NEW YORK—The IAB Tech Lab has released AAMP 2.3, a notable update to the Agentic Advertising Management Protocols that are designed to help organizations deploy AI agents within existing advertising infrastructure.

More specifically, AAMP 2.3 expands the open framework for Agentic Advertising with enterprise-ready deployment, integrated privacy diligence, stronger pricing integrity, broader platform support, and the finalization of key industry standards.

“The industry has already shown what's possible with AI agents,“ IAB Tech Lab CEO Anthony Katsur said. “Now, the focus is making them reliable in the environments where advertising actually happens,. Organizations need infrastructure they can trust. They need AI agents that work across systems, respect consumer privacy regulations, and make decisions with repeatable accuracy. AAMP 2.3 gives the industry that foundation, moving agentic advertising into everyday business.…

The release comes as agentic advertising is making rapid progress, with AI agents demonstrating how they can automate planning, buying, selling and optimization.

AAMP 2.3 is designed to accelerate the next phase of that development by providing the industry with a common framework that enables those capabilities to operate within the technology environments companies already use. It lets organizations deploy model-agnostic agentic stacks that connect to major inventory sources while remaining interoperable across the broader advertising ecosystem.

The release also introduces new capabilities making production deployments more practical. Organizations can deploy AAMP through Amazon Bedrock AgentCore; expand buying across additional platforms, including Metal integrate Google Ad Manager reporting; and build on new open-source contributions from HyperMindz and Mixpeek. Together, these enhancements give buyers, sellers, publishers and technology providers greater flexibility to integrate AI agents into existing workflows using the systems they already have in place, the IAB Tech Lab said.

As AI agents begin handling more transactional decisions, confidence in the information being used becomes increasingly important, IAB Tech Lab said.

To address that issue, AAMP 2.3 integrates the IAB Diligence Platform and SafeGuard Privacy directly into the Buyer Agent, helping organizations embed privacy diligence into agent workflows. Enhanced pricing guardrails also improve the accuracy and integrity of transaction data, IAB Tech Lab said, creating greater confidence for buyers and sellers as agentic advertising moves into production.

Beyond that, the IAB Tech Labs reported that Agentic Audiences are now ready for fully programmatic and agentic transactions, extending standardized agentic workflows into audience activation.

New features and developments in AAMP 2.3 include:

• Enterprise-ready deployment through Amazon Bedrock and Databricks.
• Deterministic negotiation guardrails with proven end-to-end real negotiation.
• Server-side trust verification on every price-moving path.
• Support for Meta buying.
• Google Ad Manager reporting integration.
• IAB Diligence Platform and SafeGuard Privacy approval gate integrated into the Buyer Agent.
• Enhanced pricing guardrails that improve pricing accuracy across Buyer and Seller Agents.
• Any path that commits spend is deterministic and provable with human approvals outside of value-based thresholds.
• Inventory availability is always based on real, not derived, numbers.
• Fully conforming to the OpenDirect open standard and validated against the spec.
• Deals Sync API MCP Server contributed by HyperMindz.
• Content Taxonomy Parser contributed by Mixpeek, adding semantic IAB Content Taxonomy v3 classification, contextual inventory discovery and enrichment and brand-safety scoring.
• Agentic Audiences v1.0 ready for transactions.

To learn more, visit the IAB Tech Lab website.

NEW YORK—The IAB Tech Lab has announced the release of the Podcast Technical Measurement Guidelines v2.3, an update to the industry's technical framework for measuring podcast downloads, audience, and ad delivery using server-side log data.

The updated guidelines clarify how measurement should be applied across both audio and video podcasts distributed through open RSS feeds and podcast applications that rely on server-side file delivery. The guidelines are available for public comment for 30 days until August 19, 2026.

[More on the growing interest in video podcasting in the new TV Tech, Radio World and TVBEurope ebook here.]

"Measurement only works at scale if everyone is counting the same way," said Anthony Katsur, CEO, IAB Tech Lab. "These updates give the industry clearer guidance for today's podcast ecosystem and help reduce the inconsistencies that slow deals down and create unnecessary questions. That is good for buyers, publishers, and everyone responsible for reporting the numbers."

More specifically, v2.3 updates terminology from "listener" to "podcast consumer" and adds guidance around URL prefix measurement, RSS enclosure URL changes, invalid traffic considerations, and the application of different measurement window approaches.

These updates also provide clearer implementation guidance for organizations responsible for measuring podcast audiences and advertising delivery.

The change of terminology lays a foundation for work in 2027 on v3.0 guideline, which will be focusing on the growth area of streaming video podcasts. That next version of the guidelines is currently in development by the Podcast Technical Working Group, and anyone interested in supporting their development should email techlab@iabtechlab.com to join.

"Server-side log data remains the backbone of podcast measurement, and these updates reflect the continued evolution of the medium," said Hugo Martel, senior vice president of podcast and content delivery, Triton Digital. "Clearer guidance for video podcast measurement is a welcome addition, helping the industry adapt as podcast consumption expands across formats while giving publishers and advertisers greater confidence in the insights they rely on."

In releasing the new version, the IAB Tech Labs also noted that the podcast ecosystem continues to rely heavily on server-side log analysis because most podcast applications do not provide client-side playback confirmation yet. The updated guidelines help members reduce measurement discrepancies, better account for video podcasts, improve the handling of duplicate downloads and platform-driven anomalies, and promote more consistent reporting across the marketplace. For buyers, the guidance strengthens confidence that reported downloads, audience, and ad delivery are being counted consistently. For publishers, hosting providers, measurement vendors, and platforms, it provides clearer implementation guidance that supports a more trusted podcast advertising marketplace.

"These updates give the market more clarity around how podcast audiences and ad delivery should be measured, which ultimately benefits everyone relying on those numbers," said Robert Freeland, founder & CTO, Podtrac. "Our industry depends on trusted measurement that everyone can understand and apply consistently. These updates help bring that consistency."

The Podcast Technical Working Group led the development of Version 2.3 through industry collaboration and member input. IAB Tech Lab encourages publishers, platforms, measurement providers, and other stakeholders to review the draft and provide feedback during the public comment period before the guidelines are finalized.

To learn more about the Podcast Technical Measurement Guidelines v2.3, click https://iabtechlab.com/podcastmeasurement2dot3

NEW YORK—In an important development that will improve ad planning and measurement by establishing standardized definitions for digital video product types and their advertising formats, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has released the Redefining Media Types (RMT) Standard for public comment.

Developed with IAB Tech Lab, the standard is open for public comment from brands, agencies, publishers, ad tech partners, networks, and other industry stakeholders through August 8.

“As the video marketplace has expanded across platforms, formats, and viewing experiences, the industry needs a more consistent way to define and classify digital video environments,” said Jamie Finstein, vice president, Media Center at IAB. “The Redefining Media Types Standard is intended to give buyers, sellers, publishers, and platforms a shared, future-proof language that improves planning, execution, and measurement across the entire ecosystem.”

“Many of the technical systems supporting digital advertising still rely on inconsistent or outdated classifications for video,” IAB Tech Lab CEO Anthony Katsur said. “By partnering with IAB on this framework, we can help connect these definitions to the technical standards and infrastructure needed to support adoption across the industry.”

The RMT Standard is aims to create comprehensive, standardized definitions for digital video product types and their associated advertising formats, including connected TV, online video, social video, FAST, video podcasting and retail video. The definitions consider channels, screens, context and ad formats, with the goal of serving as an authoritative guide for media agencies, publishers, networks, technology partners, and brands.

The standard addresses a core problem in video advertising: legacy media classification terms were built to describe distribution technology and business models, not consumer experience.

For brands and agencies, inconsistent definitions can lead to misaligned planning strategies, incomparable measurement across platforms, and media investments that do not reflect the intended viewing environment. For publishers and platforms, inconsistent terminology can create confusion around inventory packaging, monetization, and buyer expectations. For ad tech and measurement providers, the lack of standardized classification makes it more difficult to support interoperability and consistent reporting across systems.

The IAB noted that the RMT Standard provides a two-layer classification system designed to support both strategic planning and operational execution.

The first layer organizes video advertising environments into four macro buckets grounded in consumer viewing experience, including “Lean Back Viewing”, “Personal Screen Viewing” and “Passive and Communal Viewing.” These buckets are based on how a viewer is cognitively and physically oriented to the screen, rather than the technology delivering the content or the business model funding it.

The second layer applies binary impression-level attributes that allow individual impressions to be classified with precision across platforms and devices, including:

• Sound state
• Skip-enabled versus completion-required
• Full-screen presentation
• Addressability
• Availability of signals
• Measurability
• Device
• Ad Formats

This operational layer gives planners, buyers, measurement vendors, and ad tech platforms a shared set of signals that can be used at the point of transaction, the IAB explained.

Together, the two layers support both planning and technical execution. The macro buckets give the industry a shared language for strategy and cross-platform planning, while the operational attribute layer provides a framework for impression-level classification that can be encoded into OpenRTB bid requests and Project Eidos taxonomy fields.

The framework is intended to create clearer expectations and more consistent communication across the buy-side, sell-side, and technology ecosystem by:

• Helping brands and agencies align media investment with the intended consumer viewing experience.
• Giving publishers and media owners more consistent ways to package and describe inventory.
• Supporting more interoperable reporting and measurement across platforms.
• Providing ad tech and measurement providers with standardized signals that can be used operationally at the point of transaction.
• Creating a more stable standards foundation as video formats, platforms and viewing behaviors evolve, and new media types enter the mix.

