With an eye toward the OpenAI Careers website, Digiday’s Krystal Scanlon notes that OpenAI is expanding its advertising business in Europe and will have boots on the ground to support those efforts.
Read: “OpenAI set to expand ads to France, Germany and Ireland” (July 9) – Digiday (subscription)
Also of note on the OpenAI Careers website is a new San Francisco-based role reporting to David Dugan, OpenAI’s Global Head of Ads, for “Head of Scaled Ads Solutions.”
The job description suggests OpenAI is building the commercial infrastructure using a “reseller model” to acquire and support thousands of advertisers.
“We are seeking a Head of Scaled Ads Sales to define and scale OpenAI’s approach to serving advertisers at scale. You will set the scaled sales strategy across direct, reseller, and business-process-outsourcing (BPO) channels; identify priority markets; and translate that strategy into sequenced, measurable in-market execution.
This is a highly strategic and operational leadership role responsible for scaled sales revenue growth and channel performance. You will design the reseller model, select priority vendors and markets, lead RFPs and contracting, and manage partners against clear commercial and customer-quality standards.”
From tipsheet: The “reseller model” may resemble what we’ve seen to date with OpenAI’s partnerships with Criteo, PacVue and StackAdapt, extending advertiser access beyond OpenAI’s own direct sales organization and its self-serve advertising platform.
Related: “‘We hadn’t seen this many people since Elon Musk’: a new player in advertising, OpenAI electrifies the Cannes Lions.” (June 30) – Le Figaro
LLMs & CHATBOTS
Developments
- Get started with Meta Model API (July 9) – Meta Model API
- ChatGPT Work: ChatGPT is now a partner for your most ambitious work (July 9) – OpenAI
- Inviting hard questions (July 9) – Anthropic
Last night: “Today, I shared with the OpenAI team that I have decided to leave my full-time role at OpenAI and transition to being a part-time advisor.” (July 9) – OpenAI CEO of Applications Fidji Simo on X
TECH
Google addresses AI provenance
Google is adding a “How this ad was made” panel to ads across Search, YouTube and Discover, allowing users to see whether AI was used to create or edit an ad.
Google VP & GM of Ads Privacy and Safety Keerat Sharma told advertisers specifically:
“We want to make managing AI disclosures as simple as possible for advertisers. So when they use Google’s generative AI advertising tools to create ads, we’ll automatically add a disclosure to each ad’s My Ad Center panel. And when they create ads elsewhere, we’re introducing a control so they can easily indicate if they used generative AI. Based on local requirements, a label may also appear directly on the ad, either automatically or when an advertiser uses this control.”
Read:
- “Expanding AI transparency in ads“ (July 9) – Google Ads & Commerce blog
- AI Transparency in ads – My Ad Center Help
- Use AI content label settings and disclosures – Google Ads Help
From tipsheet: Platforms may frame these features around trust and safety, but what they’re building is provenance infrastructure. AI disclosure is one application of that broader shift as platforms embed metadata about how creative was produced into the advertising supply chain for consumers, AI systems, publishers, verification vendors and regulators.
The announcement follows Meta’s rollout of new image provenance disclosures a day earlier.
SELL-SIDE
Cloudflare defaults AI crawlers to ‘off’
Adweek’s Mark Stenberg examines Cloudflare’s AI monetization strategy and how it addresses publishers’ concerns that AI systems increasingly answer questions with publisher content instead of referring readers to publisher sites.
Representing the interests of not only her company, but her company’s publishing clients, Cloudflare chief strategy officer Stephanie Cohen tells Adweek, “We’ve been clear about what we want. We want a technical solution that allows you to be discoverable without having to give your content away for free.”
Stenberg writes:
“Beginning Sept. 15, all new websites signing up for Cloudflare, as well as all the customers on its free tier, will have the default settings in their bot management protocol set to block “multi-purpose crawlers” on any webpage that has ads. This means that any crawler that scrapes for both search indexing and AI training will be turned away at the door, unless the site owner decides otherwise.”
Following a UK Competition and Markets Authority announcement in early June, Google said UK publishers — with a global rollout to follow — will be able to opt out of AI crawling while remaining eligible for inclusion in Google Search.
Read: “Once Unimaginable, Publishers Are Preparing to Opt Out of Google Search” (July 8) – Adweek
More:
- “Your site, your rules: new AI traffic options for all customers” (July 1) – Cloudflare
- “Announcing the Monetization Gateway: charge for any resource behind Cloudflare via x402” (July 1) – Cloudflare
From tipsheet: AI is renegotiating the economics of discovery. The historical exchange of content for traffic is giving way to new mechanisms governing discovery, content use, and compensation.
Related: “How TIME’s CMS Transition Laid The Foundation For Its AI-Driven Content Overhaul” (July 9) – AdExchanger
TECH
Startup targets AI costs with ad revenue
What is an AI app publisher to do with those pricey AI inference costs?
Enter Velocity.
Co-founder and CEO Tal Shoham announced $27 million in seed funding for a new ad tech startup, Velocity, led by former ironSource executives.
He defined the startup on LinkedIn:
“Velocity is the AI-native monetization and distribution platform for AI-native applications. We transform real-time user intent into monetization, engagement, and distribution opportunities, enabling AI products to build sustainable businesses around their users and experiences.”
Read more. (July 9)
Also: “Former ironSource executives raise $27 million Seed to build the advertising layer for AI” (July 9) – Ctech by Calcalist
ironSource merged with Unity in 2022. Unity shutdown the ad network earlier this year.
From tipsheet: Ad tech is building around a new monetization signal in AI interfaces—conversational intent. Velocity’s bet is that advertising can help AI-native applications offset inference costs.
