Nvidia, the processor behemoth specializing in graphics processing units (GPUs) for artificial intelligence (AI), may be seizing the opportunity in advertising technology.

A job advertisement posted over the weekend says the company is looking for a “Senior Product Marketing Manager, AdTech” (see it) for NYC/CA/remote and describes an ad tech ecosystem as “The NVIDIA AdTech ecosystem.” This “includes GPU-accelerated state-of-the-art AI-enabled companies who are transforming how advertisers connect with audiences while helping CMOs drive campaign efficiency, revenue growth, and higher value.”

Nvidia wants to work with the CMO.

10 years of product marketing and programmatic advertising experience are also “checked” in the job ad which includes the ad tech division’s (if it is a division) target market:

“Ways to stand out from the crowd: Technical knowledge of AdTech pipelines in media and entertainment including Sports, AVOD, FAST, and live streaming.”

thought bubble: This hire will likely become a popular fixture and guest speaker at future advertising and marketing tech events.

Apple on AI, ML

“The Illusion of Thinking: Understanding the Strengths and Limitations of Reasoning Models via the Lens of Problem Complexity,” is the basis of a new white paper released this month by Apple machine learning researchers. Get it.

Product leader David Wiener at ad tech startup Rembrand reviews the paper in depth on LinkedIn and concludes, “…if you’re building AI systems that need to reason or plan, this paper is a must-read.”

more:

• A knockout blow for LLMs? – Marcus on AI

Meta AI ads

• Opinions: “Meta’s AI advertising takeover: Will it reshape APAC’s diverse ad ecosystem?” (June 6) – Campaign Asia

data partnerships changing

Jager McConnell, CEO of the popular venture capital investment database Crunchbase, spoke to Auren Hoffman (of Rapleaf/Liveramp fame) on Hoffman’s “World of DaaS” podcast last week.

Hear it on Apple Podcasts. And, read the auto-transcript.

McConnell didn’t hold back in the interview – even suggesting he’s ready to sell Crunchbase. McConnell is an AI “doomer” even if he didn’t explicitly say it. Two of his observations stood out:

• Many tech startups have a two-year shelf life due to AI: “If I can code a decent app myself today, and it will be okay, it’s not that great, but it’s a prototype, in one more year, it’s going to be a great enterprise class app, it’s going to do everything I need to do. If I’m an internal IT person at, insert [any company name here], and I say, oh, we really want the CRM system, but I need to do these 16 different things, am I going to go and buy an external software to do it?”

• Data company partnerships are threatened by AI: “An AI agent working for Open AI is going to reach out to all the same places that [XYZ data aggregator] did partnerships and say, ‘Would you rather give us the data?’ And they’re going to say, ‘Yes.’ In fact, a lot of our companies are selling data to Open AI, Anthropic, Perplexity (…) I don’t think those companies are doing a good job at scale of making those partnerships yet. But as soon as they start using AI to figure out how to do that with their own [business development] AI agent. Your proprietary way – because you had 4,000 partnerships – it doesn’t matter anymore.”

The irony that McConnell was talking to the former LiveRamp CEO was not a goof. LiveRamp should be worried is what McConnell seems to say.

The opportunity for startups: what McConnell identified as “Time series” (especially what’s happening now) and foundational ideas will still remain the purview of startups.

AI transformation

• “As AI reshapes search, Zola turns to creators to meet Gen Z where they scroll” (June 6) – Digiday

• podcast: “What Does It Mean To Be All In On AI? (…) we argue that there will be a need for AI babysitters..” (June 6) – AdExchanger

Cannes: creative versus AI

The upcoming Cannes Lions ad festival in Cannes, France is only a week away and, as one might expect, the festival is trying to balance its ballyhooed focus on creative with technology (you know, the festival’s sponsors!).

See the 5-day agenda in which AI appears relatively invisible -at first glance.

A June 17 (likely sponsored) presentation titled, “AI and the Future of Creativity” takes a careful approach the AI/creativity conundrum. Starring Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI and co-founder of DeepMind, and Colleen DeCourcy, the ex-CCO of Snap and former agency executive, the duo promise to “address the urgent issues in a conversation that delves into agentic AI and its implications for our digital lives and digital industries.” Sounds scary?

more:

• “AI becomes a Cannes co-pilot for agencies” (June 6) – Ad Age (subscription)

use case: sales and AI

A team of practitioners at the Harvard Business Review have put together “Companies Are Using AI to Make Faster Decisions in Sales and Marketing.” Read it here. (free with signup)

Several examples of salesforce workflow optimization with AI are highlighted. “Modern AdTech platforms” also gets a call-out as an AI first-mover which would be news to no one in advertising technology.

The authors are also responsible for HBR’s sales management handbook released last October.

system of action (& record)

David Yuan of private equity firm Tidemark argues on his firm’s blog that “In vertical SaaS, the next battleground is the system of action—where AI doesn’t just help run the business, it does the work. The winner gets the user, the workflow, and the economics.”

No doubt, these voices have an axe to grind given their investor status, but the topic appears timely and the “system of action” buzzphrase could have legs.. so here we are in this newsletter.

Itai Damti further distills Yuan’s post on LinkedIn by comparing Salesforce and up-and-coming B2B platform Gong: ““The key idea: AI created a new wave of tools in vertical SaaS – SYSTEMS OF ACTION. They typically attach themselves to existing SYSTEMS OF RECORD. These new tools serve ‘heroes’ and automate their work…”

See more.

more stuff

• How to watch Apple’s WWDC 2025 keynote today at 1 pm ET – TechCrunch

• “The long-term consequence of the application of AI to digital advertising is a more expansive, more diversified market.” (June 4) – Eric Seufert, analyst, Mobile Dev Memo

• Opinion: “Coign’s AI-generated commercial is weird, clunky, and forgettable—which is exactly what makes it dangerous.” (June 6) – Fast Company