A number of industry players praised the release in these statements:

• “Given the extent of change in the video marketplace, from what and where people watch to how advertisers execute ad campaigns, it was critical to come together as an industry and develop a new, contemporary video marketplace framework,” said Adam Gerber, head of strategy, Media.net. “The ambiguity and obsolescence of legacy definitions and ways of working were holding back growth and creating friction in the market. This new standard attempts to fix that and provide a common language for all marketplace participants to apply within the context of their individual businesses.”
• “With the constant innovation and increased complexity of our digital ecosystem, it is important for the industry to have consistent guiding principles in place,” said Alex Stone, senor vice president, managing director, Horizon Media. “These IAB standards are our guardrails which we will use as our progression accelerates for years to come.”
• “As streaming and cross-platform video consumption continue to evolve, premium video remains one of the most effective environments for brands,” said Michael Reidy, senior vice president, Small and Medium Business Growth, Advertising & Partnerships, NBCUniversal. “As an industry, we have an opportunity to align around clearer, more consistent standards that drive greater media effectiveness and deliver simplicity for our partners across buyers, sellers, and technology platforms.”
• “The way people watch video has changed dramatically, but the language the industry uses to describe it hasn’t kept pace,” said Colt Cheadle, senior manager, sales activation, Spectrum Reach. “As video continues to evolve across platforms, screens, and viewing experiences, establishing a common framework is essential to reducing complexity, improving collaboration, and helping buyers and sellers make more informed decisions."

The public comment period for the RMT Standard is open from July 8 through Aug. 8. IAB and the IAB Tech Lab will continue working with industry stakeholders, working group participants, and standards contributors to refine the framework and support adoption across the ecosystem.

To learn more about the Redefining Media Types Standard and to provide feedback, click here.

NEW YORK—The IAB Tech Lab digital advertising technical standards-setting body has announced SupplyChain v1.1, a significant proposed upgrade to the OpenRTB SupplyChain Object, commonly known as “schain” that is designed to give advertisers and buyers a more complete view of how programmatic bid requests are generated and handled.

“This is one of the most significant transparency enhancements to the digital advertising supply chain in years,” said Anthony Katsur, CEO, IAB Tech Lab. “Advertisers deserve to understand not only who participates in a transaction financially, but also who takes full control of a given request before it reaches a buyer. By expanding SupplyChain to include technical custody, we're providing the industry with a more complete picture of the programmatic ecosystem and creating a stronger foundation for trust, accountability, and investment in the open internet.”

IAB Tech Lab also invited the industry to participate in the public comment period until August 21, 2026.

The update, developed through extensive work by the Programmatic Supply Chain Working Group and guided by the Programmatic Supply Chain Commit Group, expands the role of schain beyond the traditional payment-flow view of the supply chain.

The change will allow buyers to see not only which companies participate in the commercial flow of a transaction, but also which entities take technical custody of a bid request as it moves through systems such as Prebid, ad servers, SSAI platforms, SDKs, wrappers, and other infrastructure.

The result, the IAB Tech Lab reported, is a more complete and accurate view of the programmatic supply path. The update is expected to help buyers improve supply-path optimization, reduce duplicative bid requests, and better identify all companies involved in the programmatic transaction.

In announcing the update, the IAB Tech Lab also released statements from industry leaders across the buy side, sell side, and advertising infrastructure ecosystem voicing strong support for SupplyChain v1.1. Those statements included:

• “OpenRTB exists to make programmatic advertising more interoperable, more scalable, and more trustworthy,” said Neal Richter, VP, Amazon Ads, and Chair of the IAB Tech Lab Board of Directors. “This update is an important step forward because it gives buyers a clearer understanding of how supply is actually created and transmitted. Greater transparency is how we build a healthier marketplace and give advertisers more confidence to invest in the open internet.”
• “The open internet should be the most transparent, accountable, and efficient place for advertisers to spend money,” said Paul Bannister, Chief Strategy Officer, Raptive. “This change helps make that possible. When buyers can see both the commercial path and the technical path of a bid request, they can make better decisions, reward high-quality supply, and reduce waste caused by opaque or duplicative infrastructure.”
• “Longer supply chains are not automatically worse supply chains,” said Rob Hazan, The Trade Desk. “A longer chain that accurately discloses the parties involved in the impression is better for buyers than a short chain that hides important information. With fully traceable supply chains, the industry can finally move beyond simplistic node-counting and toward a more sophisticated understanding of which supply paths best correlate to advertiser performance and outcomes.”
• “Advertisers should not have to choose between scale and clarity,” said Chris Kane, Founder, Jounce Media. “The best supply paths are the ones buyers can understand. By expanding schain to include technical custody, the industry gets closer to a world where efficiency is measurable, duplication is easier to identify, and value-added partners can be distinguished from unnecessary hops.”

The OpenRTB Working Group considered multiple implementation approaches and recommended a model that adds custody-taking entities directly to the main schain, using the hp=0 designation when an entity is not part of the payment flow.

This approach preserves the integrity of the existing schain model while giving buyers a fuller view of technical participation in the bid request lifecycle.

The Working Group also recognized that, in many cases, schains will become longer as transparency improves. To support adoption and minimize disruption, IAB Tech Lab will provide rollout guidance recommending that SSPs and DSPs coordinate staged testing, validate parsing behavior, monitor bid health, and progressively scale SupplyChain v1.1 traffic.

The proposed update also reinforces the open and collaborative nature of OpenRTB. The specification has long served as the common language for real-time bidding across the digital advertising ecosystem, and this change reflects months of discussion among companies across the buy side, sell side, and infrastructure layers.

SupplyChain v1.1 is intended to help buyers understand three critical dimensions of a bid request: how it originated, who took technical custody of it, and which parties participated in the payment flow. Together, those signals can improve trust, reduce ambiguity, and help the market direct spend toward the most efficient and highest-quality supply paths.

To review the guidance visit https://iabtechlab.com/supplychainv1dot1

NEW YORK—As media companies face growing problems with AI bots and crawlers, the IAB Tech Lab has issued guidance that is designed to help publishers and content owners better evaluate and manage how non-human agents, including AI systems, access their content as they work to adopt the Tech Lab’s CoMP API framework for managing content crawling.

The new guidance, which is now available for public comment until June 26, 2026, outlines different approaches content owners and publishers can take to inform access from non-human user agents with the aim of helping the ecosystem make more informed decisions alongside the adoption of the CoMP API V1.

“Giving content owners clear, practical guidance is key if we want adoption to move forward in a meaningful way,” said Anthony Katsur, CEO, IAB Tech Lab. “This work helps simplify a complex area so companies can make decisions that fit their business while supporting a more sustainable marketplace.”

The IAB Tech Lab noted that following the release of the CoMP API V1, it became clear that many content owners and publishers have not yet developed formal strategies around their approach to bots and crawlers, which sit outside the scope of the API itself.

To address this gap, the CoMP Working Group developed this guidance to outline the range of available approaches and the advantages and trade-offs of each strategy. This gives stakeholders a clearer understanding of how to manage access from all non-human traffic, including AI systems in a way that aligns with their business goals.

More specifically, the guidance is designed to support the adoption of the CoMP API by helping content owners navigate an area that can be operationally complex and resource-intensive and is aimed at non-technical leadership to give them the questions they need to ask.

Those questions will ultimately help them understand the value and hard costs associated with each lever they pull. With clearer direction on these strategies, organizations can make more confident decisions, reduce risk, lower their operating cost, and operate more efficiently as they engage with AI systems. Establishing these strategies is also critical to enabling partnerships between AI systems and content owners, which are necessary to build a sustainable and scalable content marketplace.

A number of industry participants involved in the development of the guidance also emphasized the importance of clarity and practical direction as the ecosystem evolves.

“Content owners are being asked to make important decisions quickly, often without clear frameworks,” said Shailley Singh, EVP & COO, IAB Tech Lab. “This guidance helps break down the options so they can choose an approach that aligns with their goals.”

“The AI revolution has caught many publishers with their front doors wide open, essentially leaving the lights on for bots and crawlers to pilfer intellectual property.” added Scott Messer, principal & founder, Messer Media, “This IAB Tech Lab guidance is the essential roadmap content owners need—a practical framework to navigate the complex maze of decisions, tech, and tools available to protect their business. By empowering publishers to identify who is really there, this guide helps them distinguish between a value-driving 'ally' and a resource-draining 'extractor'. Managing AI bots is no longer just a technical background task; it is a critical business strategy for protecting what you’ve built and restoring a fair exchange of value for your content.”

Similarly, Dave Bellous, vice president of strategy, Metal Toad, explained that “non-human traffic now dominates most of the open web, and AI agents and crawlers are steepening the curve. Blanket bot-blocking is no longer a useful strategy. For publishers, advertisers, and ad-tech alike, distinguishing beneficial automation from invalid traffic through graduated, standards-based controls has become a baseline requirement. The Bot and Crawler Guidance from IAB is a much-needed tool in crafting a modern web strategy.”

