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.
