Insights.
Ideas on the forces changing the relationships between advertisers, agencies and publishers.
Latest series
The Connected Advantage: build together, or drift apart.
The Agentic AI Asymmetry Dilemma named the problem: agency AI accelerating while advertiser and publisher systems stood still. This series asks the other half of the question — what actually closes the gap?
Three parts, one for each side of the ecosystem, on what each needs to do and where collaborative AI can bring the industry closer together instead of pulling it further apart.
- Part one
Advertisers Are Automating a Structure They Never Fixed.
Workflow doesn't stop at your team. It's defined at the join between advertiser and agency — and nobody owns it. AI can only amplify the process it's given.
By Stuart Bailey · September 2026 · First published in B&TRead → - Part two
Publishers Are Solving for a Specification No One Published.
Five agency AI systems, none of them published. Publishers need to be found, frictionless and fluent — drop any one and the other two stop working.
By Stuart Bailey · 23 September 2026 · First published in B&TRead → - Part three
Agency AI Doesn't Need to Be Open. But It Does Need to Connect.
Agencies are the only party that can see both sides of the workflow. Keep the engine closed; open the interfaces around it.
By Stuart Bailey · 25 September 2026 · First published in B&TRead →
Earlier series
The Agentic AI Asymmetry Dilemma.
AI capability is not developing evenly across the advertising ecosystem.
This three-part series explores what that could mean for publishers, advertisers and agencies — and why greater collaboration may ultimately matter more than who develops the smartest technology first.
- Part one
Catching Publishers Sleeping.
Publishers are being asked to optimise for AI systems they don't understand, using signals they can't see.
By Stuart Bailey · 2 July 2026Read → - Part two
The New Thing Keeping Advertisers Awake.
More than 90% of advertisers now use AI to plan and buy media. But as proprietary agency systems make more decisions every day, who's really in the driver's seat?
By Stuart Bailey · 20 July 2026Read → - Part three
A Wake-Up Call for the Whole Ecosystem.
The Agentic AI Asymmetry Dilemma is no longer a publisher problem or an advertiser problem. It's an ecosystem problem, and the clock is ticking.
By Stuart Bailey · 6 August 2026Read →
Part Three: Agency AI Doesn't Need to Be Open. But It Does Need to Connect.
Agencies are the only party that can see both sides of the workflow at once. The competitive advantage can stay inside the engine — the ecosystem advantage sits in the interfaces around it. Part three of The Connected Advantage.