SEARCH
World Cup and Google Search
Nick Fox, SVP, Google on X (July 8):
-
“Google Search broke all prior usage records and saw its highest usage in history right after Argentina scored their winning goal in yesterday’s match! Great to see the global excitement for the World Cup… can’t wait for the semis and final!”
From tipsheet: Google Search is undoubtedly not alone in media when it comes to World Cup tailwinds. CTV anyone?
MEASUREMENT
Closing the loop for outcomes in healthcare
Ad platform PurePlay[dot]ai is integrating PurpleLab’s identity resolution technology to deliver claims-based attribution in as little as 24 hours, allowing pharmaceutical advertisers to optimize campaigns while they’re still running.
Read: “PurePlay AI and PurpleLab Launch Mid-Funnel Pharma Optimization with Embedded Pulse” (July 9) – PurpleLab
PurpleLab says the platform combines impression-level attribution with healthcare eligibility signals, and Klick Health is the first agency deploying the technology for direct-to-consumer pharma campaigns.
More:
- PurpleLab fetches $40M in series B funding, plans to acquire new data assets (2022) – press release
- PurePlay Launches AI-Powered Media Intelligence Platform – Backed by VideoAmp founder Ross McCray (August 2025) – press release
From tipsheet: Shortening the time between an ad impression and a verified business outcome makes AI optimization more valuable. As measurement approaches real-time, it shifts from reporting campaign performance to continuously improving campaign decisions.
AGENTS
Amazon touts enterprise AI transformation
In a corporate announcement that echoed Warner Bros. Discovery’s mid-June announcement, Amazon highlighted how its Amazon Web Services unit is helping WBD build its agentic advertising platform.
From the Amazon release on Wednesday:
“WBD is expanding its advertising technology stack on AWS and deploying an agentic AI-driven approach to how premium inventory across its U.S. linear and digital channels is planned, activated, optimized, and monetized. By rebuilding its longstanding traditional internal workflows from the ground up with automated, data-driven processes on a single platform, WBD has reimagined its infrastructure for advertisers – unifying the buying experience across previously siloed business units and enabling ongoing automated campaign optimization.”
WBD originally announced the partnership in a press release on June 21.
Read: “Warner Bros. Discovery Announces Agentic AI-Powered Advertising Technology Built on AWS, its Preferred Cloud Provider” (July 8) – Amazon
Related: Q&A: WBD building ‘agentic platform that unifies’ with Dr. Nage Sethi, SVP of Technology, WBD (June 21) – tipsheet
From tipsheet: Amazon’s decision to publish WBD’s announcement through its corporate press office—not just AWS channels—is notable. It reflects how enterprise AI transformation is becoming part of Amazon’s broader AI story, with AWS positioned as the foundation for rebuilding core business workflows around agentic AI.
This is the third time we’ve seen enterprise AI transformation emerge as the product in the past week: Amazon (Tuesday), Microsoft (July 2) and WPP Enterprise (July 1).
GOVERNANCE
Standardizing media for machines
The IAB with help from its standards arm, IAB Tech Lab, offered the Redefining Media Types (RMT) Standard for public comment yesterday.
A press release explained that RMT provides a two-layer classification system designed to support both strategic planning and operational execution. Unspoken is the benefit to AI systems provided by standardization.
An excerpt from the release:
“The RMT Standard provides a two-layer classification system designed to support both strategic planning and operational execution.
The first layer organizes video advertising environments into four macro buckets grounded in consumer viewing experience:
- Lean Back Viewing
- Personal Screen Viewing
- Passive and Communal Viewing
These buckets are based on how a viewer is cognitively and physically oriented to the screen, rather than the technology delivering the content or the business model funding it.
The second layer applies binary impression-level attributes that…”
Read:
- Redefining Media Types Standard (July 9) – IAB
- IAB Releases Redefining Media Types Standard for Public Comment (July 9) – IAB press release
- RMT Definitions – IAB
From tipsheet: Like structured data, MCP, and UCP, industry standards make media easier for machines to understand. The immediate goal is consistent planning and measurement, but standardized media definitions also help AI systems classify, compare, and optimize inventory. As advertising becomes more automated, shared taxonomies become part of the industry’s machine-readable infrastructure.
MOBILE
PubMatic pushes for “premium” mobile inventory
PubMatic is expanding its push into premium mobile gaming inventory through a new partnership with Zynga, giving advertisers access to the game publisher’s portfolio through its SSP.
A PubMatic blog post reads:
“Here’s why this matters now.
Gaming apps now represent 8.1% of US app ad spend — a figure that grew 42% year-over-year — yet gaming audiences have reached near-parity with shopping audiences, with 53.8% of the US population expected to play mobile games in 2026, matching the reach of shopping apps.”
Read: “PubMatic and Zynga Unlock Premium Mobile Gaming Inventory for Buyers” (July 9) – PubMatic blog
The deal adds a premium mobile publisher to PubMatic’s supply as it builds out its in-app business, in a category where AppLovin has established a dominant position.
From tipsheet: As AI automates media buying, “premium” supply becomes a strategic asset. PubMatic is strengthening its position by assembling differentiated mobile gaming inventory that buyers and AI systems can access through its platform.
MORE
- Opinion: “Why Marketers Need to Own Their AI Context Layer” (July 9) – Eddie Drake, Industry Principal on Snowflake blog
- Anthropic invites the hard questions about AI in latest Claude campaign (July 9) – Ad Age (subscription)
- Try a new conversational search experience with Ask YouTube (July 6) – Google YouTube Help
- TvScientific by Pinterest rolls out Certified Measurement Partner Program as part of measurement push (July 9) – Marketing Brew