Industry Perspectives: What’s Really Changing in Media & Adtech in 2026

The digital advertising industry is entering a year of profound transition, not because of new buzzwords, but because many long-held assumptions are no longer holding up. As AI continues to reshape everything from search behavior to operational workflows, it is increasingly exposing where those narratives fall short. 

We sat down with Benjamin Lanfry, Chief Client & Partnerships Officer at Ogury, to explore the pressures publishers and advertisers are likely to face in the upcoming months, and the industry dynamics that are becoming impossible to ignore.

Everyone is predicting another big year for AI. From your perspective, what will 2026 actually reveal?

We’ve spent years treating AI as the headline, but what 2026 will really surface are the myths the industry has been relying on. The assumptions behind omnichannel strategies, search optimization, programmatic automation, or even clean buy-side vs sell-side roles simply won’t hold up in the same way.

AI is about to stress-test industry models we’ve so far treated as fixed. That will force some necessary reassessments.

How will AI search reshape the open web and the publishers who rely on it?

AI search interfaces are steadily changing how people discover content. Every time a chatbot answers a query, that’s a visit that no longer lands on a publisher’s page. As traditional search traffic declines, publishers will need to distribute content far more widely: across newsletters (look at the meteoric rise of Substack), social platforms, podcasts, mobile apps, and CTV.

At the same time, this shift will push them to refine their audience strategies and focus on the overlooked segments that intelligence tools reveal more effectively.

With referral traffic shrinking, subscriptions will become even more critical, particularly for publishers with niche or investigative content. Formats like personality-driven video and podcasts will also grow in value, because they offer an intimacy and authenticity that AI simply can’t replicate.

With more product research happening inside AI interfaces, how should brands approach visibility?

As consumers increasingly research — and even complete purchases — entirely within AI interfaces, brands naturally want to understand how to appear in those results. Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is emerging as the only viable route, but the opaque black boxes powering chatbots make it far more difficult to master than SEO. 

Publishers, particularly those with licensing agreements in place with AI companies, will be able to leverage their status to offer branded content capable of influencing chatbot responses. However, with no proven formula for success and no standardized measurement frameworks, brands should expect a prolonged period of experimentation and trial-and-error, with success remaining a moving target as models continuously evolve. 

Agentic AI is generating a lot of excitement. How far can automation in programmatic really go?

AI already plays a valuable role in streamlining workflows, media buying, and campaign management. But pushing automation further would require a fundamental overhaul of the entire real-time bidding infrastructure.

While efforts are underway to standardize agentic protocols, scaling them across a supply chain that runs continuously, operates in milliseconds, and tolerates virtually no margin for error remains a monumental challenge. Costs, latency, and efficiency are still largely unproven at the scale that programmatic demands. While we’ll likely see compelling pilots and tests over the coming months, a bottom-up transformation of how ads are traded is still years away.

Buy-side and sell-side boundaries continue to blur. What do you think will come next?

As DSPs move toward direct supply integrations and SSPs launch buying platforms, there’s a clear push toward simplicity and transparency. Over time, the traditional divide between DSPs and SSPs will fade, replaced by end-to-end platforms competing across the entire value chain. What’s notable is that this shift has the potential to strengthen publishers. Whether it’s SSPs positioning themselves closer to consumers or DSPs seeking direct publisher integration, both sides are competing for direct access to quality inventory, and the audience signals only publishers can provide.

If the industry avoids repeating the audience commodification mistakes of the ad network era, this dynamic could finally lead to more balanced, mutually beneficial relationships between publishers and the buy-side.

With so much volatility, what actually brings stability in 2026?

There’s no doubt that AI is accelerating disruption, but it isn’t delivering certainty. Stability will come from understanding audiences and consistently meeting their expectations, whether for advertisers or publishers. 

Companies that anchor themselves in that reality, rather than chasing every new hype cycle, will be the ones still standing as long-held industry assumptions fall away.