Giovanni Gardelli, Head of Product at Yahoo DSP, identified two defining trends from CES 2025 that signal fundamental shifts in how advertising technology platforms compete. The convergence of measurement methodologies addresses a 20-year divide between fast but inaccurate attribution and slow but reliable incrementality testing. Meanwhile, agentic AI systems are eliminating user interface as a competitive advantage, forcing platforms to differentiate through customer acquisition or infrastructure capabilities rather than workflow design.

The observations, shared in a LinkedIn post following the January 2025 Consumer Electronics Show, arrive as advertising platforms face mounting pressure to prove genuine business impact rather than optimizing proxy metrics. Gardelli's analysis highlights how enhanced Conversion API implementations and agentic automation will reshape where platforms invest development resources and how advertisers evaluate technology partners.

Measurement worlds finally merge

Digital advertising has operated with incompatible measurement systems since the early 2000s. Pixel-based last-touch attribution provided speed and real-time optimization capabilities but fundamentally misrepresented campaign effectiveness. Marketing mix modeling, incrementality testing, and lift studies delivered accurate causal measurement but required weeks or months to generate actionable insights.

"For nearly two decades, measurement has lived in two separate worlds," Gardelli stated. "On one side, pixel-based, last-touch attribution. Fast, self-attributable, easy to optimize against in near real time, but fundamentally inaccurate and unable to measure true lift or incrementality. On the other, the offline and aggregated world of MMM, incrementality, and lift studies. More accurate, but slower and far less actionable day to day."

Advertisers juggled conflicting signals from these incompatible systems when making budget allocation decisions. Platforms optimized toward conversion probability predictions that maximized reported performance metrics without necessarily driving incremental business outcomes. The disconnect between what platforms could optimize easily and what actually drove measurable lift created persistent frustration across marketing organizations.

Google lowered incrementality testing thresholds to $5,000 in November 2025, democratizing access to causal measurement that previously required enterprise-level budgets. The shift reflected growing industry recognition that attribution-based optimization alone cannot demonstrate genuine advertising effectiveness.

Measurement vendors now develop enhanced Conversion API implementations that pass richer attribution and incrementality signals between platforms. These technical capabilities promise alignment between real-time optimization systems and true incremental impact measurement.

"We're seeing real progress toward convergence, with several measurement vendors developing enhanced versions of CAPI that pass richer attribution and incrementality signals," Gardelli explained. "The promise is better alignment between optimization and true incrementality, and a meaningful reduction in the long-standing disconnect between what's easy to optimize and what actually drives impact."

The convergence addresses persistent platform limitations. Current advertising systems optimize proxies based on predicted conversion probability, trained on biased feedback loops that favor volume over causal lift. What platforms market as "incrementality bidding" typically represents post-campaign calibration rather than genuine incremental optimization during active campaigns.

Marketing measurement confidence stalled in 2025 despite technological advances, with 54.1% of marketers reporting no confidence improvement year-over-year. Research from TransUnion and EMARKETER showed 67.4% of marketers identified proving incremental ROI as their most pressing measurement challenge, highlighting the urgency of bridging attribution and incrementality methodologies.

The technical architecture enabling measurement convergence builds on attribution developments across major platforms. Google enhanced Display & Video 360 attribution capabilities in November 2025 with improved parameter passing for TrueView campaigns. Meta tested Google Analytics 4 integration in October 2025, providing advertisers alternative measurement pathways independent of platform-native attribution systems.

Investment priorities reflect the measurement methodology shift. Nearly half of marketers - 46.9% - planned to increase marketing mix modeling investment over 12 months according to research published in October 2025, while 34.7% prioritized multitouch attribution enhancements. The combination of approaches delivers more comprehensive performance assessment than either methodology alone.

IAB released incrementality measurement frameworks for commerce media in November 2025, establishing standardized definitions and methodologies for causal impact measurement. The guidelines distinguished incrementality from attribution and ROAS calculations, emphasizing that only experimental approaches with proper control groups can isolate genuine advertising effects from baseline demand.

Research demonstrates substantial measurement gaps between methodologies. Kochava analysis published in September 2025 showed marketing mix modeling revealed TikTok campaigns generated 35% higher incremental impact compared to last-touch attribution reporting. The discrepancy illustrates how attribution methods systematically undervalue channels that initiate exploration behaviors rather than capturing final conversion clicks.

Agentic systems eliminate UI advantage

User interface quality historically represented a durable competitive advantage for demand-side platforms, ad exchanges, and agencies. Platforms invested heavily in workflow design, dashboard development, and campaign management interfaces that reduced operational complexity for advertisers. The centrality of UI to platform differentiation created barriers to entry for new competitors and switching costs that retained existing customers.

