I’ve wrestled back control of my little(ish) section of the newsletter from Liz, but believe me, there are still people responsible for protecting me from myself and my creative use of the English language.
I spent my weekend watching Project Hail Mary (loved it), working on the agendas for Digital Day Camp, Navigator New York, and AI Publisher Response. It’s a part of the job I love, and I loathe at the same time. They are all jigsaw puzzles with pieces that change shape, and there is no photo on the box. But when you see it, it feels really, really good.
What guides me are all the conversations we have within the Beeler.Tech Community. Yes, publishers are watching the drama swirling around The Trade Desk, but we’re just rooting for the money to flow through. That’s the part we are focused on. Q1 was shit. Q2 is going to have to be Q4 to make up for it.
So yes, we’re going to talk about AI – the opportunities and the challenges it presents – but we’re also focused on the here and now. The here and now is tough enough and there is no reason to go it alone. Join us as we navigate through it all.
We’re less than two months to Navigator NYC, and we’ve made some major additions to the agenda you need to know about:
- You already know Justin Evans (Head of Innovation & Insights at Samsung) will be delivering a powerful keynote on the hidden power of latent data and how to identify your organization’s unique “data kingdom.”
- And after wow-ing our community at Base.Camp Savannah last fall, Dr. Deborah Gilboa returns to the stage at Navigator with a conversation designed to help you make the most out of our day together. If you saw her back in October, you know how powerful a catalyst Dr. G is; and if you haven’t… well, you’ll see this coming May.
- Jason Evans (Trusted Server Architect at IAB Tech Lab) is stepping out from behind the whitepaper to answer the hard questions about Trusted Server: What’s working, what’s not deployed yet, who needs to move for this to scale, and what open source actually means when the stakes are this high.
- We’ll also be joined by Neal Thurman (Director, Coalition for Better Ads) for a session that looks forward: What do the next Better Ads Standards need to address, who needs to be at the table to write them, and how do you build enforcement mechanisms that keep pace with an industry that moves faster than any standards body can?
Plus, we’ll be having hard-hitting conversations about identity strategy, Gen Z ops, unfinished business in commerce media, closing the revenue gap with less traffic, vibe coding for ad ops, brand safety, and much more.
Publishers, don’t forget, we’re looking for your nominations:
- Nominations are now open for The Navigator Award The Navigator Award is for publisher-nominated brands and agencies that support journalism through thoughtful decisions around brand safety and sustainability.
- Learn the story behind The Navigator Award From Rob Beeler: “Brands have every right to care about where they appear. But too much of this conversation still gets reduced to settings, exclusions, and default choices that let everyone stop short of the harder question: what decisions are we actually making about journalism, and are those decisions any smarter than the shortcuts we have gotten comfortable with?”
Finally, we’re thrilled to announce that Fordham Gabelli School of Business will be sending 10 students to Navigator NYC this year. This will bring the next generation of our industry into these essential discussions as peers, while giving them a chance to learn about the work we’re all doing together. In short, we’ll be working to build the future of our industry with the rising leaders who will one day define it.
👉 And if you haven’t taken a look at the full Navigator NYC agenda, you need to. It’s expanding every day, and the time to raise your hand to join us is running out.
New for 2026, AI Publisher Response is a one-day event built for cross-functional publisher teams (ad ops, leadership, content and editorial, marketing, legal, and more). Together, we’ll develop a publisher-first framework that reflects the real work, the real constraints, and the real opportunities you see every day with AI.
Teams from Hearst, Time Inc, Graham Media, New York Post, The Weather Company, WeatherBug, Thomson Reuters, Automattic, Better Collective, Cox Automotive, TeamSnap, and The New York Times are already committed to joining us, and we need you there.
So, if you haven’t seen the agenda, you need to fix that. These are the discussions we need you to be a part of.
Now, to help us get ready for the conversations we’ll be having in May, here’s what’s been happening on AI Publisher Live our biweekly(ish) live show:
- ICYMI: Automation vs. AI on AI Publisher Response Live (replay) We need to have a conversation about automation vs AI for ad operations. The more I’ve thought about it, I think there is this spot I’m calling “seller intelligence” which is how you take what you are learning from direct sales efforts (if you have them) and programmatic data to learn more about existing and potential customers.
