Navigating what’s next: AI disruption, identity shifts, and the power of collective action

Last week, members of our community (publishers, partners, strategic leaders, and others) came together at Glaziers Hall in London for a single day event, Navigator London, to tackle the challenges we’re all facing in ad tech and publishing. Here’s what happened.

The thing about Navigator is that we are always secretly pleased, not only about how much content we can cram into one day, but the quality of the conversations and willingness of publishers and partners to share their experience for the greater good of the industry. Because let’s face it, publishers have a whole load to talk about right now.

As Rob said in his opening remarks, in a world where facts are under attack, we want to tell the facts. Plus, we’re facing a real challenge in retaining our audience because search is just not driving traffic like it used to. And of course, for those of you who know Rob, you’ll know his stance on programmatic: it remains flawed.

This year, it will take a combination of being strategic and tactical at the same time to stay on top. So, in no particular order, let’s dive into the topics that publishers are collectively tackling right now.

Your AI response needs to happen now, not next year

As digital transformation AI expert Paul Hood highlights, AI is undergoing the biggest change he’s seen in 25 years of working with publishers, with nearly quarter of a trillion dollars invested in Gen AI by the top four players in 2024 (Meta, Alphabet, AWS, Microsoft).

ChatGPT is exploding in front of our eyes, growing at 100% year-on-year. In the three years since its inception, it’s reached 4.5 billion website visits as of June. For context, Google took six years to get to 2 billion - and that’s a site we all use multiple times a day. If this trend continues, it won’t be long before it’s the most visited site globally.

We are now seeing algorithms distributing content, ready-made answers from AI, agentic AI and zero-click services. In fact:

Therefore, over the next few months, not years, publishers will need to focus on building niche and micro communities, tapping into creator media, and investing in predictive personalization. Rather than relying on the traditional model of creating content and monetizing it through subscriptions, ads, or licensing, we’ll see a shift towards ‘middleware’ such as native AI solutions and content marketplaces.

Over time, this will be overlaid by AI search as well as news aggregators.

Seller vs buyer perceptions, are we aligned?

While we’d love to say yes, in reality we have a whole ton of work to do to meet buyer expectations. As Duncan Arthur and Jonathan Longhurst from LongTerm CoLab reveal, the key areas of focus going forward need to be simplification, trust and transparency.

From a seller perspective, yield optimization is the dominant concern, with mounting traffic pressures and tightening ad budgets forcing revops teams to drive maximum value from every impression. Confidence in supporting diverse revenue streams through the tech stack is also starting to decline amid frustration with fragmented solutions and the complexity of ad operations.

On the upside, when it comes to programmatic, publishers are prioritising control, better measurement, and curated deals to protect margins and revenue predictability. Data confidence is also growing, although turning first-party data into scalable, revenue-generating solutions remains an uphill battle for many:

From a buyer perspective, 84% agree that ‘where sellers leverage their audience to achieve buyer objectives, buyers and sellers align as trusted partners’. Too many of the sell-side say they can achieve these objectives, but the buyside often don’t quite believe it.

So how do buyers feel we can evolve from a transactional relationship to a collaborative one? Through communication, innovative and unique product, trust and honesty, and alignment—something we should all work hard on over the coming months.

Oh, and although we’ve often used them interchangeably, we’re told there is a subtle and very nuanced difference between “adops” and “revops.”

The ID shake-up is coming

With tongue in cheek, Adam Leslie from Mail Metro Media says if publishers are using ID solutions that modify buyer or DSP ID fields, implementing web views in iOS apps for better ID bridging, and addressing cookieless inventory proactively, then we can all go all home, job done.

Of course, the ID landscape is a bit more complex than that.

• ID provenance will reshape the landscape, with the IAB Tech Lab introducing a specification to categorize (deterministic vs. probabilistic vs graph-based) identity signals to be sent in the OpenRTB bidstream, influencing how buyers value and accept IDs.
• Buyers are starting to push back on ID bridging, with some major DSPs blocking certain techniques without explanation, signalling growing skepticism around the legitimacy and measurement integrity of current methods.
• Patent risk is real in the United States. One platform holds several patents related to ID bridging technologies and is actively litigating, having already won a case against a tech giant. All this could lead to licensing costs, product shutdowns, or higher fees, particularly in the US.
• Privacy-safe frameworks such as Privacy Sandbox and W3C-led alternatives (e.g., Attribution Reporting API) are evolving.
• Identity without measurement won’t survive. Many solutions solve targeting but fail at measurement and attribution. Buyers are frustrated with lack of clear ROAS signals, which weakens trust. Long-term sustainability requires full-spectrum identity: from targeting to closed-loop measurement.

Publishers should be testing solutions to perform quick pivots based on real performance, not assumptions. Publishers should also speak to providers and legal counsel, and avoid deploying anything that may become legally or financially unsustainable. Push for attribution-enabled solutions, not just targeting. The regulatory and tech stack is changing fast, so stay informed on standards and specs by actively following updates from IAB Tech Lab, W3C, and browser communities to help mitigate risk.

DEI strategies are still alive and kicking (in Europe at least)

The world has changed a lot in the past six months. Conversations around diversity, equity, and inclusion have become more sensitive and, at times, more polarizing. While many publishers remain deeply committed to these principles, there is a growing sense of caution in how they are publicly discussed or implemented.

However, Nikki Sehgal, founder of Media For All, confirms that DEI strategies are still very much present, and growing, in Europe.

Media for All, an organization committed to helping ethnic minority talent thrive in the media and advertising, has grown from having 50 to over 1,000 members in the last five years. And as Rob notes, at the end of the day, it’s still good business.

Nikki agrees:

So now is the time to keep the momentum going, by embracing blind hiring, partnering with organizations who have already built communities around diverse audiences (e.g. Word on the Curb), getting involved with mentorship programmes and new manager programmes (e.g. NABS), and making sure your AI isn’t biased. In short, now is the time to bolster, not roll back, your DEI efforts.

Navigator London made one thing clear

Thriving in today’s publisher landscape demands both sharp strategic foresight and agile, on-the-ground execution. Whether it’s rethinking identity, closing the gap with buyers, or doubling down on DEI, let’s not wait. Let’s act together, and now.