Tom Koch, head of sales, ads and marketing ecosystem at TwelveLabs also highlighted the importance of the guidance in addressing the problem of bots and crawlers: "As AI agents increasingly serve as proxies for consumers, publishers and platforms need clearer frameworks for transparency and control. The crawler management framework is an important step toward giving content owners greater visibility into how their content is accessed and used. TwelveLabs is proud to contribute as this work is foundational to ensuring video, the richest form of data, is no longer overlooked in how AI engages with the web."

The guidance was developed by the CoMP Working Group, with public comment providing an opportunity for industry feedback ahead of finalization. IAB Tech Lab will continue working with members to support implementation and encourage adoption of both the guidance and the CoMP API.

IAB Tech Lab invites the industry to participate in the public comment period until June 25, 2026. To review the guidance, https:///iabtechlab.com/botmanagement/.

NEW YORK—As newer advertising formats become more popular on connected TV, IAB Tech Lab, a global digital advertising technical standards-setting body, has announced updates to its technical specifications to support standardized signaling for the CTV Ad Portfolio.

The release defines how newly standardized CTV ad formats, including emerging new formats such as Pause and Menu Ads, are communicated programmatically to improve consistency, reduce manual processes, and unlock more efficient transactions. The specification is now available for public comment until June 5, 2026.

“Standard formats are only part of the equation. You need a clear way to signal what is actually being bought and sold,” said Anthony Katsur, CEO, IAB Tech Lab. “This work helps the market move faster with more confidence, especially as new CTV formats gain traction. The CTV Ad Portfolio provides new real estate, which promises to help accelerate growth in the streaming ecosystem and provide high-profile consumer engagement opportunities for brands.”

The CTV Ad Portfolio introduced a range of new and additive ad formats. In addition to Pause and Menu Ads, other non-interruptive placement types include Overlay and Squeeze Back Ads.

While these formats have generated strong interest from both buyers and sellers, transacting them has remained largely manual due to the lack of standardized definitions that support programmatic workflows. This release addresses that gap by aligning signaling across core specifications so that each format can be clearly identified and consistently understood in the bidstream and ad serving process.

By establishing standardized signals, the update enables more efficient configuration and delivery of CTV ads while reducing ambiguity in transactions. Buyers gain greater clarity into what they are purchasing, while sellers can more easily package and scale new inventory. This opens new monetization opportunities for high-value streaming inventory, supports higher-margin revenue streams, and increases confidence across the ecosystem by ensuring that all parties are trading on consistent definitions, the group said.

Some industry leaders applauded the release. “These formats represent meaningful new inventory, but they need to be easy to transact,” said Ken Weiner, CTO, GumGum. “Standardization helps remove friction so we can bring more of this inventory into programmatic channels and accelerate revenue growth.”

“The next wave of CTV formats is shifting how we think about advertising from isolated moments to ongoing consumer engagement," added Christian Babeux, lead product manager, ads and data, Telly. “Standardization and signaling is what makes that shift scalable, giving the industry a common language to transact more easily and deliver the performance advertisers expect on the biggest screen in the home."

The work was developed through the Ad Format Hero Task Force, with consultation with Advanced TV Working Group and the Programmatic Supply Chain Working Group, with public comment supporting industry input ahead of finalization. IAB Tech Lab will continue collaborating with members on implementation, including updates across specifications and supporting resources to drive adoption.

IAB Tech Lab has invited the industry to participate in the public comment period until June 5, 2026. To review and comment on the new signaling, visit, https://iabtechlab.com/standards/ctv-ad-portfolio/

NEW YORK—IAB Tech Lab has announced new Attributes to describe live content and a new Substitution Macro in OpenRTB.

It has also opened up public comments on them through May 28, 2026.

The updates introduce standardized bidstream signals that help define whether content is a livestream, real-time, or a first broadcast, along with enhancements that allow more explicit communication of pricing and discounting between supply and demand platforms.

"As more live events move into programmatic channels, a total shift in strategy is needed; buyers must condense weekly budgets into mere hours," said Anthony Katsur, CEO, IAB Tech Lab. "By providing clearer signals, we're giving buyers and sellers the transparency they need to fully capitalize on ultra-premium, real-time inventory."

The update clarifies an existing field and adds two optional fields to OpenRTB and AdCOM objects that allow sellers to describe the "liveness" of content in the bid request. These fields distinguish between content that is occurring at the exact moment a bid is sent, content that is being streamed in real time but not necessarily live, and content that is in its first scheduled broadcast window. This added layer of signaling gives buyers more precise context about the nature and timing of the inventory they are evaluating.

In tandem, updates to substitution macros refine how price-related data is passed in the bidstream, specifically enabling clearer communication of discounts and net pricing back to demand-side platforms. Together, these changes improve how both content metadata and pricing signals are expressed within OpenRTB, reducing interpretation gaps between buyers and sellers.

These enhancements address growing complexity in programmatic environments, particularly with the rise of CTV and live event inventory supported by initiatives such as the Live Event Ad Playbook. As more live and near-live programming becomes available programmatically, differences in timing and format, from live sports to premieres to streaming channels, directly influence how inventory is valued. Clearer signals help buyers make more informed bidding decisions and support more efficient pricing and yield for sellers.

"Live content signals help us better understand the context of live inventory so we can deliver buyers' budgets effectively," said Rob Hazan, GM, Product Management, The Trade Desk. "This enables agencies and advertisers to better achieve their marketing goals and sellers to more effectively monetize their most valuable media assets."

The work was developed through the Programmatic Supply Chain Commit Group, with continued industry input encouraged during the public comment period, which remains open through May 28, 2026. Feedback will inform final specification updates and broader adoption across the ecosystem.

To learn more about the Attributes describing live content and the new Substitution Macro in OpenRTB and submit comments, please visit https://iabtechlab.com/openrtb/livesignals/

NEW YORK—With more than $200 billion in digital advertising now traded programmatically in the United States and automation increasingly shaping how media is bought and sold, the ad industry is working to bring greater transparency and governance to the digital advertising marketplace.

IAB Tech Lab, the global digital advertising technical standard-setting body, has announced the creation of the Programmatic Governance Council, a new industry body designed to bring together media buyers, media owners, and ad tech platforms to ensure that programmatic advertising's automation and AI reshape digital advertising.

"Programmatic advertising moves billions of dollars every day, but too often the people responsible for it are not sitting together to deal with the real operational problems," said Anthony Katsur, CEO of IAB Tech Lab. "Programmatic grew incredibly fast, but the governance around how that market should operate hasn't kept pace with its scale, complexity, and automation. If we don't generate alignment quickly, we risk cementing these inefficiencies into the fabric of every transaction."

Initial participants include leadership from agencies, publishers, and platforms across the ecosystem, including organizations such as Dentsu, Omnicom Media Group, WPP, Disney, Magnite, PubMatic, Hearst, News Corp, Yahoo, Amazon Ads, The Trade Desk, Raptive, and Mediavine, among others.

The IAB Tech Lab noted that the first concrete outputs from the council will be a formal charter and workstreams, followed by an initial governance framework and recommendations connecting business expectations to the technical infrastructure of programmatic trading.

Over the next 6–12 months, the council aims to provide clearer guidance on auction transparency, more consistent handling of transaction signals, and stronger alignment between buyers, sellers, and platforms on what trustworthy programmatic execution should look like. This will help buyers direct spend to supply chain partners, providing clear value.

The move is designed to address the fact that programmatic advertising has long been described as complex and opaque. Fragmented infrastructure, inconsistent practices, and limited shared governance have made it difficult for advertisers and publishers to operate with full confidence in the system. Recent market discussions around transaction IDs, bid duplication, and auction transparency have highlighted how differences in programmatic signal handling and auction mechanics can create confusion and friction across the ecosystem.

The council aims to address those concerns by giving senior industry leaders a structured forum to align on how business expectations should connect to the technical standards that underpin digital advertising transactions.

"The scale of programmatic means agencies are responsible for navigating a massive supply chain on behalf of advertisers," said Ben Hovaness, chief media officer at Omnicom Media Group. "Our clients expect clarity about where their money goes and how media is actually traded. Sitting down with publishers and platforms to work through these issues together is how you move from talking about transparency to actually creating it."

As automation and AI-driven systems become more deeply embedded in digital advertising workflows, shared governance and clearly defined standards will play a critical role in ensuring the ecosystem remains transparent, accountable, and scalable for advertisers, publishers, and technology partners alike.

To learn more, please visit https://iabtechlab.com/working-groups/programmatic-governance-council/

As AI chatbots and services continue to roil the digital advertising market, the IAB Tech Lab has announced a significant new effort to create a clearer commercial framework around how AIs use content.

It has released a CoMP (Content Monetization Protocol), a proposed industry standard that is designed to ensure AI systems have commercial agreements with publishers before crawling or using their content.

The launch comes at a time when publishers face steep referral traffic declines and the industry looks for clearer monetization and licensing frameworks around the content powering LLMs.

The CoMP (Content Monetization Protocol) Specification v1.0 is available for Public Comment until April 9, 2026, to gather industry feedback and support broad adoption.

“AI systems require chips, power, and information. Information is the only input in that equation that does not yet have a consistent commercial infrastructure around it,” said Anthony Katsur, CEO, IAB Tech Lab. “If we expect high-quality content to continue fueling AI-driven products, we need clear terms of engagement and a mechanism that supports compensation, accountability, and long-term sustainability. CoMP is designed to help the industry move in that direction.”