Agentic AI fundamentally disrupts this competitive dynamic. As artificial intelligence systems gain capability to build functional, customizable interfaces at lower cost, more organizations will develop tailored UIs matching specific workflow requirements. The democratization of interface development through AI agents erodes the competitive moat that platforms built through years of design investment.

"It's still early, but it's increasingly clear that agentic is here to stay and will only grow in importance," Gardelli stated. "A key implication is that UI and workflow will become a much less durable competitive advantage across AdTech players, whether DSPs, Exchanges, or Agencies. As agentic systems make it easier and cheaper to build functional, customizable interfaces, more companies will build their own UIs tailored to their specific needs."

The convergence of agentic AI and advertising infrastructure accelerated dramatically in November 2025. Amazon unified its DSP and sponsored ads console while launching AI agents for campaign management. Google made its Ads Advisor available to all English-language accounts. The IAB Tech Lab introduced its Agentic RTB Framework establishing containerized auction standards for autonomous buying systems.

Competition diverges toward opposite ends of the technology stack as UI loses strategic importance. On one edge, platforms differentiate through sales and servicing capabilities - efficiently acquiring customers and supporting them exceptionally. On the other edge, infrastructure becomes the battleground - building superior algorithms, data orchestration layers, and low-latency bidding systems.

"Instead, competition will diverge toward the edges," Gardelli explained. "On one edge, upstream to UI: sales and servicing. Companies that win by acquiring customers efficiently and supporting them exceptionally well. On the other, downstream to UI: infrastructure. Companies that focus on building the best pipes, algorithms, and data-driven orchestration layers."

The middle layer where workflow and interface previously mattered most grows increasingly thin. Platforms cannot maintain competitive advantages through dashboard design or campaign management workflows when agentic systems enable rapid UI development at fraction of historical costs.

Industry analysis supports this competitive realignment. Ari Paparo, founder and CEO of Marketecture Media, published assessment in July 2025 arguing that agentic AI poses existential threats to traditional demand-side platform business models. Paparo suggested AI agents could fundamentally disrupt programmatic technology stacks by automating campaign setup, targeting, and optimization functions currently handled by DSPs.

Microsoft's announcement in May 2025 to discontinue Microsoft Invest (formerly Xandr) effective February 28, 2026, explicitly cited incompatibility between traditional DSP models and visions for "conversational, personalized, and agentic" advertising futures. The closure eliminates one of the industry's most transparent platforms, with implications for how remaining players differentiate capabilities.

Infrastructure capabilities increasingly determine platform competitiveness. AWS launched RTB Fabric in October 2025, providing dedicated network infrastructure for real-time bidding with single-digit millisecond latency and 80% cost savings. The managed network layer optimized for OpenRTB communication demonstrates infrastructure becoming a distinct competitive battleground separate from application-layer features.

Platform consolidation patterns reflect infrastructure priorities. Amazon's Campaign Manager integration announced in November 2025 merged DSP and Ads Console into unified buying infrastructure. The consolidation occurred alongside agentic AI tools for campaign generation, demonstrating how platforms combine infrastructure improvements with automation capabilities rather than focusing on traditional UI refinement.

European advertising technology markets show similar dynamics. Adform's acquisition of Splicky in December 2025 strengthened capabilities in DACH markets by adding Digital Out-of-Home expertise. Jochen Schlosser, Adform's Chief Technology Officer, noted concentration among demand-side platforms has increased significantly, with limited independent options remaining as infrastructure requirements grow more demanding.

Strategic implications

The dual trends create divergent strategic paths for advertising technology companies. Platforms must choose whether to compete on customer relationships and service quality or invest in algorithmic capabilities and infrastructure performance. The middle ground of workflow design and UI polish loses strategic value as agentic systems commoditize interface development.

Sales and servicing excellence requires organizational capabilities distinct from technical development. Platforms competing on this dimension need efficient customer acquisition channels, exceptional support operations, and relationship management systems that maximize lifetime value. These capabilities align more closely with traditional agency models than software development organizations.

Infrastructure competition demands different investments. Building superior algorithms, optimizing data processing pipelines, and delivering low-latency bidding systems requires deep technical expertise and substantial capital expenditure. Platforms pursuing this strategy face ongoing pressure to demonstrate performance advantages that justify higher costs compared to commodity infrastructure providers.

The measurement convergence trend compounds strategic complexity. As enhanced Conversion APIs enable incrementality-aligned optimization, platforms must develop capabilities to process richer signal types while maintaining real-time performance requirements. The technical challenge of integrating causal measurement signals into bidding algorithms represents significant engineering investment that may favor larger platforms with more resources.

