Compliant’s 2025 Advertising Industry Predictions: Data Integrity, AI, and more…

The advertising landscape is in constant flux, and 2025 promises to be a year of significant transformation. To thrive in 2025 and beyond, advertisers and publishers must adapt to this evolving digital realm.

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Here's what else we’re predicting for 2025:

• For the greater good: In November, Elon Musk tweeted, “We finally have a mandate to delete the mountain of choking regulations that do not serve the greater good.” The new Trump administration could well make this wish come true. However, it’s more likely to benefit the space race than the data-driven ad industry. The uncomfortable truth is that a lot of targeting, media quality and investment decisions are still based on bad practices that the FTC, the CFPB and the CPPA are intent on stamping out. Failing consent solutions, so-called Data Clean Rooms and unscrupulous data brokers will face more intense scrutiny for polluting the consent stream, laundering dirty data and exposing people to unfair, disproportionate and intrusive surveillance. This is one area of regulation that will look a lot less Republican. While privacy has always been for the greater good, 2025 will be the tipping point where data integrity is better for business.
• P2P v V2V: Those old enough to remember Betamax, dual-cassette players, the Sony CD-Walkman and MiniDiscs, will remember when peer-to-peer file-sharing was rampant.  Between 2008 and 2010, there was panic in the streets of the music industry, but a new paradigm emerged. The decline of P2P file sharing was triggered by three factors: the rapid adoption of Apple’s iTunes, the launch of Spotify in the US, and a series of high-profile copyright court cases. The digital ad industry has already had its Napster moment and history is about to repeat itself. Against a familiar backdrop of fraud, a new paradigm will emerge in 2025 with the dominance of Google, Meta and Amazon, the rise of CTV and streaming services, and the heavy fines for unlawful (vendor-to-vendor) data sharing. Like independent music labels, advertisers and publishers must adapt to survive, and fight for their right to party.  
• Jeeves II: In 2025, a lone Armenian coder will resurrect Ask Jeeves, and build the world’s first AI steward. Unlike Frankenstein’s monster, she will be our digital guardian, exercising choices for us, perfectly aligned to our tastes, idiosyncrasies and proclivities. Our empathetic entourage will bring ‘hygge’ (Scandinavian calm and coziness) to our online experiences, consigning the consent pop-up to history and shielding us from prying eyes, wild misclassification and bizarre ads.  As a consequence, marketers will use AI to create advertising that appeals to…AI.

For more of Jamie’s industry predictions, check out Ad Age’s 20 ad tech executives predict 2025 trends article.

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Contact Compliant today to find out how we can help your business maintain high standards of data integrity and hygiene while protecting your first-party data. We provide advertisers with the tools they need to build a transparent and sustainable data ecosystem that meets data integrity standards across the digital advertising landscape.

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