Publishers have experienced significant traffic declines in recent years, including reductions in search referral traffic exceeding 50 percent in some cases. The CoMP framework is intended to provide a foundation for a global information market that enables new revenue opportunities tied to AI usage, while supporting fair compensation for quality, timely content. At the same time, the framework is designed to mitigate risk for AI systems that depend on ongoing access to reliable, well-structured information.

The CoMP framework is designed to work across direct licensing arrangements and third-party marketplaces, allowing Content Owners and AI systems to implement a single standardized protocol rather than building proprietary integrations for each platform. By establishing a consistent method for signaling permissions and commercial terms before content is accessed, CoMP reduces bespoke technical work, lowers operational overhead, and supports scalable adoption across the ecosystem.

The IAB Tech Lab stressed that the CoMP is not a replacement for strong access controls. The framework assumes that content owners have established robust blocking strategies at the delivery point, such as their Edge Compute or Content Delivery Network (CDN). With that foundation in place, the protocol creates a standardized path from restrictions to a structured and mutually beneficial commercial market.

As part of the launch, several industry participants expressed support for a standardized approach to content monetization in AI environments.

“At The Weather Company, we believe the future of the industry depends on human-centric, AI-driven innovation that prioritizes the end user,” said Julianne Jennings, senior director of content and product, The Weather Company. “Our collaboration with the IAB Tech Lab on the CoMP framework is a critical step in establishing a foundation for secured data collaboration that benefits the entire ecosystem. By creating a standardized path for commercial agreements, we ensure our high-fidelity weather data remains effortlessly accessible across activation channels—empowering buyers and driving performance outcomes while maintaining the trust and accuracy our users rely on every day."

“We know the best AI products require the best inputs and the AI economy will need more quality content in the future, not less,” said Jon Roberts, Chief Innovation Officer, People Inc. “A global information economy needs global standards and we have been a supporter of the IAB CoMP initiative from the beginning. We support global standards that help all creators get paid fairly.”

“The first release of the CoMP API marks an important step toward establishing interoperable, transparent standards for fair value exchange in the AI ecosystem, recognizing that AI systems depend on high-quality, trusted content. As an early contributor, we believe scalable, robust compensation frameworks — alongside visibility and attribution for content usage — are essential to sustaining high-quality journalism and premium content in the AI era,” said Achim Schlosser, VP Global Data Standards, Bertelsmann.

"Publishers should be compensated for the use of their intellectual property – and for the real investment required to produce quality content,” said Rob Beeler, of Beeler.Tech, a Publisher-focused Ad Ops community. “While much remains to be figured out about how LLMs will work with publishers, CoMP provides a necessary framework for those discussions, helping us move faster from theory to practice and better protect the future of publishing.“

To learn more or to participate in the public comment process, which will remain open until April 9, 2026, please visit https://iabtechlab.com/comp/.

NEW YORK—IAB Tech Lab, the global digital advertising technical standard-setting body, has made a notable move to improve the way buyers plan and reserve advertising on live programming with the release of the Live Event Ad Playbook (LEAP).

As more high profile sporting events move to streaming and digital media, the release is particularly notable because the industry still lacks consistent ways to forecast and reserve inventory in advance. This proposal aims to move planning earlier in the workflow and make live inventory more visible and actionable across programmatic systems, the organization said.

The proposed specification is also designed to help address a long-standing industry challenge by enabling standardized discovery of upcoming programming, including but not limited to live events.

It means that content owners can now share information with partners relating to schedules, expected ad breaks, and expected viewership. The Forecasting API represents Phase Two of the LEAP Initiative and is intended to support more effective planning, deal creation, and monetization of premium live and tune-in programming across the digital advertising ecosystem, the Lab said.

"Live events continue to be one of the most valuable and technically complex areas of digital advertising," said Anthony Katsur, CEO, IAB Tech Lab. "This proposal moves the industry earlier in the process by making future live inventory visible and actionable. It is about giving buyers and sellers the tools they need to plan ahead with confidence and scale those workflows through shared standards."

The IAB Tech Lab noted that today’s programmatic systems generally lack consistent mechanisms for surfacing future inventory, limiting buyers’ ability to plan and reserve inventory in advance.

The Forecasting API is designed to address that gap by allowing broadcasters and content owners to publish structured metadata to exchanges and DSPs. This includes information such as event schedules, expected ad breaks, and viewership forecasts, using a shared schema aligned with existing OpenRTB and AdCOM standards.

The Forecasting API builds on the foundation established by the Concurrent Streams API, which helps buyers and ad tech platforms understand the scale of live opportunities in real time.

By moving upstream in the workflow, the Forecasting API enables earlier planning for live and tune-in programming, supports automated deal creation through integration with the Deals API, and helps participants take full advantage of highly engaged live audiences. Together, these components are intended to support a more scalable advance market for premium live content.

Several industry executives applauded the release.

“For years, Disney has been committed to modern and sophisticated forecasting capabilities to demonstrate the value of our premium Sports, Entertainment and News inventory,” said Alex Combs, vice president, ad product, Disney Entertainment & ESPN. “As programmatic growth accelerates, standardized interoperability is no longer optional; it is the foundational infrastructure required to eliminate friction in buying. This is especially true for live events and programming, where timing is crucial. Our active participation in the Forecasting and Concurrent Streams IAB Tech Lab initiative reflects our commitment to making automated buying as easy, efficient, and data driven as possible – delivering measurably better outcomes for our clients and creating an engaging experience for viewers.”

“As live and tentpole programming continues to grow across digital and streaming platforms, buyers and sellers need better ways to plan and coordinate around moments of peak viewer engagement,” added Daniel Perry-Zucker, senior product manager, The Trade Desk. “By standardizing how the industry communicates about upcoming inventory, the Forecasting API helps improve monetization and consumer experiences alike—bringing greater speed, predictability, and scale to live advertising across the ecosystem, and we’re excited to help put these standards into practice.”

The Forecasting API reflects the industry’s growing focus on standardization as live streaming continues to expand and evolve. By thinking beyond the bidstream and enabling shared approaches to forecasting and planning, the specification aims to reduce friction, improve efficiency, and support more effective monetization of live content across the ecosystem. In addition to the API specification, Implementation Guidance has also been provided.

To participate in the public comment process until March 20, 2026, please visit https://iabtechlab.com/standards/leap/

NEW YORK—In a move that will make it easier to use emerging CTV ad formats, IAB Tech Lab has released its new CTV Ad Portfolio along with a major update to the Guide to Programmatic CTV. It introduces standardized definitions for six key CTV ad formats and updated OpenRTB support—starting with Pause and Menu formats.

The goal is to give publishers, buyers, and platforms a common language and more efficient way to transact emerging CTV formats, reducing operational friction and improving consistency across devices. With CTV now making up the majority of U.S. TV viewing, the standards are intended to help the ecosystem scale advanced ad experiences more easily, the IAB Tech Lab explained.

Both documents are open for public comment through January 31, 2026.

The CTV Ad Portfolio defines six core CTV ad formats — Pause, Menu, Screensaver, In Scene, Squeezebacks, and Overlays —derived from more than 100 submissions collected through the Ad Format Hero initiative, an industry-wide call for real-world CTV ad format submissions.

The updated Programmatic CTV guidance details how these formats can be more efficiently and consistently transacted, including updated OpenRTB support for the two formats prioritized by the industry working group: Pause and Menu.

"Over the past year, we've seen the CTV marketplace explode, and the industry has been asking for clear, practical guidance to keep up," said Anthony Katsur, CEO, IAB Tech Lab. "What we heard again and again was that publishers, buyers, and platforms needed a common language for emerging CTV formats, and a way to streamline how these formats are traded. This portfolio and guidance update are really about meeting that need and helping accelerate growth in the space."

With streaming and CTV now accounting for the majority of U.S. TV viewing, standardizing innovative CTV ad formats is essential for continued revenue growth across the ecosystem, the IAB Tech Lab said.

Many of the formats defined, such as Pause and Menu, create incremental, high-value opportunities that complement traditional ad pods. By unifying the format definitions and required attributes, IAB Tech Lab reported that it aims to reduce issues with creatives not rendering correctly, minimize duplicative creative production, and decrease operational strain caused by inconsistent implementations across platforms.

These updates bring the same type of industry-wide alignment to CTV that the original Digital Ad Portfolio brought to display advertising in OpenRTB, the group said.

Several industry leaders from Disney, NBCU and other companies have responded with optimism about the clarity and consistency these standards bring to the CTV marketplace:

"Interoperability is essential to unlocking the full potential of CTV," said Gianluca Milano, Ad Experience Product at Disney. "These new standards will benefit the entire ecosystem by establishing a consistent framework for advanced ad formats to scale across platforms and buying channels, empowering advertisers with captivating and engaging experiences."

"At NBCUniversal, we are committed to delivering premium content and cutting-edge technology that connects brands with highly engaged audiences in the most efficient, effective way," said Ryan McConville, executive vice president, chief product pfficer, Advertising Products & Solutions, NBCUniversal Advertising & Partnerships. "Creating a consistent standard across CTV environments helps advance that mission, making it easier for advertisers of all sizes to access premium video and drive real business impact."

