Programmatic grew up. Now it needs to get smarter.

Programmatic has never been more powerful. It’s also never been more complex.

I recently joined Layla Soufi from Vistar Media and Ben O’Mahoney from Ocado Ads on the IAB UK Podcast, recorded live at the Last Thursday Club, to discuss honestly where programmatic stands today. Not the polished narrative (the version you see in sales decks). The reality marketers are navigating every day.

One thing was clear: Programmatic has matured. But maturity alone doesn’t guarantee clarity or effectiveness. 

A few themes from our conversation capture where the industry is now heading.

From display to everywhere

There was a time when programmatic meant display. Standardised formats, open exchanges, scale at speed. Messy, yes, but relatively contained.

Now it underpins Connected TV, digital audio, retail media, and digital out-of-home. Channels that behave very differently from the banner ecosystem programmatic grew up in.

In digital audio, where I spend most of my time, the shift has been significant. What was once dominated by direct sales and host reads is now a sophisticated marketplace of streaming, podcasts, dynamic ad insertion, and real-time trading. Buyers can layer audience data, manage frequency, and tailor creative at scale. That’s real progress.

But expansion brings tension. Not every channel should be treated like display just because the pipes look similar.

Audio is intimate. It’s often consumed through headphones or a smart speaker in someone’s home. Repetition feels different. Context matters more. If you get it wrong, it feels intrusive fast. Measurement isn’t always as simple as dropping a pixel and counting impressions, either.

Programmatic has adapted, but it still carries some habits from its early years. The challenge now is to evolve the thinking as much as the technology.

Fragmentation is marketers’ daily reality

Fragmentation was a recurring theme in our discussion. It’s easy to dismiss it as industry jargon, but for marketers, it’s operational. It shows up in workflows, reporting, and budget conversations.

Marketers are now managing:

• More platforms
• More supply paths
• More dashboards
• More definitions of success

Each addition promises incremental advantage: better targeting, greater reach, and smarter optimisation. But stitched together, they can create a system that feels harder to see through.

Retail media has its own infrastructure. CTV offers multiple buying routes. Audio spans walled gardens and open marketplaces. Out-of-home blends physical networks with digital trading layers.

From a technical standpoint, this is innovation. From a marketer’s perspective, it can feel like complexity layered on complexity.

Automation should elevate decisions

AI and automation are now central to every programmatic conversation. The tools are getting smarter, and rightly so.

Bid optimisation, forecasting, dynamic creative, and frequency management are areas where machines can outperform humans at scale. That’s not controversial.

What matters is how we use that capability.

If automation simply allows us to execute flawed strategies faster, we’ve missed the point. Efficiency without effectiveness is not progress. It’s just better plumbing.

The real opportunity lies in better decision-making: using AI to identify patterns that humans might overlook, surface underpriced but high-performing inventory, and model cross-channel reach in a way that informs planning before money is committed, not just analysed after it’s spent.

In audio, contextual targeting and predictive modelling are helping buyers move beyond broad audience segments towards more meaningful moments. It’s less about chasing volume and more about showing up in the right environment, at the right time, for the right reason.

The technology is powerful. The discipline to apply it well is what will separate good programmatic from great programmatic.

Learning from the past

We also reflected on the lessons of the open web.

The promise of efficiency and scale drove enormous growth, but it also exposed weaknesses. Arbitrage, fraud, and opaque supply chains created distance between advertisers and publishers. In some cases, too much distance.

Emerging channels have an opportunity to avoid repeating that pattern.

• Retail media is built on first-party data and closed-loop measurement
• CTV often operates within premium, broadcaster-led environments
• Digital audio benefits from strong publisher relationships and curated content ecosystems

Programmatic does not have to dilute quality. In many cases, it can reinforce it through clearer supply paths, direct integrations and better controls.

But that outcome depends on intent. Scale is valuable. Commoditisation at any cost rarely is.

What comes next

Programmatic is no longer a specialist discipline. It’s the infrastructure behind modern media buying. But more tools and automation don’t automatically lead to better outcomes.

The next phase is about using what we’ve built more intelligently, understanding how different channels behave, building clearer supply paths, and applying automation to improve decisions, not just speed up execution.

Programmatic has grown up. Now it needs to get smarter.

To hear the full discussion, listen to the Last Thursday Club episode of The IAB UK Podcast here.