- ICYMI: AI Publisher Response Live with special guest Shay Brog (replay) In this episode, we talk about the latest updates on our upcoming AI Publisher Response event, including a preview of the speakers and conversations shaping the agenda. We also discuss what we’re hearing across the industry as publishers continue to navigate rapid changes driven by AI. Special guest Shay Brog (CEO, Burt Intelligence) also shares the launching of Burt Intelligence’s new MCP Server.
- Join us on April 10 for AI Publisher Response Live: What the Bots are Telling You In today's publisher world, more bots than real people might be visiting your site. In this episode, Rob will be joined by Gavin King, Founder of Known Agents, to discuss this reality and help you understand what these bots are doing, what they are looking for, and what you should do next.
👉 If you’re ready to learn more, check out AI Publisher Response, and then raise your hand to join us now.
You’ve already got enough to think about with Navigator NYC and AI Publisher Response coming up. (Plus, just wait until you see all of the outstanding fresh editorials in the section below.)
So, Big News is simple this week…
You already know about AI Publisher Response Live, the biweekly(ish) live show leading up to AI Publisher Response on May 6, 2026. Now, it’s easier than ever to subscribe and catch up on all the episodes you’ve missed:
- You can catch every episode on YouTube.
- Soon you’ll be able to subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Soundcloud.
- And don’t forget to join us for the next AI Publisher Response Live episode on April 10, with special guest Gavin King (Founder of Known Agents) for a conversation about bots… what they are, what they’re actually doing, and what you need to know.
Here's the latest:
- NEW from Below the Fold: Ad ops is where other people’s bad decisions become emergencies (Free preview) Ad ops gets treated like the crawl space of the business. Most people barely think about it unless something goes wrong. They keep running new wires through it, keep shoving more into it, keep assuming it can hold whatever the rest of the house needs it to hold. Then something shorts out, something leaks, something starts sagging, and suddenly everyone wants to know why it’s such a mess down there. Anonymous publisher with Liz Moorehead of Beeler.Tech.
- Cut the friction, keep the value: what publishers need to fix now The Pub Report is a brand new webinar co-hosted by Prebid.org and Beeler.Tech, built to answer practical publisher questions. In our first session, we heard from Andy Sharkey (Optable), Brian O’Kelley (Scope3), Dr Paul Farrow (Microsoft Ads), and Scott Siegler (Amazon Publisher Services). This conversation is a publishers-only exclusive. If you’re a publisher interested in watching this conversation, please ask the community for the password.
- Navigating VUCA: 5 shifts redefining publisher revenue strategies AI-driven discovery is reshaping traffic patterns, privacy changes continue to disrupt targeting, and buying models are increasingly driven by supply path optimization (SPO) and AI-based decisioning. At the same time, monetization stacks are becoming increasingly complex and harder to manage. What worked six months ago may no longer deliver the same results today. From Sara Bigović, Communications & Event Manager at Opti Digital.
- Stop chasing shiny objects: Rob Beeler’s RevenueScape is the publisher map you’ve been missing What if publishers had a practical, plain-language map of every revenue move available to them right now – sorted by effort, risk, and time to payoff? That’s the question Rob Beeler set out to answer, and our recent Camp.Fire session gave our community an early look at a potential framework. This conversation is for our exclusive publishers and partners only community. Please ask in the community for the password to watch this video.
- Brand safety has become too easy a way to avoid the harder conversation We have spent years talking about brand safety as if the central problem is technical. It is not. The tools matter. Suitability matters. Brands have every right to care about where they appear. But too much of this conversation still gets reduced to settings, exclusions, and default choices that let everyone stop short of the harder question: what decisions are we actually making about journalism, and are those decisions any smarter than the shortcuts we have gotten comfortable with? By Rob Beeler.
Want to get caught up on everything we’ve published? Start here.
A full list of all 2026 events we’re involved in, all in one nice little package:
- Digital Day Camp: Spring - April 15 & 16, 2026
- Navigator NYC - May 5, 2026
- AI Publisher Response Event - May 6, 2026
- Navigator London - June 9, 2026
- Base.Camp La Jolla - October 4-7, 2026
- Digital Day Camp: Fall - October 21 & 22, 2026
- Base.Camp Madrid - November 8-11, 2026
A great time was had by all at our NYC dinner hosted by Opti Digital last Thursday night!
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