The AI Edge Podcast

ChatGPT ads are live, and the real danger isn't ad load—it's the business model. When platforms get paid for engagement instead of answers, everything changes. Facebook proved that. Now OpenAI is walking the same path, and marketers need to understand what happens when AI stops prioritizing truth and starts optimizing for clicks.
This week, hosts Shiv Gupta and Myles Younger sit down with Ken Rona, Chief AI Officer at JWX (formerly JW Player), to talk about what's actually happening with ChatGPT ads, why Meta and Apple's AI wearables might finally matter, and how AI traffic is converting at rates that should terrify traditional search.
Ken breaks down why ChatGPT might intentionally get worse once ads take over, whether AI wearables will replace your phone or just clutter your desk, and what happens when AI-driven shoppers convert 3x higher than search traffic. They also discuss OpenClaw's billion-dollar one-person acquisition, vibe coding that isn't vibes anymore, and how Ken's team built a programmatic bidder in an afternoon that would normally take months.
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New episodes every Monday. Get your AI Edge here.

The Super Bowl ads are still being dissected, and the backlash is real. AI fatigue is hitting advertising, brands are questioning whether anyone cares about their AI-powered campaigns, and marketers are caught between innovation theater and what consumers actually want.
This week, host Myles Younger sits down with Jeremy Bloom and Sam Khoury from Marketecture Media to unpack what went wrong with Super Bowl advertising, why AI hype is backfiring, and what happens when brands forget the basic rule: give consumers control, not spectacle.
Jeremy and Sam break down where AI fits (and doesn't fit) in entertainment, why authenticity beats automation, and why consumer control is the most underrated strategy in marketing. They also explain what Marketecture Live is building—a space where marketers can actually talk about what's working instead of what's being sold (with incredible food!).
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Ready to level up your AI skills?Join the U of Digital AI Accelerator Bootcamphttps://uof.digital/ai/accelerator/
New episodes every Monday. Get your AI Edge here.

The Super Bowl LX became the AI Bowl. Anthropic ran ads calling out OpenAI for putting ads in ChatGPT, Sam Altman fired back on Twitter, and the marketing world had a meltdown about whether any of this even matters. Not to mention Svedka's fully AI-generated Super Bowl spot that took 300+ iterations, OpenAI asking brands for $200K to test ChatGPT ads, and AI agents autonomously creating their own religion called the Church of Molt.
This week is a big one. Hosts Shiv Gupta and Myles Younger sit down with Babs Rangaiah, industry thought leader and former marketing exec at Unilever, IBM, and Paramount+, now CEO of cc:babs, to talk through what just happened and what marketers should actually be doing about AI right now.
Babs breaks down why Anthropic's controversial Super Bowl play was actually genius, whether brands should test OpenAI's $200K ad program, and what he's seeing as he coaches Fortune 500 CMOs navigating AI. They also talk about AI agents creating their own religions, why some marketing teams still aren't discussing AI in 2026 planning meetings, and when we'll finally see the breakthrough AI case studies that force everyone to pay attention.
Plus, thoughts on AI-generated Super Bowl creative, why peer pressure drives adoption faster than anything else, and whether Meta will end up creating most of your ads for you.
New episodes every Monday. Get your AI Edge here.

YouTube just overtook Reddit as the most-cited source in AI search results. Meta's ad revenue is funding a $135 billion AI spending spree. And marketers are about to see a wave of AI ads during the Super Bowl. But here's the question nobody's answering: should advertisers have to disclose when they use AI?
This week, hosts Shiv Gupta and Myles Younger sit down with Caroline Giegerich, VP of AI & Marketing Innovation at the IAB, to discuss the AI Transparency and Disclosure Framework: the industry's first attempt to answer when, how, and why marketers should label AI-generated advertising.
Caroline breaks down the core questions: Do we disclose AI use in advertising? In what circumstances? Who's responsible: the brand, agency, or platform? What's the threshold for requiring a label? 
Caroline walks through what the IAB is building, why it matters, and shares some surprising research: turns out advertisers think consumers love AI ads way more than they actually do. They also dig into Meta's massive earnings, why YouTube citations are changing content strategy overnight, and what marketers should be watching during the Super Bowl.
New episodes every Monday. Get your AI Edge here.
Links to IAB's research and framework discussed in this episode: 
Research: https://www.iab.com/insights/the-ai-gap-widens/Framework: https://www.iab.com/guidelines/ai-transparency-and-disclosure-framework/