Together, the new CTV Ad Portfolio and updated Programmatic CTV guidance provide a foundation for clearer communication, more efficient transactions, and better user experiences across devices and publishers, the IAB Tech Lab said.

To participate in the public comment process until January 31, 2026, please visit https://iabtechlab.com/standards/ctv-ad-portfolio/

NEW YORK—In an important update to the workings of deal-based programmatic advertising, IAB Tech Lab has released version 1.0 of its Deals API for public comment.

The spec is important because it standardizes how SSPs and DSPs sync deals, cuts out manual entry errors, and brings real transparency into who is packaging and selling a deal across sellers, packagers, and curators. It is designed to fix the mismatches and under-delivery that have long held back high value private marketplaces and curated supply.

The API also gives the industry clear visibility into deal structure, improves collaboration between parties, and sets the stage for future discoverability so everyone in a deal knows where they sit and why. With deal-based monetization only growing across curation and streaming, the IAB Tech Lab believes that the new spec is a meaningful step toward a cleaner, more trusted programmatic supply chain.

"The Deals API sync capability directly addresses a key inefficiency in the programmatic supply chain for high-value, curated, private marketplaces," said Anthony Katsur, CEO, IAB Tech Lab. "The ability to prove transparency to all parties involved in packaging and selling the deal, including curators, will improve accuracy and grow confidence in deal-based media transactions, which are a vital opportunity for publisher growth in a time of reduced traffic."

This new specification introduces a standardized method for communication of programmatic deals from origin systems, typically supply-side platforms (SSPs), to receiving systems, typically demand-side platforms (DSPs), significantly reducing potential for errors due to manual input in multiple systems and improving operational efficiency. The public comment period will remain open until January 31, 2026.

While deals are a cornerstone of programmatic advertising, especially in curation and streaming environments, where they serve as a primary monetization strategy, the manual nature of current deal entry often results in mismatches, under-delivery, and a lack of clarity around deal ownership.

This is often due to entry errors or misaligned expectations between parties. Magnite’s vice president, product management, Nick Allen, notes that “two-thirds of deals are configured with the desired supply, yet deliver no or very little revenue.”

Deals API v1.0 addresses these issues by introducing greater transparency into deal structure - explicitly identifying the business entities involved in the packaging of a deal, including the seller, packager, and curator, where applicable, the Lab reported.

This visibility helps eliminate confusion, foster accountability, and strengthen trust across all parties in the transaction chain.

“While much of the Deal Sync capability in this API formalizes long-standing needs around deal management between various parties, it sets the foundation the industry needs for innovation in deal management going forward, given the growing dominance and importance of deals,” said Anna-Maria Nalepa, senior technical product manager at Basis Technologies. “Beyond enabling better collaboration and allowing for cleaner data as deal volumes grow, the API...addresses curation by bringing transparency to deals including information about who is involved and in what capacity. It paves the way for a more transparent, deal-driven programmatic marketplace in an ecosystem historically challenged by complexity and intermediaries."

Future versions of the API will support discoverability for all participants in a deal, enabling all parties to see where and how they are included, and by whom.

“As the curation category matures, media buyers and their DSP partners should have basic line of sight into the companies that are packaging inventory,” added Chris Kane, founder of Jounce Media. “A standardized deal API is one critical step toward more trusted sell-side decisioning."

To participate in the public comment process or to review the full specification visit https://iabtechlab.com/standards/dealsapi/.

NEW YORK—IAB Tech Lab, the global digital advertising technical standards-setting body, has announced the release of device attestation support in the industry standard Open Measurement SDK (OM SDK).

This new capability is supported on Apple devices and Amazon Fire TV and is designed to further strengthen efforts to combat widespread device spoofing and to provide buyers, sellers and verification companies with greater confidence in the environments where ads are delivered, the lab said.

“OM SDK gave buyers standardized, consistent measurement metrics across screens and devices,” IAB Tech Lab CEO Anthony Katsur said. “The Device Attestation capability builds on that and provides a critical next step for CTV growth. Buyers should prioritize the OM SDK because it is the only measurement standard built on device-native signals, not inferred data. And with attestation, they can be confident the inventory they are measuring is real.”

The new capability helps address a fundamental vulnerability in connected TV and mobile advertising: the misrepresentation of device information or device spoofing, where bad actors falsify device information to appear as premium inventory. This leads to wasted ad spend for buyers and lost revenue for sellers, the IAB Tech Lab explained.

Adopting IETF's Privacy Pass Protocol for the digital ads verification use case, the Device Attestation capability in OM SDK enables buyers to independently verify they are buying genuine CTV and mobile inventory from sellers, thanks to privacy-preserving attestations made by device manufacturers for their devices. This adds another valuable signal that can strengthen the industry's ability to detect and prevent device spoofing, the IAB reported.

“Device spoofing is a significant attack vector for bad actors generating invalid traffic across several General and Sophisticated IVT categories required to be detected and filtered as part of MRC Standards,” Ron Pinelli, senior vice president of digital research and standards, Media Rating Council (MRC), said. “MRC appreciates the opportunity to be involved in and support the development of this important enhancement to OM SDK that can be used by the ad-tech ecosystem to enhance IVT detection and measurement capabilities.”

This release builds on the OM SDK’s role as a shared measurement foundation since 2018, enabling third-party verification of impressions and viewability across CTV and mobile environments. Device attestation in OM SDK takes verification even further, helping the industry build trust in individual sellers and supply paths by allowing participants to demonstrate the authenticity of devices in the inventory they are selling, the group said.

For buyers, device attestation means cleaner measurement and reduced waste from fraudulent inventory. For sellers and app developers, it protects monetization by signaling attested supply paths. For verification companies, it creates a new seller and supply chain-level signal representing device authenticity.

"Device-spoofing represents a significant threat in today's advertising landscape," said Neal Richter, director, Amazon DSP, Amazon Ads. "By receiving secure signals of authenticity directly from supported CTV devices like Fire TV, we can be confident that we're getting inventory from real devices. As adoption of this new capability increases across the industry, we'll be able to independently verify that we're buying genuine CTV inventory, ultimately creating more transparency and trust in CTV advertising."

"Device attestation represents a fundamental shift in how we combat device spoofing by creating a positive signal of device authenticity," said Geoff Stupay, senior vice president, global head of product at cybersecurity firm HUMAN. "We're extremely pleased to have collaborated with the OM SDK Commit Group to develop this capability, which will help buyers confidently identify quality CTV and mobile inventory and give sellers a way to differentiate their trusted supply paths."

The IAB Tech Lab said that Device Attestation in OM SDK release reflects collaboration across the Open Measurement Commit Group, which includes a range of technical stakeholders from across the industry. Participating companies include AdsWizz, Amazon Ads, DoubleVerify, Google, HUMAN and Integral Ad Science. This cross-industry participation ensures the framework is both technically rigorous and scalable across environments, IAB Tech Lab said.

To learn more about Device Attestation in OM SDK and how to implement it, visit https://iabtechlab.com/standards/open-measurement-sdk/.

NEW YORK—-IAB Tech Lab, the global digital advertising technical standards-setting body, has announced two major developments in a work on privacy-focused standards by unveiling updates to the Global Privacy Protocol (GPP) and releasing Version 2 of the Data Deletion Request Framework (DDRF).

Both initiatives, developed with leadership from the Global Privacy Working Group, are now open for public comment through December 1, 2025.

Global Privacy Protocol (GPP) H2 2025 Update

The latest GPP updates introduce four new U.S. state sections — Maryland (effective October 1, 2025), Indiana, Kentucky, and Rhode Island (all effective January 1, 2026) — to reflect recently enacted consumer privacy laws.

Updates also include a rearchitecture initiative designed to future-proof U.S. sections and increase signal transparency in the core GPP specifications, the IAB Tech Lab explained.

"By expanding the Global Privacy Protocol to cover additional states and enhancing the core framework, we're helping the industry plan with confidence," said Anthony Katsur, CEO, IAB Tech Lab. "The bi-annual release cycle gives companies predictability while keeping transparency and user choice at the core."

Starting in 2026, regular bi-annual updates will give companies the predictability they need to align product roadmaps with shifting regulatory timelines.

"The bi-annual release cycle is especially valuable for companies like ours," said Andrea Wheeler, senior privacy manager, Quantcast. "It gives us the predictability to align development roadmaps with regulatory timelines, while the added transparency ensures we can continue to uphold user trust as privacy requirements evolve."

The update also introduces improved clarity around how supported and applicable sections are communicated within the GPP framework. In the CMP API, the PingReturn.supportedAPIs field provides information about which sections the CMP supports, as directed by the first party.

The IAB Tech Lab noted that until now, there has been no equivalent mechanism that downstream vendors could rely on server-side. Two implementation options have been proposed, and IAB Tech Lab is inviting industry feedback to identify the most effective path forward.

Data Deletion Request Framework (DDRF) Version 2

Building on broad industry adoption, DDRF V2 strengthens interoperability, consistency, and security for processing consumer deletion requests. The update introduces clearer object formats, standardized encoding methods, and enhanced safeguards to secure sensitive consumer data as it flows across the digital advertising supply chain, the Lab reported.

