4 Takeaways from IAB Tech Lab Summit 2025: Through the Looking Glass
On June 4, 2025 in New York, IAB Tech Lab held its 11th annual Tech Lab Summit. This year’s theme was Through the Looking Glass: Navigating the New Frontier. The open internet is changing faster than ever before, as highlighted by CEO Anthony Katsur in his keynote, which outlined three key agents of change impacting the industry in mid 2025 – Government regulation, the changes in Big Tech, and, of course, AI. These changes, along with the headwinds of signal loss, require a new approach, and a new architecture for the pipes which run the ecosystem. This was reflected in two big announcements in Katsur’s keynote – the Containerization Initiative and the LLM Content Ingest API framework.
This new era of uncertainty was underscored by a provocative keynote and fireside chat from geopolitical analyst Peter Zeihan. He left the audience shellshocked. warned of macro trends reshaping the global economy—labor shortages, supply chain realignment, and AI bottlenecks. For the digital media world, the message was clear: don’t build strategies for a world that no longer exists. Prepare now for a volatile, resource-constrained future.
In this post we’ll revisit highlights from the event that pick up on these changes and show how the industry is adapting. It may create some discomfort in the short term, but coming up with new approaches will be how we deal with change and continue to grow and thrive.
Curation and Transparency Are Reshaping Programmatic
Curation isn’t hype—it’s a signal of maturity. OpenX’s Brian Chisholm, in conversation with Jill Wittkopp, IAB Tech Lab’s VP of Product, talked about how an entire ecosystem of specialists has emerged to ensure curated supply is high-quality, performant, and privacy-compliant. Even with this additional layer, however, curation isn’t about “taking money out of the ecosystem” provided it is done right. When it is then curation delivers trustworthy, high-value media that performs for buyers and sellers.
Transparency was another recurring theme. The Trade Desk’s Adam Markey likened today’s programmatic environment to buying a used car—you want the Carfax. To build trust, we need consistent standards, reliable signals, and meaningful reporting. Deal IDs that don’t scale or can’t be debugged are dead weight; the industry needs smarter tools and more honest dialogue between buyers and sellers.
Both of these controversial topics are being worked on by the IAB Tech Lab currently, in the Curation Working Group. If you care about the outcomes and the standards that are being created, then get involved.
How much Salt is too much Salt?
In his keynote, CEO Anthony Katsur noted that he and IAB CEO David Cohen compare AI to salt; it’s everywhere, but too much and things often don’t taste right, and too little leads to no taste at all. AI was definitely everywhere at the 2025 Summit and was probably mentioned in every presentation during the day. But the most interesting mentions were examples of how AI can change the game in a positive way.
AI is no longer a buzzword. As Meta’s Nikhila Ravi put it, we’re witnessing the transition from “word models to world models.” From powering privacy-safe media strategies to improving creative generation and identity resolution, AI is becoming foundational. But with that power comes the need for operational discipline—clean data, thoughtful configuration, and a mindset shift.
Mobian’s Jonah Goodhart put it bluntly: everyone wants the magic, but few want to do the groundwork. That means addressing the realities of tag management, agentic AI governance, and clear data-sharing rules. Goodhart demonstrated with panelists from Fox and PMG how AI can help target ads to environments that traditional brand safety approaches would ignore, with impressive results,
It was clear throughout the day though, that AI should be used thoughtfully and and with care. As with any technology it feeds on the quality of what it is fed. Without quality content and data to drive it, AI will simply be as effective as a band aid on a wooden leg.
CTV Is a Full-Funnel Channel—and It’s Here to Stay
Streaming is now the primary way people consume TV, with 88% of U.S. households using streaming services, according to Amazon Ads’ Maggie Zhang. But misconceptions persist: that it’s only good for branding, or that it’s less efficient than linear. In reality, targeted CTV campaigns are driving performance and cost-effective reach.
Part of this growth is due to the new formats that publishers and technology companies are devising to create better engagement.. The Ad Format Hero initiative, highlighted by IAB Tech Lab’s Jill Wittkopp, GumGum’s Ken Weiner, and VideoStorm’s David Sidman, surveyed the industry and narrowed 100+ formats into a usable, interoperable CTV ad portfolio, which will be standardized by Q4 2025 making this new inventory available for programmatic trading. Interactive formats are scaling, too—VideoStorm showcased over $12 million in CTV ad campaigns that didn’t require special software.
New CTV inventory is also coming from live events as sports and other live programming comes to streaming providers and platforms. The complexity of handling this inventory, which IAB Tech Lab is tackling with the Live Event Ad Playbook (LEAP) initiative, was highlighted by Tech Lab’s Hillary Slattery in a breakout session with Gregory Sogorka from Freewheel, and Rob Hazan from Index Exchange. The dream of trading this valuable inventory programmatically is starting to take shape.
Privacy and Identity Require Action, Not Just Talk
New Jersey’s Deputy Attorney General Thomas Huynh delivered a wake-up call: many companies still haven’t updated their privacy policies, even as enforcement accelerates. Take note and don’t be one of the companies they target first as “low hanging fruit”. As states begin aligning terminology and interpretations, “data provenance” is also becoming essential—especially for proving compliance. Starting to map out how your company talks about privacy and your data with tools like the Privacy Taxonomy are essential for demonstrating you care about compliance.
Meanwhile, identity solutions must be adaptable. LiveRamp, Optable, and ID5 emphasized that without clear insight into who’s using an ID, publishers risk deploying broken or misused frameworks. Trust and interoperability—not scale for scale’s sake—are the cornerstones of identity moving forward. This was also apparent from the interest in the Trusted Server breakout session. This was an initiative that Tech Lab launched at our Signal Shift privacy event in March, and the packed room for the breakout kept talking throughout the entire afternoon break with leaders from Equativ, Arena Group and Didomi to more deeply understand the implications and what the roadmap looks like. Trusted and transparent environments took precedence over that afternoon cup of coffee!
Wrapping Up
From AI to CTV, from data transparency to global uncertainty, the IAB Tech Lab Summit made one thing clear: the industry is at an inflection point. The choices we make today—around infrastructure, collaboration, and accountability—will define how we scale tomorrow. And don’t forget: There’s a spec for that!
Barnaby Edwards
Sr Director, Product Marketing
IAB Tech Lab