Christopher Feo

Excited to share that Aperiam has invested in Bedrock Platform. Obvious statement of the century: programmatic advertising has a complexity problem. The infrastructure that was built to give media buyers control has, over time, done the opposite. Burying teams under layers of operational overhead, legacy tooling, and opaque supply chains. Bedrock is built on a simple but powerful thesis: what if you stripped away the bloat and rebuilt the stack around what actually matters... precision, transparency, and speed to execution. Their platform combines AI-driven campaign automation with curated, premium inventory across video, CTV, DOOH, and audio, and aims to be flexible and get smarter over time. Plus, the team (Shane, Austin, Ryan, James) has deep roots in the infrastructure layer of ad tech and understands the plumbing better than almost anyone. We believe the next generation of programmatic will be leaner, faster and AI-first. Bedrock is building that.

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Here's a great example of AI-first adtech creating real business value for media companies. Aperiam portco Gray Swan is partnering with Operative to bring AI-powered observability to media companies managing converged linear, streaming, and digital advertising operations. GraySwan's agentic AI layer continuously monitors performance signals across supply, demand, pricing, and delivery. It automatically surfaces anomalies, inventory and pricing optimizations, and incremental revenue opportunities in real time. No more hours spent pulling reports or missing critical signals. As Zeev Neumeier, GraySwan's Founder and CEO, put it: media is now a data-driven business, and the power comes from turning that data into action. Proud to support the team GraySwan as they bring this vision to the world's leading media brands.

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🚨 The landscape of CTV Advertising has undergone a significant transformation with the recent Roku-Amazon Alliance announcement at Cannes Lions. This strategic partnership marks a pivotal moment, granting access to approximately 80% of U.S. CTV households, equivalent to around 80 million homes, as highlighted by John Tomase of LinkedIn News. 👉 Initial outcomes are already demonstrating the impact of this collaboration: - 40% increase in unique viewers - 30% reduction in repeated ads - 3x surge in the value of ad spend Having been part of Roku during its early stages, witnessing this development is not merely exhilarating but also the realization of our long-standing vision to establish a dominant presence in the CTV advertising realm through strategic alliances and unparalleled scalability. This partnership signifies more than a mere business deal; it marks a seismic shift in the future landscape of television advertising. 💡 Why This Development Is Significant: 1. The Strategic Move: Scale, Data & Authenticated Reach By amalgamating Roku's CTV reach with Amazon's DSP, a colossal authenticated identity graph is being constructed—a dream come true for advertisers. This translates to reduced wastage of impressions and enhanced precision in targeted, measurable ad delivery. 2. Leveraging Artificial Intelligence Empowered by extensive first-party data and user log-ins, AI can now be leveraged comprehensively to drive hyper-personalized ad experiences. Imagine dynamic ad placements based on real-time behaviors and preferences, transcending traditional demographic targeting. 3. Addressing Key Concerns Will this consolidation potentially stifle market competition? The dynamics of pricing control might shift with increased influence in Amazon's domain. The neutrality of DSP is under scrutiny—what implications will this have for platforms like The Trade Desk? 🔮 Anticipated Developments: ✅ Enhanced focus on authenticated data and AI integration ✅ Emergence of "super-platforms" consolidating inventory and data control ✅ Encouraging brands to adapt: If you're not already optimizing for Amazon’s DSP, now’s the time. ✅ Potential for both innovation and consolidation risks This is a moment of truth for the CTV ecosystem. As we adopt smarter, AI-powered advertising, we must also ask tough questions about data control, interoperability, and competition. Do you think this will reshape the future of media buying for the better or limit it? #CTV #Advertising #Roku #AmazonAds #DigitalAdvertising #MediaBuying #Marketing #AdTech #ConnectedTV Read more: https://lnkd.in/gAzSAAeb

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CTV is a driving force for digital ad spend growth, but those of us who have been around since the days of "Ad Network 1.0" know that non-transparent "ad bundles" and fuzzy PMPs with fancy logos and no accountability will burn out the minute that the supply - demand imbalance come into play. With the rise of Amazon Prime Video and the growth of FAST channels reaching saturation overload, we are just about there. Program level transparency and full impression-level accountability across all CTV sources is only a matter of time.