"We designed DDRF V2 to help reduce complexity and risk for the industry," said Rowena Lam, senior director, product, IAB Tech Lab. "By standardizing formats and processes, organizations can easily comply with regulatory requirements while protecting consumer data rights."

"With this release, we are not only improving interoperability and transparency but also strengthening the security of the framework," added Katsur. "These enhancements will help foster trust with consumers while reducing compliance risks across the ecosystem."

Recognized by regulators globally, such as the Information Commissioner's Office, and already a cornerstone for deletion request processing, DDRF V2 reduces complexity while providing organizations with more robust compliance mechanisms, the IAB Tech Lab reported.

Both the GPP and DDRF initiatives are part of IAB Tech Lab's ongoing global effort to develop privacy-centric, interoperable solutions that sustain trust in digital advertising. By introducing predictable release cycles, clearer frameworks, and stronger safeguards, IAB Tech Lab continues to help companies navigate evolving regulations with confidence.

To learn more about the Global Privacy Protocol 2nd Half 2025 updates, click here: https://iabtechlab.com/2h-2025-gpp-and-ddrf-updates/

To review the Data Deletion Request Framework Version 2 standards, click here: https://github.com/InteractiveAdvertisingBureau/Data-Subject-Rights/pull/9

Both are now open for public comment through December 1, 2025.

NEW YORK—As digital advertising enters a new era shaped by AI, privacy enforcement, and the unraveling of traditional identity systems, the Interactive Advertising Bureau has announced that the IAB Tech Lab Summit 2025 will take the industry “Through the Looking Glass” during a June 4 event here that will tackle such subjects as AI, identity, connected TV and regulation.

“The way things have worked for the past twenty-five years is not how they will work for the next twenty-five. We are already operating in a new normal, and not just in advertising. The world has changed,” said Anthony Katsur, CEO, IAB Tech Lab. “Privacy is real, advertising signals are disappearing, streaming TV continues on its phenomenal growth curve, and AI is generating both code and content. This summit is about rethinking what it takes to make digital advertising take the next leap — technically, commercially, and sustainably.”

The event will feature a fireside chat with Peter Zeihan, a globally recognized geopolitical strategist and best-selling author. In conversation with Katsur, Zeihan will offer a candid, data-rich perspective on the global forces reshaping markets, governance and innovation and their impact on the future of artificial intelligence, technical infrastructure, global supply chain realignment, and the downstream effects on consumers and businesses.

Reflecting the industry’s pivot to intelligent systems and adaptive infrastructure, this year’s program features a strong emphasis on AI’s transformative potential:

• Unlocking Innovation: From Word Models to World Models. Nikhila Ravi, Research Lead at FAIR (Meta’s AI research group), explores how agentic AI is enabling new forms of planning, reasoning, and collaboration across the marketing ecosystem.
• Reimagining Context With AI. Jonah Goodhart, CEO of Mobian, discusses how AI is redefining contextual relevance by decoding emotion, sentiment, and consumer mindset in real time.
• AI-Driven Identity Infrastructure. A panel featuring leaders from LiveRamp, Optable and ID5 explores how adaptive identity solutions are streamlining compliance while unifying identity across connected TV, mobile and desktop environments.

In addition to keynote speakers Zeihan, Ravi and Goodhart, the summit will feature insights from a powerful lineup of voices shaping the future of digital advertising.

Notably, New Jersey Deputy Attorney General Thomas Huynh will join the conversation, bringing a critical privacy enforcement and regulatory perspective to the forefront. As state-level privacy laws expand and enforcement intensifies, this session offers a rare opportunity to hear directly from those shaping the legal boundaries of data use, identity and consent in digital media.

Executives from The Trade Desk, OpenX, LiveRamp, Optable, ID5, VideoStorm, and Didomi will also share insights, offering a rich cross-section of expertise from across the digital ecosystem.

Designed for engineering, product and strategy teams, the summit’s breakout sessions provide practical frameworks for implementation. Topics include:

• Programmatic monetization and signal optimization with Trusted Server – Learn how to sustain performance in a signal-constrained environment.
• Server-side privacy enforcement and data control—Explore frameworks that align with global compliance requirements while maintaining campaign effectiveness.
• Real-time ad delivery for live events—Discover how advanced infrastructure is enabling frame-accurate ad insertions and dynamic creative switching in live sports, news, and streaming, driving maximum viewer engagement and monetization.
• Trusted server infrastructure and open Conversion APIs (CAPIs)—Get hands-on with CAPIs and learn how they’re helping marketers recover lost attribution, improve measurement accuracy, and enhance campaign performance in a privacy-safe, browserless environment.
• Monetization Strategies in a world driven by Agentic AI and LLMs—Explore an actionable framework for publishers to deploy mechanisms for enforcing fair compensation from AI bots and content scrapers and for brands to protect brand reputation in the face of zero click search and changing consumer behavior with AI agents.
• Standardizing CTV creative ad portfolio through the Ad Format Hero initiative—Improve operational efficiency and creative consistency across platforms.

Since its inception, IAB Tech Lab Summit has brought together the teams building the digital ad infrastructure of tomorrow. This year’s event continues that tradition with honest conversations, deep technical insights and meaningful collaboration.

“Come join us in pressure-testing what can work in this new world in which we’re operating,” Katsur said. “We are through the looking glass. It’s time to retool with clarity, practical thinking, and real alignment across the digital ad economy supply chain as we enter this new socio-political and economic global paradigm.”

More information is available here.

NEW YORK—The IAB Tech Lab has launched “Ad Format Idol,” an initiative to standardize emerging connected TV ad formats.

The global standards-setting body said its new project seeks help from stakeholders in defining and standardizing common “build once, serve everywhere” ad formats in CTV environments, enabling efficient programmatic transactions and broader adoption across the industry.

“CTV is experiencing explosive growth, but we’re still in the early innings of figuring out how to make it work at scale,” IAB Tech Lab CEO Anthony Katsur said. “The industry is full of new ad formats that show promise but lack the technical standards to take off. ‘Ad Format Idol’ is about cutting through the noise, finding what works and giving it the structure needed to thrive. As we have done for early web advertising and with digital video, we want to set up the whole CTV ecosystem to succeed.”

“Ad Format Idol” aims to standardize how emerging CTV ad formats are described in the bidstream and ensure all parties have what they need to deliver those ads at scale. This will ensure industry-wide efficiency and set the category up for success, IAB Tech Lab said.

A recent report from IAB, “IAB CTV Video Ad Format Landscape: How Standardization Can Drive Programmatic Growth and Innovation,” highlights the rapid growth of new CTV ad formats and many of the challenges ‘Ad Format Idol’ aims to address.

“Our latest report shows the industry is buzzing with creative ad formats, but scaling them across platforms remains a significant challenge,” Cintia Gabilan, vice president of the Media Center at IAB, said. “With 75% of CTV spend being transacted in programmatic already, advertisers need standardization to scale investments and buying efficiency, and ‘Ad Format Idol’ is set to address that. This initiative will help overcome fragmentation and ensure these formats can thrive across the CTV ecosystem.”

The “Ad Format Idol” initiative is inviting all digital advertising stakeholders to submit their most successful CTV ad formats for consideration between Oct. 22 and Jan. 22, 2025. The entries will be evaluated by a Task Force appointed by Tech Lab’s Advanced TV Commit Group. Once complete, Tech Lab’s Advanced TV and Programmatic Supply Chain Working Groups will begin work to update their respective specification(s).

"We're looking for ad formats that have real potential to scale across different channels and streaming services and change consumers' advertising experience on CTV," Ken Weiner, chief technology officer at ad-tech company GumGum and board director, IAB Tech Lab. “This is about identifying the ad formats that can navigate complexity and make a difference in the way advertisers engage with audiences. If you're working with a relatively common or templatized CTV ad format, we want to see it, and we want to help it grow into something that can benefit the entire industry.”

“Ad Format Idol” will be showcased at key industry events, beginning with the IAB Tech Lab's International Summit in London on Nov. 5 and and its “I Want My CTV” event Dec. 5 in New York. Both events will let participants see the ad formats in action.

The initiative will also be highlighted at critical milestones next year, the IAB's Annual Leadership Meeting, the NewFronts and the Video Leadership Summit. These events will offer istakeholders a comprehensive view of the evolution of CTV ad formats as “Ad Format Idol” progresses through its phases.

For more information on how to participate in "Ad Format Idol" and to submit entries, click here.

NEW YORK—IAB Tech Lab, which sets global digital advertising technical standards, has announced the launch of ADMaP (Attribution Data Matching Protocol) for public comment.

ADMaP, built by privacy, measurement and data clean-room experts, allows advertisers and publishers to securely share and measure conversion data without revealing user-specific details.

The protocol leverages Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs), such as Private Set Intersection (PSI) and Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs), to ensure privacy and data security, IAB Tech Lab said.

“The shift away from traditional identifiers and associated techniques used for attribution has created an urgent need for new, privacy-forward solutions. Signal loss limits advertisers’ ability to measure campaigns accurately and ultimately impacts publishers revenues,” IAB Tech Lab CEO Anthony Katsur said. “ADMaP is a game-changer, enabling advertisers and publishers to collaborate safely and accurately determine measurement and attribution while fully protecting their audience’s privacy. This isn’t just about compliance—it’s about building trust and setting a new standard for how data can be shared responsibly in our industry for specific purposes.”

