Where Things Stand With Identity Data, as AI Threatens to Subsume Ad Targeting – Next in Media | Mike Shields

When it comes to digital ad targeting and consumer data, we were supposed to be at the Data End of the World by this point.
Thanks to Apple, Cookie Armageddon, Regulators, Angry Consumers, the dreaded onset of Signal Loss was supposed to upend the entire industry. Forget about deterministic data (actually knowing who are targeting) – we were supposedly headed toward a world of Cohorts and Lookalikes and Maybes, all governed by a Sandbox.
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Yet here we are. Cookies sort of still exist. Regulators are – suing 60 Minutes? And consumers are telling chatbots…everything.
So where are we with identity? I spoke to a number of experts about this topic a few weeks back at CES, as part of my “Next in Identity” series with my partners at Intent IQ.
Let me try to sum things up on the state of affairs in digital identity:
Instead of cohorts and guesswork, the big platforms – led by Amazon – are essentially arguing that first-party deterministic data is the only thing that matters
Would-be-rivals like The Trade Desk and Yahoo are relying on first party data as well – albeit people’s anonymous emails meshed together behind the scenes
The Big Tech Platforms are also leaning heavily on AI-driven media planning tools, which are trained on millions of people’s responses and behavior – which theoretically makes Who They Are less important than What They Do.
Brands still want their own first-party data, but many have realized it’s a fool’s errand to keep trying to force people to download apps and collect QR codes when they buy soda, toilet paper, cookies, etc.
Meanwhile, the big media agencies are grappling with AI changing just about everything – and don’t want to be seen as left out of the data race, or simply as just stewards of budgets that get spent by Meta, Google, etc. without any real control or insight.
“We’re entering 2026 into a world of fragmentation, where it’s very hard to have identity apply in environments with limited signal reach,” said Fabrice Beer-Gabel, Senior Vice President Strategy & Partnerships, IntentIQ. “What we’re seeing now [from agencies] is the need to transform their infrastructure into orchestration. There is so much fragmentation you don’t know what to bet on. So there is a need to adapt to all these different environments.”
There remain plenty of doubts out there as to whether big agencies have the tech chops, or the data depth, to compete in this new world. But that hasn’t stopped them from trying. For example, Horizon has BluID, which is built on Transunion data, and is fully integrated into its fledgling, very slick AI-based operating system.
“I would say that the biggest evolution in our approach to identity has been moving from [where things were] to moving to flexibility and composability in identity strategy, and having choice and adaptability to all of the change that you’ve been talking about” said John Koenigsberg, EVP, Head of Product Partnerships.
Horizon says it knows a lot of about digital consumers thanks to years of working with various clients and executing on a wide range of platforms. Yet that doesn’t mean it has access to millions of logged-in users like a Meta or Google.
So it relies on a hybrid approach, centered around flexibility and optionality.
“Identity plays a role in pretty much every facet of what we need to do for our clients,” Koenigsberg said. “It plays a role in how we bring data in and match it to either households or people for segmentation. It plays a role in how we activate, in measurement….and so if you don’t have an identity strategy that’s as flexible and nuanced as all of those different applications and use cases, I think you’re just leaving value on the table and not going to be able to achieve the outcomes that you need.”
Value is the key word. Media agencies – which are already being viewed by some as on the way to extinction – don’t want to be seen as just Dumb Platform Buyers.
And presumably, advertisers don’t want that either, as brands are wary of giving all of their marketing intelligence to an Amazon, Meta or Google – or helping those companies get smarter about brands than the companies themselves.
“They still need to have a single view of an individual or a household,” said David Wells, Principal at Snowflake. “They also need to action or activate against that data….across a variety of different programmatic, platforms, streaming platforms, social platforms, you name it.”
And not every campaign is about targeting individuals you already know. “If you’re kind of dogmatic about needing to be 100% deterministic one-to-one in every single impression you’re you’re you’re serving in the market, you’re going to be constrained in where where you can meet the consumer,” said Koeningberg.
Still, it may be a moot point, as clients become more outcomes-driven, and AI does the job. Over time, you have to wonder, does identity data matter more – or less? Right now, agencies and brands are betting on the former.
Of course, this isn’t the first time that big media agencies have tried to build out centralized ID platforms. A decade ago, WPP announced the rollout of mPlatform, promising “the creation of the most complete consumer profiles within a brand’s target audience” while helping agencies compete with Facebook.
It was gone four years later. It wasn’t the only one.
In subsequent years, IPG (now part of Omnicom) acquired Acxiom in 2018, Dentsu snatched up Merkle, and Publicis Epsilon – all with consumer identity and technology at their core.
Yet you might wonder, would life be easier if the industry just picked one direction, and rallied around a single identifier. For his part, Wells says no. “I don’t see it in the foreseeable future in the near term,” he said. “Now, that said, I think there are more data-driven approaches that will drive stronger, more efficient addressable media. And so, in some cases, what we’re seeing is ‘composable identity and super-graphs.”
That sounds awfully confusing, and potentially hard to monitor for brands, many of whom will likely be ok with handing things over to Meta and Google if these agency identifiers or super-graphs don’t clearly demonstrate more value.
Yet that could be a dangerous route, argued Beer-Gabel, as for brands and agencies, “Identity is more foundational than ever,” he said. “And control is important. and so is agility. If you rely on somebody to do it all for you, you lock yourself into a solution that may not be the right thing, or where consumers go.”
Now, someone needs to tell that to the CFO.
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