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Love this - AI is the Oppenheimer moment for marketing. It fundamentally collapses the time and cost of production. A $2.5 million campaign that used to take four months can now be delivered for $500,000 in four weeks. Legacy firms that charge based on hours with the 'time-driven' model are existentially threatened by this.

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Audio represents 20%+ of consumer media time but under 5% of ad spend (eMarketer). For pharma brands focused on reach, frequency, and trust, this unlocks smarter investment without sacrificing accountability. "Viant Technology’s direct integration with iHeartMedia... allows both companies to match their data graphs and create shared IDs for targeting audiences in digital audio, as well as broadcast radio, where audience ID signals are scarce." Net-net: we're making hard to measure channels measurable and heping healthcare marketers better understand who they’re reaching, how often, and how audio fits into the full patient and HCP journey. Audio has always driven impact. Now, with Viant, it drives insight too. #HealthcareMarketing #PharmaMarketing #Viant #Programmatic #AddressableAdvertising #MeasurableMedia #AudioAds https://lnkd.in/ek8J-iJE

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Evolving business models for solution providers, booms in storage and networking, thanks to AI workloads, and growth in physical AI and AI at the edge are among the trends top technology CEOs say to expect from AI this year, according to CRN’s 2026 CEO Outlook. Darktrace’s Jill Popelka said one of the security vendor’s most important areas of investment in 2026 is continuing to expand and strengthen its partner ecosystem. “As customer environments become more complex and AI becomes more embedded in day-to-day operations, partners play an increasingly important role in how security is delivered, operated, and scaled,” she said. Learn about the insights on AI and AI agents from CEOs who participated in the annual CEO Outlook project, and how they are enabling channel partners to meet the moment:

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Everyone's fixated on the wrong story about adtech. Market caps are falling, but while Wall Street debates valuations, publishers are bleeding revenue through a thousand data cuts. Here's programmatic's uncomfortable truth: every bid request broadcasts publisher data to hundreds of parties. Publishers get 60-70p in the Pound, while their audience intelligence trains everyone else's models. The current value chain: -Publisher exposes signals in bid requests -Multiple intermediaries each take their cut -Data gets repackaged and resold -Publisher margins compress -Direct deals become harder to justify As a technologist, I'm skeptical of solutions looking for problems (blockchain for programmatic, anyone?). But one vision makes sense: publishers maintaining control of their data while still enabling efficient transactions. Smart publishers are playing both ends: -Today: Fix the basics - broken header bidding, floor prices, redundant vendors -Tomorrow: Architect for direct agent-to-agent negotiation where data never leaves publisher control The 30-40% currently lost to complexity and intermediation could flow back to content creators and brands. Not through disruption for disruption's sake, but through removing genuinely unnecessary friction. The future belongs to publishers who optimize today's 70p while building toward tomorrow's 95p. At Kiln, we're helping with both - finding hidden revenue in current operations while architecting for a more direct future. #AdTech #Publishing #DigitalAdvertising #DataStrategy https://lnkd.in/emqVW6g5

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Excited to announce Magnite’s partnership with Genius Sports and their real-time Moments Engine, integrated directly into our ClearLine platform. Through this integration, buyers can layer authenticated live sports data into their campaigns, aligning messaging with pivotal game moments and capturing peak fan attention within their programmatic workflow. Big thanks to Josh Linforth, Sean Conroy and the innovative team at Genius Sports for their collaboration.

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Sanjay Trehan, digital and new media advisor, said, “Compelling content is the initial puller, but the ability to take it to diverse audiences makes it a smart combination. Exclusive and differentiated content will always be at a premium, while these sharing deals are tactical with short-term intent.” Trehan highlighted the tension between consumers’ platform-agnostic behavior and platforms’ need to retain audiences. “Consumers are accessing content anytime, anywhere, across devices. Opening multiple gateways helps cater to this demand. But platforms want to extract premium value. The key is balancing reach with optimised revenue. Smart shared models can provide tactical leverage.” Experts agree that while hybrid models can be lucrative, careful deployment is crucial. Trehan said, “The multiplier effect of multiple gateways can grow the audience and advertising pie. But premium offerings must remain differentiated to attract loyal audiences.”

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