The ADMaP protocol employs several privacy-centric steps: identity mapping, attribution computation and report generation. These steps use privacy-enhancing technologies such as secure multiparty computation cryptography and Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) to ensure secure, encrypted, private data handling, enabling publishers to share exposure data and advertisers to share conversion data without the risk of revealing user-specific information. The protocol also enables data clean rooms to provide cryptographically guaranteed features that maintain the integrity and privacy of client data, IAB Lab said.

“To exact change and to solve for measurement and attribution, the industry needs to take bold actions,” said Edik Mitelman, general manager of marketing analytics and attribution platform AppsFlyer. “By bringing together advertisers, publishers and data clean rooms, we’ve collaboratively developed a solution that not only addresses the privacy challenges we face today, but also paves the way for a more secure, transparent and importantly measurable future for digital advertising. This is a critical step, and not a final solution, in aligning privacy-first innovation with the needs of the entire ecosystem.”

IAB Tech Lab is inviting industry stakeholders to review the protocol and submit feedback during a public comment period open through Nov. 14. For more information and to participate, click here.

NEW YORK—The global body that sets technical standards for digital advertising has expanded the reach of its measurement software development kit to include Samsung and LG.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Tech Lab’s decision to include the companies in its Open Measurement Software Development Kit (OM SDK) is seen as an important step on the road to establishing a standardized, reliable measurement of viewing across all digital platforms, the lab said.

"We're seeing the importance of standardizing campaign measurement and verification across digital ad platforms, especially with CTV's [connected TV’s] growth," said IAB Tech Lab CEO Anthony Katsur. "By expanding OM SDK for CTV to encompass additional platforms, we're ensuring advertisers and agencies access consistent, normalized measurement metrics, ultimately addressing industry demands for improved cross-device and environment measurement, which supports increased ad spend on CTV platforms." 

The software development kit is widely adopted for iOS, Android and web video platforms. It is now extending its reach to encompass CTV with a holistic measurement solution. The addition of Samsung and LG means many more CTV households are covered by OM SDK. CTV households now account for 40% of the market, IAB Tech Lab said.

OM SDK for CTV aims to address the fragmentation of measurement signals across various platforms with a unified framework for measuring CTV-specific viewability signals, such as TV off, device type and viewing duration, similar to its implementation in mobile apps and web video, the lab said.

The kit’s signals can provide advertisers and ad buyers with standardized measurement, thereby helping them address the escalating complexity of CTV inventory and ensuring campaign transparency and accountability, it said.

More information on OM SDK for CTV and integration guidelines is available on the lab’s website.

In a notable development in the industry-wide effort to address privacy concerns while improving efficacy of marketing efforts in a cookieless ad landscape, IAB Tech Lab has launched IAB Tech Lab PAIR.

The solution is based on Google's PAIR protocol and the IAB Tech Lab Privacy Enhancing Technology Working Group initiatives.

This protocol leverages first-party audience data, allowing advertisers and publishers to maintain full control of their data while achieving personalized and accurate targeting. By using data clean rooms and encryption, PAIR enables privacy-safe data matching, supporting secure programmatic transactions.

For the new solution Google contributed its PAIR protocol to IAB Tech Lab for further development as part of an effort to promote a unified standard for the industry and to enhance the confidence of advertisers and publishers in utilizing their first-party data. 

The PAIR protocol will be overseen by the Privacy and Addressability working group, aligning with OPJA to create a standardized and scalable approach for the industry.

More information on the launch and IAB Tech Lab PAIR is available here.

NEW YORK—The IAB Tech Lab, a global digital advertising technical standards-setting body, has officially launched its Advanced TV Initiative. 

The effort was developed within the Advanced TV Commit Group to create more standardization and interoperability across digital video, live streaming, and linear TV environments and to help media companies bridge the current gaps between traditional linear TV, digital video, and live streaming that create difficulties in delivering cross platform advertising campaigns. 

The Commit Group said that its initial primary focus is implementing a creative ID framework and conducting a dedicated workshop to help companies implement it. 

This registered creative ID – overseen by organizations managing metadata and access controls – will outline the integration process for all supply chain members.

In addition, it will include essential information about advertisers, represented products, and technical specifications – details crucial to various ad placement scenarios such as frequency capping, competitive separation, measurement, and cross-platform creative reconciliation.

"We understand that interoperability across distribution environments is critical to achieving better reconciliation, auditability, and verification," said Shailley Singh, executive vice president of product & COO at IAB Tech Lab. "This effort emphasizes standardization and interoperability, paving the way for a unified and integrated television advertising reconciliation framework, freeing up thousands of hours of legacy inefficiencies, and saving media companies time and money."

While TV viewing remains consistent for consumers, the underlying technologies for content delivery and advertising signaling vary across different platforms. To tackle this fragmentation, key companies in the industry have joined together to create foundational elements crucial for enhancing interoperability among these distribution environments.

One of those companies is NBCUniversal, which applauded the effort. 

"NBCUniversal's north star is making sure our partners' marketing dollars are as effective as they can be," said Ryan McConville, executive vice president  advertising, platforms and operations, NBCUniversal Advertising & Partnerships and IAB Tech Lab Board Member. "The Commit Group is making significant strides advancing standardization and interoperability for the industry, which are critical components of driving efficiency and creating better, more impactful advertising."

More information about the Advanced TV Initiative is available here. 

NEW YORK—IAB Tech Lab, the global digital advertising technical standards-setting body, has established two new working groups that it said will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of digital media and advertising: the Privacy Sandbox Task Force and the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Subcommittee.

"AI is not just a technological tool; it's a force reshaping our media landscape,” explained Anthony Katsur, CEO of IAB Tech Lab. “Its impact extends across content creation, distribution, consumption, consumer privacy, and monetization. The AI Subcommittee is poised to assume a vital role in comprehending and directing Tech Lab’s AI roadmap to manage this evolution."

In terms of the Privacy Sandbox Task Force, the IAB said that digital advertising faces a significant turning point with the evolving Privacy Sandbox within Google's Chrome browser. In creating the Privacy Sandbox Task Force, the IAB Tech Lab said that this specialized task force is dedicated to conducting a rigorous technical and operational analysis of the forthcoming Privacy Sandbox modifications and their implications for digital advertising use cases.

Key objectives include:

• Technical Examination: Explore the technical intricacies of Google Chrome's Privacy Sandbox updates, including the protected audience API and Attribution Reporting API, to understand their implications for advertisers, publishers, and ad tech providers.
• Operational Insight: Analyze operational shifts that stakeholders in digital advertising must adapt to, ensuring the consistent delivery, optimization, and measurement of digital ads.
• Gap Analysis: Analyze, understand, and document the critical advertising use cases supported by the Privacy Sandbox and what gaps need to be addressed and propose improvements to ensure the needs of brands and publishers are properly addressed.
• Recommendations: Provide actionable guidance and update existing or introduce new technical standards for the digital advertising ecosystem to address the changes introduced by the Chrome browser. The Task Force will publish its analysis and recommendations for the industry's benefit later this year.

"Given their worldwide market share of approximately 65%, understanding the shifts brought about by Chrome's Privacy Sandbox development is crucial,” said Katsur.

Katsur emphasized the importance of this subcommittee by adding that the Privacy Sandbox Task Force welcomes all IAB Tech Lab members and encourages digital advertising stakeholders globally who have performed testing or analyzed the Privacy Sandbox proposals to participate. Collaborative engagement will be vital in navigating this significant development in the advertising industry.

For more details or to express an interest in joining, visit: https://iabtechlab.com/working-groups/privacy-sandbox-task-force/

The AI Subcommittee was created due to the transformative impact of AI on the digital media landscape. This subcommittee, composed of a select group of IAB Tech Lab Board members, is dedicated to exploring the rapidly evolving intersection of AI technologies with the world of digital media.

The AI Subcommittee's key objectives include:

• Roadmap Development: Identifying near, short-and long-term roadmap deliverables to address AI's impact on the digital media ecosystem, with an initial focus on media companies.
• Ethical Framework Creation: Addressing ethical challenges associated with AI in media by creating new technical standards and frameworks to ensure content remains trustworthy, transparent, and respects user privacy.
• AI Media Trends Analysis: Conducting a comprehensive analysis of AI-driven trends in digital media, encompassing content recommendation algorithms, virtual reality, generative AI, and deepfake technology.

The group said that the AI Subcommittee is open exclusively to IAB Tech Lab Board Members, bringing together data scientists, publisher executives, cryptographers, and technology leaders from publishers, agencies, and big tech platforms to collaborate on shaping an informed, ethical, and exciting future for AI in digital media.

NEW YORK—The IAB Tech Lab has formally launched its Advanced TV Commit Group and announced the inaugural members who will be involved in the group’s push to develop technology frameworks, technical standards, and market strategy that will make every TV environment addressable.

"What distinguishes the Advanced TV Commit Group from other initiatives is its comprehensive and collaborative approach to addressable TV advertising," said Anthony Katsur, CEO of IAB Tech Lab. "The Advanced TV Commit Group aims to partner with various initiatives across the industry, bringing together all stakeholders to establish a portfolio of solutions. We are focused on developing technical framework(s) that ensures holistic reconciliation, a unified measurement framework, and consistent ad experiences across digital video and TV environments. This includes traditional linear environments like cable, satellite, and over-the-air broadcast, as well as emerging IP-enabled TV platforms, more commonly known as CTV."

