Stop Waving AI at a Problem That Needs a Hammer
When a major brand's ad budgets end up funding terrorist propaganda or child exploitation, the industry's response is predictably complex: more AI, more algorithms, more “solutions”.
But what if the answer has been hiding in plain sight for years?
Two decades of added complexity have done little to benefit ad tech, and they certainly haven’t solved the foundational issues that continue to undermine trust in the digital advertising ecosystem.
Funnily enough, complexity is not just the domain of bad actors. Who in the industry (and beyond) doesn’t enjoy a pitch filled with rocket science and hyperbolic promises about how a given solution will deliver fantastic results?
AI, or rather the indiscriminate obsession with it, has only made it worse.
What fascinates me most is how complexity is now being used, or claimed to be used, as a path to transparency, a tool to fight fraud and low-quality inventory. But true transparency lies first and foremost in simplicity.
