Insights Blog
Notes from the people building marketing data infrastructure. Written mostly by our own team, occasionally by the customers who put it to work.
The Google AdEx Privacy Settlement and the Coming Identity Shake-Up
By Dan Jaye, CTO On September 2, a (for now) proposed settlement in the Northern District of California put Google on the hook for a fundamental change to how digital advertising works. At the center is a new consumer privacy tool called RTB Control. RTB Control...
The Three Tribes of Tomorrow’s Shoppers: Nostalgics, Hybrids, and Delegators
The three tribes framework isn’t just a neat metaphor—it’s a roadmap for the next decade of marketing. Businesses must recognize that all three tribes will coexist, but their proportions will change dramatically. Nostalgics will shrink, Hybrids will dominate the near term, and Delegators will define the long-term future.
Most AI Projects Fail. Here are Ways to Fix That.
We’ve suspected for a while that 95% of AI initiatives were silent failures. The research just confirmed it. It’s not a lack of effort or investment – it’s irrational optimism. Teams believe a shiny tool will be enough, but without learning, without consistency, it isn’t. The big question is, why?
Why Native API Development Won’t Survive the AI Era
Dynamic, MCP-driven negotiation opens up a much bigger attack surface. We’ve already seen large language models capable of social engineering and misusing authorization. With MCP, those risks multiply. And because the “edges” of these new systems are fuzzy, traditional defenses won’t always work.
Aqfer Names Industry Veteran Bill Schild CEO Amid Growing Demand For Enterprise AI Data Readiness
Company simultaneously unveils industry’s first remote Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, transforming how enterprises connect their data to AI applications
The Zero‑Click Era: What It Means for Marketers … and Why AI‑Ready Data Is Critical
Search engines, once traffic firehoses for the open web, now increasingly answer user questions directly on the page – often using AI-generated summaries that eliminate the need to click. This is the zero-click era, and it’s quietly reshaping the economic foundation of content, media, and martech.
The Agentic Mesh Is a Mess, But…
Nate’s takedown of the mesh struck a nerve because it spoke the quiet part out loud: most companies aren’t ready. But that doesn’t mean a fluid and dynamic agentic future is nonsense. It just means we need to focus less on diagrams – and more on the plumbing.
The real future of AI in the enterprise won’t be defined by self-directing agents hammering on a million keyboards instead of monkeys, but by reliable foundations for collaboration. Autonomous agents with exponential relationships are not the answer. However, in case I’m wrong, let me be the first to welcome our robot overlords.
Recent Acquisitions Advance the AI Infrastructure – But We’re Still Missing a Critical Layer
The acquisitions made by Snowflake, Databricks, and Salesforce are smart bets on where the AI infrastructure stack is going. But they also create an opportunity (and a need) to build out capabilities that turn data into understanding.
This means helping enterprise teams move beyond real-time ingestion and toward real-time interpretation. For marketing use cases, that means AI systems that understand customer history, resolve identity with confidence, and avoid the blind spots that lead to wasted spend or flawed personalization.
Crystal Ball Gazing: Why I’m Betting on MCP
The diversity of MCP implementations – from enterprise giants like Spring AI MCP to creative innovators like Figma MCP – reflects the protocol’s versatility. As AI adoption skyrockets, these MCPs are reducing integration friction, cutting costs, and enabling AI to deliver hyper-relevant results across industries.
The MadTech MCP Stack: Building Industry-Specific AI Standards
Imagine browsing a marketplace where you can discover, evaluate, and deploy marketing AI components like app store applications. A/B test different attribution models. Swap personalization engines without rewriting integration code. Deploy new optimization algorithms and measure performance impact immediately.
This isn’t speculative – it’s the logical evolution of MCP adoption in marketing technology.
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