Inaugural members include:

• Extreme Reach
• Paramount
• EW Scripps
• NBCUniversal
• GroupM
• VAB
• Warner Bros. Discovery
• Xperi
• Publica
• Nielsen

 Several other members are pending and expected to join the Commit Group shortly, the IAB said.  

The Advanced TV initiative was launched in response to the rapid evolution of how consumers view video content and the increasingly blurred lines between Connected TV (CTV) and linear TV. The initiative aims to achieve the following objectives across all TV environments:

• Interoperability for frame-accurate ad delivery and ad break management to ensure consistent cross-platform ad break and ad slots signaling.
• Universal addressability and reconciliation for audience measurement across all screens.
• Complete cross-environment audit for advertising campaign delivery.
• Ad measurement for delivery and client-side viewability verification on the TV.
• Omni channel sales management for programmatic buying and selling of upfronts and spot buys.

More information on IAB Tech Lab and its Advanced TV initiative, is available here.  

NEW YORK—IAB Tech Lab has announced the launch of its Data Clean Room (DCR) Standards portfolio with the release of DCR Guidance & Recommended Practices, as well as the Open Private Join & Activation (OPJA) specification to support and define interoperable clean room interactions for digital advertising. 

Both standards—announced during IAB Tech Lab’s Building For Privacy Series along with a primer for clean rooms containing definitions, concepts, and a roadmap of future clean room proposals and initiatives—will be open for a 60-day public comment period until Monday, April 17, 2023. 

The new standards are an important step forward by the digital media industry to protect privacy while providing companies with the data they need for effective marketing. 

The growing interest and use of clean rooms has occurred in a digital media landscape where there are growing concerns about privacy and advertisers are losing the ability to track consumers via cookies. Clean rooms link anonymized marketing and advertising data from multiple parties in ways that don’t allow data points to be tied to specific users. That provides marketers access to large data sets while preserving privacy. 

“With the loss of traditional identifiers, data clean rooms have emerged as a promising option for companies in search of alternate ways to enable advertising use cases for planning, audience activation and measurement,” said Shailley Singh, executive vice president, product & chief operating officer, IAB Tech Lab. "There is already a multitude of clean room vendors available, each with their own unique data-sharing mechanisms that their clients must work with. IAB Tech Lab is collaborating with the industry to create technical standards guidance and more efficient interoperability, which will make it easier for advertisers to leverage emerging and exciting DCR technology.”

Without standards, the organizations using DCRs must adapt to each technology they engage with. The OPJA specification was developed within IAB Tech Lab’s Rearc Addressability Working Group and is the first of a library of purpose-built, DCR specifications to streamline audience activation by enabling interoperability between vendors. The DCR Guidance & Recommended Practices document describes baseline expectations from a DCR for ensuring the privacy and security of data for data owners using a DCR for different purposes, the IAB said. 

“As this segment of the ecosystem matures, vendors can adopt IAB Tech Lab’s growing library of clean room standards to enable interoperable data collaboration use cases,” said Bosko Milekic chief product officer and co-founder, Optable. “The goal is to enable secure, purpose-limited and privacy-protected data collaboration no matter who uses which technology provider and to do so while minimizing data movement.”

The new specifications provide guidance on DCR applications to advertising use cases, recommended technology, and operational best practices for the privacy and security of data shared in a DCR. OPJA enables enhanced audience activation while eliminating the need to transfer Personally Identifiable Information (PII). Additionally, the specifications allow multiple technology vendors to jointly execute standardized data collaboration operations for their clients by providing clean room operators with a scalable and consistent way to enable and activate their customers.

“As data clean rooms become more widely adopted for privacy-safe collaboration between organizations, there’s been a call from the industry to develop standards to maximize ease of use, speed of activation, and support of more complex applications,” said Devon DeBlasio, global vice president, product marketing, InfoSum. “These standards will provide organizations currently using DCRs and those looking to invest with a clear understanding of how they work and what they provide, including common use cases, applied privacy technology, expected security and permissions controls, how data is prepared for ingestion, and the available outputs.”

To review Data Clean Room Guidance & Recommended Practices and the Open Private Join & Activation (OPJA) Specification and provide feedback, visit https://iabtechlab.com/datacleanrooms.

NEW YORK—IAB Tech Lab, the global digital advertising technical standard-setting body, has laid out its key priorities and roadmap for 2023, with a product roadmap that includes consumer privacy, addressability and privacy enhancing technologies (PETs), advanced TV, ad supply chain, and cross-media measurement. 

"We are heading into a transformative year for the digital advertising sector where interoperability, transparency, and scalability will be imperative," said Anthony Katsur, CEO of IAB Tech Lab. "Tech Lab has a critical responsibility to ensure that the industry works together to tackle these issues head-on. These priorities ensure that buyers and sellers can effectively work together to reach consumers efficiently, placing privacy and sustainability at the forefront."

More specifically, the group said its priorities in each of the five areas were:

• Privacy. There is a proliferation of new privacy regulations around the world with an impact on how businesses operate and potential fines for non-compliance. IAB Tech Lab will continue its consumer privacy-related work in 2023 by expanding on the Global Privacy Platform, a comprehensive and secure consent signaling framework across multiple jurisdictions providing global controls. The international trade body also plans to establish a Data Subject Rights Signaling Framework (providing consumers the ability to access, delete, and modify their data across the digital advertising supply chain). The Tech Lab will also release the Accountability Platform, a technical accountability framework designed to provide transparency on using personal data for addressability for regulatory audit and compliance. Lastly, IAB Tech Lab will release a list of best practices and guidance for the privacy-safe use of other technical standards, the group said. 
• Addressability and Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs). In early 2022, IAB Tech Lab announced the newly formed Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) Working Group, inviting the digital advertising community to develop privacy-enhancing standards and software tools. This year, IAB Tech Lab will continue to facilitate post-cookie and privacy-first addressability for audience activation and measurement by creating a portfolio of privacy-safe addressability solutions, updating Tech Lab's industry taxonomies, and publishing technical standards for Clean Rooms, the group said. 
• Advanced TV. After spending 2022 analyzing converging use cases between legacy and connected television and understanding the trajectory of TV viewing and media investment, IAB Tech Lab released a multi-year advanced TV roadmap. Tech Lab's goal is to modernize the fragmented TV landscape and bring universal addressability, reconciliation, and measurement interoperability to all TV environments. In 2023, led by the newly created Advanced TV Commit Group, Tech Lab will work across the television industry to drive the adoption of an open video watermark standard, supporting technical framework and best practices to achieve standardization across the diverse environments and devices consumers use to watch TV. The Advanced TV initiative will enable the industry to achieve interoperability, improve measurement, and bring greater efficiency to a converging TV landscape. Additional use cases in the roadmap include frame-accurate ad insertion, cross-environment addressability, and universal reconciliation and audit while enabling viewability verification across TV environments, the group said. 
• Ad Supply Chain & Programmatic Foundations. Building on efforts to promote a secure, flexible supply chain in 2022, IAB Tech Lab will announce plans at this year's Annual Leadership Meeting (ALM) to support a green, programmatic supply chain for all digital advertising media. IAB Tech Lab will also work to establish a secure and authenticated supply path from device to demand, a faster and more extensible Open RTB release process, and enhance the Transparency Center, while evolving industry support tools and open source projects, the IAB explained. 
• Measurement. Emerging technologies and new media formats in the digital advertising ecosystem are wonderful opportunities for advertisers to innovate. They also breed inefficiencies in ad delivery and fragmentation in measurement capabilities. The proliferation of devices, platforms, and channels are drivers of complexity and opportunity. In 2023, IAB Tech Lab will continue working to establish consistent cross-media, cross-channel, cross-environment campaign measurement and viewability verification. Tech Lab's ongoing investment in technical measurement standards includes updates to Open Measurement Interface Definition and Open Measurement SDKs to ensure continued support of all mobile/web video and CTV via the newly released OMSDK for CTV, the IAB said. 

NEW YORK—The IAB Technology Laboratory has announced a revision to its “IAB Digital Video In-Stream Ad Format Guidelines and Best Practices” for public comment. The upgrade will allow digital video in-stream ads to render across HD screens of all sizes. The revised set of digital ad formats and creative submission guidelines further enables cross-screen ad portability.

New guidelines include file submission recommendations that detail “ready-to-serve” files for streaming, progressive download, and adaptive bit rate streaming formats. They also recommend providing the source mezzanine file, which allows a publisher to transcode the file to best suit the environment into which it is served.

The public comment period on the guidelines will run through Oct. 16, after which time the IAB Digital Video Ad Format Guidelines Working Group will evaluate the comments and make necessary revision before releasing a finalized version. Comments are being accepted at https://goo.gl/SASR1r or via email to Luke Luckett at luke@iab.net.

“These guidelines for video ad file submissions will help streamline ad development and placement operations, while meeting the growing demand for high-quality digital video from consumers, and the advertisers that want to reach them,” said Scott Cunningham, senior vice president, technology and ad operations, IAB and general manager of the IAB Tech Lab.

To review the new “Guidelines and Best Practices,” visit www.iab.net/dvadformats.