Is AI a crunch-point for data privacy in adtech?

Welcome to February’s Spotlight, your recap of some of the main headlines from across adtech and digital marketing.

What we have for you today: Trustworthy campaigns drive business success, publishers worry over OpenAI’s ad plans, and programmatic makes inroads into CTV.

AI’s rise makes data privacy non negotiable

A recent article in Digiday persuasively argues that the rise of AI represents something of a crunch point for data privacy in adtech. As the article explains, AI systems have the potential to infer attributes and behaviours from aggregated ad signals even if that data was not shared explicitly. The potential for misuse of this data in fraud, discrimination, and surveillance is clear.

If AI privacy risks are to be managed, consent needs to be hardwired into the use of data in digital advertising using privacy-first technology platforms. For their part, adtech providers and their partners must function as the guardians of consent, working in the interests of consumers to ensure their data isn’t used or shared for anything other than the consented purpose.

Trust is the key to consumers’ hearts

The importance of trust in digital advertising has been highlighted by new analysis from the IPA. According to its research 93% of advertising campaigns reporting “very large” increases in brand trust also report at least one large business effect, such as growth in sales, market share, or profit.

Multiple studies over the years from companies including IBM, The DPO Centre, and The IAAP, link data privacy and trust. And with trust, as we have seen, comes bottom-line success. Applied to digital adverting the message is clear: brands need to use compliant data practices underpinned by rigorous and transparent consent mechanisms.

Publishers voice concerns as OpenAI gets into ads

With OpenAI making a move into in-chat advertising, publishers are rightly worried. Their chief concern is that they will end up underwriting OpenAI’s ad business through their content, even as they lose control over distribution and face increased competition for ad budgets.

In the UK, the CMA is considering providing publishers more powers to protect their content from AI search. Specifically, publishers in the country would be able to opt out of having their content included in Google AI Overviews and to see greater attribution when consented content is used. Ideally, rules such as these would be standardised and implemented across all GenAI platforms.

Publishers can also compete through quality. Leveraging privacy-first user profiles to tailor content to their audiences, publishers can offer premium, completely original, and hallucination-free content created by real people – a proposition that still appeals to many.

Programmatic advertising ramps up on CTV

According to Comcast, advertisers running programmatic TV ads increased 14% in the first half of 2025 compared with 2024. Meanwhile, ad views from new advertisers rose 29% in the same period. Concurrently, industry insiders report that advertisers are increasingly focused on audience targeting, especially using first-party data and commerce signals, to improve their streaming campaigns. Here, solutions like telco-verified IDs, which are proven in CTV environments, will come into their own, providing accurate and privacy-first user verification at source so that brands can reach the right audiences at the right moment.

YouTube pulls out of BARB

In other CTV news, YouTube’s owner, Google, has ended its participation in BARB, a measurement system that compares viewership with other streamers such as Netflix and TV broadcasters. Advertisers need visibility of audience reach to ensure that their campaigns have impact. As competition in the CTV space heats up and alternatives to YouTube win audience share, our bet is that advertisers will move to platforms that offer visibility of their audiences and which can offer accurate audience verification.

More from Novatiq

If you’re looking for comment and thought leadership on some of the biggest trends in digital advertising, then swing by our blog. This month, we’re looking at how CTV data is fuelling telco revenue growth. Enjoy the read!