personalisation, and the future of digital advertising.

In Part 2 of this two-part series, Joe and Cam join Daevid Richards and Paul Luckett to discuss how AI is removing creative complexity while keeping human creativity at the centre of modern advertising. The conversation explores how Connected TV is becoming one of the most valuable premium media environments, why advertising is moving beyond standard display formats, and how AI is enabling brands to create personalised experiences at unprecedented scale.

The episode also examines Kargo's sustainability initiatives, scaling an advertising business across APAC, the evolution of AI-powered creative optimisation through Project Kara, and why reducing friction—not replacing people—will define the next generation of advertising technology.

Chapters

0:00 Connected TV & The Future of Premium Advertising
0:52 Why Connected TV Is Becoming Premium Media's Biggest Opportunity
1:35 The Most Valuable Moments in Connected TV Advertising
2:15 Is AI Ending Standard Ad Formats?
2:52 Why Human Creativity Still Matters in an AI World
3:42 AI-Powered Creative at Scale
4:07 Connected TV, Storytelling & Full-Funnel Advertising
5:24 Sustainability in Digital Advertising
6:06 Measuring & Reducing Advertising's Carbon Footprint
7:31 Inside Kargo's Carbon Neutral Strategy
9:20 Scaling an Ad Tech Business Across APAC
10:53 Why Every APAC Market Is Different
11:43 Lessons from India & Southeast Asia
13:13 Progress Over Perfection in Innovation
14:04 Corporate Thinking vs Entrepreneurial Thinking
15:48 The Next Five Years of AI Advertising
16:27 Hyper-Personalisation at Massive Scale
17:30 Agentic AI & The Future of Creative Automation
18:24 Early Learnings from ChatGPT Advertising
19:28 What Brands Are Learning from OpenAI Campaigns
20:00 Advertising Safely Inside ChatGPT
21:12 Retail Media, AI & Consumer Behaviour
22:30 Kargo's AI Vision & Project Kara
23:11 How AI Makes Great Creative Even Better
24:00 Project Kara & Creative Optimisation
24:52 Why AI Should Reduce Friction, Not Replace People
25:44 Final Thoughts & The Future of Advertising
26:00 Next Episode Preview – Index Exchange

💬 Guests:

Joe Lanzarote, VP Media Planning – Kargo
https://www.kargo.com/ | https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelanzerotti/

Cam Dinnie, Managing Director APAC – Kargo
https://www.kargo.com/ | https://www.linkedin.com/in/cam-dinnie-0039a629/

🎧 Hosts:

Daevid Richards – https://www.linkedin.com/in/daevidrichards/
Paul Luckett – https://www.luckettmediaconsulting.com | https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-luckett/

Media Tech Talk explores ad tech, digital media, AI in advertising, programmatic monetisation, audience engagement, and the technologies shaping the future of publishing.

#MediaTechTalk #Kargo #ArtificialIntelligence #ConnectedTV #CTV #GenerativeAI #AIAdvertising #CreativeAI #ProjectKara #DigitalAdvertising #ProgrammaticAdvertising #AdTech #PremiumMedia #RetailMedia #HyperPersonalisation #FutureOfAdvertising