Advertiser decision frameworks will adapt to these competitive shifts. Evaluating platforms based on dashboard aesthetics or workflow convenience becomes less relevant when agentic interfaces provide customization capabilities. Assessment criteria will emphasize measurement accuracy, infrastructure performance, algorithmic effectiveness, and service quality - factors that directly impact campaign outcomes rather than operational convenience.

The transparency implications remain uncertain. Platforms competing primarily on infrastructure may have fewer incentives to provide detailed supply chain visibility if algorithms and data orchestration represent proprietary competitive advantages. Conversely, platforms differentiating through service excellence might emphasize transparency as a relationship-building tool that demonstrates value to clients.

Privacy regulations continue complicating measurement methodologies regardless of technical advances. Enhanced Conversion APIs that pass incrementality signals still face restrictions from GDPR, CCPA, and emerging privacy frameworks globally. The convergence of measurement approaches occurs within evolving regulatory constraints that limit data collection and processing capabilities across jurisdictions.

Attribution window restrictions announced by Meta in October 2025 demonstrate how platform policies compound measurement challenges. The elimination of longer view-through windows and historical data retention limits force advertisers to adapt frameworks even as technical capabilities improve. Measurement convergence progresses unevenly across platforms with different policy priorities.

Cost structures evolve as infrastructure and customer acquisition become primary competitive dimensions. Platforms investing heavily in algorithmic capabilities and low-latency systems face higher technical costs that must translate to measurable performance advantages. Service-focused competitors need efficient operations that deliver exceptional support without proportional cost increases as customer bases grow.

Industry trajectory

The CES 2025 observations capture inflection points rather than completed transitions. Measurement convergence remains partial, with enhanced Conversion APIs still under development and platform adoption uneven. Agentic systems demonstrate growing capability but have not yet fully commoditized interface development across advertising technology stacks.

Implementation timelines vary significantly across platform types. Large walled gardens including Google, Meta, and Amazon possess resources to develop both measurement enhancements and agentic capabilities simultaneously. Independent DSPs face strategic choices about where to invest limited development budgets, potentially accelerating competitive divergence.

Measurement vendor consolidation may accelerate as enhanced attribution capabilities require substantial technical investment. Circana's acquisitions of NCSolutions and Nielsen's MMM business in August 2024 demonstrated consolidation patterns in marketing mix modeling. Similar dynamics may affect attribution vendors as enhanced CAPI implementations demand more sophisticated technical capabilities.

The feedback loops between measurement improvements and platform optimization create complex dynamics. Better incrementality signals enable more accurate optimization, but only if platforms develop bidding algorithms that properly utilize richer data. The coordination challenges across measurement vendors, advertising platforms, and marketer implementations may slow convergence despite technical feasibility.

Agentic AI development trajectories remain uncertain. Current implementations primarily handle advisory roles and information retrieval rather than autonomous campaign management with spending authority. The progression from assistive tools to fully autonomous agents depends on accuracy improvements, liability frameworks, and advertiser willingness to delegate budget decisions to AI systems.

Infrastructure requirements grow as real-time bidding systems process increasingly complex data signals. The computational demands of incorporating incrementality information into sub-100-millisecond bidding decisions favor platforms with substantial technical infrastructure. This technical barrier to entry may reduce the number of viable independent DSPs operating in programmatic markets.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Giovanni Gardelli, Head of Product at Yahoo DSP, shared analysis following CES 2025 identifying two major trends reshaping advertising technology competition.

What: Measurement methodologies are converging as enhanced Conversion APIs enable richer attribution and incrementality signal passing, potentially aligning real-time optimization with genuine incremental impact. Simultaneously, agentic AI systems are eliminating user interface as a durable competitive advantage, forcing platforms to differentiate through customer acquisition efficiency and exceptional service or through superior infrastructure, algorithms, and data orchestration capabilities.

When: Observations were shared in January 2025 following CES. The trends reflect developments throughout 2025 including measurement framework releases, platform consolidations, and agentic AI implementations accelerating in November 2025.

Where: The trends affect advertising technology platforms globally, with particular implications for demand-side platforms, ad exchanges, and agencies competing across programmatic advertising markets in North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific regions.

Why: The measurement convergence addresses a 20-year divide between fast but inaccurate pixel-based attribution and slow but reliable incrementality testing, responding to advertiser demands for proving genuine business impact rather than optimizing proxy metrics. The UI divergence reflects agentic systems democratizing interface development at lower cost, eliminating workflow design as a competitive moat and forcing platforms to compete on fundamentally different capabilities than historically determined market success.

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