The Digiday Podcast

Ads are coming for smart refrigerator screens, car dashboards and AI search results. So what happens when everything becomes ad inventory? On this episode of the Digiday Podcast, hosts Tim Peterson and Kimeko McCoy dig into how far advertising can expand before the business of selling attention starts to break down.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s lawsuit against Amazon’s on-platform search advertising business appears to be a tempest in a teapot. Amazon’s alleged opaque ad auction dynamics aren’t exactly beyond the pale when it comes to what ad buyers experience across platforms and the programmatic ad marketplace today. In this week’s episode, Digiday executive editor of news Seb Joseph joined the show to break down how ad buyers are reacting the Amazon-FTC case, what the situation reveals about modern ad auctions and how AI-powered ad platforms stand to remove even more transparency and control from ad buyers.

A lot can happen in a few months. A few months ago, NBCUniversal was secure within Comcast, LiveRamp was an independent ad tech company, Hank Green was unbesmirched, and publishers’ complaints about Google were simply that. Then this summer happened. In this week’s Digiday Podcast episode, hosts Kimeko McCoy and Tim Peterson recap the season’s biggest developments in the media and marketing industries and the questions they raise for the final stretch of 2026.

Google’s AI crawlers are eating away at publisher traffic by serving answers directly in search, but blocking them comes with risks. Digiday media reporter Sara Guaglione and executive editor of news Seb Joseph join this episode of the Digiday Podcast to break down what publishers actually stand to lose in the zero-click era—a core theme at the upcoming Digiday Publishing Summit in Miami this September.

Agencies are pushing AI deeper into everyday work while still figuring out what should and shouldn't be automated. Digiday caught up with agency leaders and early-career marketers about AI, automation and where they're drawing the line.

Butler/Till is quickly moving its AI agent media buying work from experimentation to implementation across more clients, platforms and channels. Controls, however, look different from client-to-client and channel to channel. In this episode of the Digiday Podcast, Scott Ensign, chief strategy officer at Butler/Till, joins the Digiday Podcast to discuss how the agency is putting agentic media buying into practice.

Inventory access has become a tug-of-war between agencies and ad tech companies. In this episode, Matt Adams, global CEO of Stagwell Media Platform, joins the Digiday Podcast to talk about why Stagwell is building its own inventory marketplace and what agencies hope to gain by moving closer to supply.

The IAB has a new acronym—the RMT, short for Redefining Media Types Standard. But this acronym could actually matter. In this episode of the Digiday Podcast, Jamie Finstein, vp of media center at the IAB, unpacks what the proposed framework means for advertisers, agencies and media buying.

As AI takes on more repetitive marketing tasks, agencies are being forced to rethink what they’re selling. Omnicom Media Group North America CEO Ralph Pardo joins Digiday from the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity to talk about the future of agency talent, the rise of “capability companies” and why human judgment still matters.

For a channel expected to rake in $5.3 billion between 2026 and 2030, a logo on a jersey isn't enough anymore. On this episode of the Digiday Podcast, Ally Bank CMO Andrea Brimmer breaks down the anatomy of a sports marketing deal and why emerging media is Ally's next bet.

Is there a difference between a creator and an influencer. If so, what’s the difference and why does it matter to marketers? On this episode of the Digiday Podcast, Digiday staffers debate the topic.

Creators are no longer a media channel or transaction. It’s an entirely new marketing model, at least that’s what the infrastructure behind Unilever’s creator strategy indicates. In this episode, Digiday catches up with Selina Sykes, global vp of digital, social and Al transformation at Unilever’s Beauty and Wellbeing, to learn about its scale and automation.

At the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity this week, Meta announced a slew of even more automated marketing tools, further lowering the barrier to entry for advertisers to manage campaigns directly. Nicola Mendelsohn, Meta’s head of global business group, joins this episode of the Digiday podcast to talk about how that does and doesn't change the agency-platform relationship.

Spotify’s ad business is trying to evolve beyond audio. At this year's Cannes Lions, Digiday senior marketing reporter Kimeko McCoy catches up with Brian Berner, VP of advertising partnerships at Spotify, about automation, AI, video and Spotify’s push for bigger media budgets.

Digital twins are helping brands scale content and talent deals. Marketers are still navigating the tradeoffs. On this episode of the Digiday Podcast, hosts Kimeko McCoy and Tim Peterson unpack the rise of digital twins, AI sprawl and authenticity.

The upfront marketplace has long been built on relationships and negotiation. Now, automation and AI are changing how deals get done.

OpenAI's ad pilot is plagued with reporting hiccups and under-delivery issues. It's testing marketer's patience, but the fear of missing out on AI's next big platforms seems to outweigh their frustrations.

Once valued in the billions, digital media giants like BuzzFeed and Vox Media are now selling assets and restructuring as the old traffic-driven publishing model breaks down. On this episode of the Digiday Podcast, Digiday senior media editor Jessica Davies and senior media reporter Sara Guaglione joins hosts Kimeko McCoy and Tim Peterson to unpack what the fall of billion-dollar valuations says about the future of digital media.

If shoppers start turning to AI assistants instead of retailer websites, the foundation of the retail media business could begin to crack. That’s the tension at the center of agentic commerce. On this episode of the Digiday Podcast, hosts Kimeko McCoy and Tim Peterson explore how AI-powered shopping agents could reshape retail media networks, disrupt ad dollars and force retailers to rethink their role in the shopper journey.

The programmatic world seems split: is AI the future of media buying, or just a tool requiring heavy supervision? Duluth Trading Company lands somewhere in the middle by leveraging agents for high-speed bidding while keeping a firm human hand on brand storytelling, Duluth’s Director of Marketing Ellie Uberto joins Kimeko McCoy and Tim Peterson live from the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit on May 6 - 8 in Palm Springs, Calif. to break down's Duluth's approach to agents in media.