It finally happened. OpenAI announced ads are coming to ChatGPT in February at $60 CPMs with under-$1M spending commitments. The entire advertising industry is about to change overnight.
Hosts Shiv Gupta and Myles Younger sit down with Patrick O'Shea and Kevin O'Malley, co-founders of AdDaptive Intelligence, to break down what this means for marketers. Patrick and Kevin have been business partners for 20 years, deep in B2B marketing automation since the programmatic days, and they're here to cut through the noise.
They discuss why this isn't just search ads 2.0, OpenAI's 4% commerce fee (while Google and Microsoft charge nothing), Google's "we'll never do ads in Gemini" response, and why B2B marketers are uniquely positioned for this shift. Plus, the new cottage industry of AI ad services about to explode, and why the best advice is simple: start testing now.
Every other LLM will rush to launch ads. Budgets are being carved out. The AI ad ecosystem is emerging overnight. Let's dig into it.New episodes every Monday. Get your AI Edge here.

We're entering the age of zero-click commerce, where shopping happens entirely inside an LLM. If your creative isn't machine-readable, you're already behind.
In this special bonus episode, hosts Shiv Gupta and Myles Younger sit down with Akaash Ramakrishnan, Co-Founder at AdSkate Inc, to talk about what happens when AI agents start doing the shopping for us. Apple just picked Google over OpenAI to power Siri, and Google launched Universal Commerce Protocol with major retailers like Walmart and Target: signs that AI Shopping is actually happening
Akaash explains why creative needs to change when AI is looking at your ads instead of humans; it's not just about making something that looks good anymore, your ads need to be readable by machines. They dig into what creative metadata actually means, how AI selects the right creative for the right moment (instead of just blasting ads at everyone), and why we're finally getting real personalization instead of just making 40 versions of the same thing. 
Plus, what Google's new ad formats mean for marketers, why retailers partnering with Google might be repeating history, and what happens to traditional advertising when people stop browsing websites.
New episodes every Monday. Get your AI Edge here.

Diageo has one of the most iconic brand portfolios in the world: Guinness, Don Julio, Crown Royal, Bulleit. So what does AI implementation actually look like at a company this big? Mike Ditter, Director of AI Strategy and Emerging Technology, Diageo, breaks down exactly how they're doing it.
Recorded live from CES 2026, hosts Shiv Gupta and Myles Younger sit down with Mike to talk about what he's seeing on the show floor, how voice is changing the human-AI interface, and why 2026 is all about building capability, not chasing tools.
Mike breaks down his work at Diageo across three areas: AI-powered content creation (with style and agency, not robots replacing humans), enabling enterprise AI adoption (because refusing to use AI in 2026 is like refusing to use email), and specific use cases that unlock value from Diageo's massive portfolio of brands, from Guinness to Don Julio.
He drops his pro tips for AI adoption, unpacks why the gap between imagination and implementation has completely collapsed, and how Mike (a molecular biology major with no CS degree) won a hackathon against 200 hardcore coders.
Oh, and Mike used Deep Research to figure out how much dinosaur pee is in a water bottle for his 5-year-old. The answer is 1%. And yes, there's math to prove it.
This is a great, quick episode for you to get your AI Edge right from the frontlines of CES. New episodes every Monday. 

Meta spent $2 billion on a company most people have never heard of, and it might be their smartest move since Instagram.
A special episode recorded live from CES 2026, hosts Shiv Gupta and Myle Younger sit down with Sarah Caputo, independent consultant and former CDO, to figure out what Meta's really up to with this acquisition. Sarah's got theories: protecting their small business revenue, making a play for wearables as the next big ad platform, and maybe finally figuring out what people actually want AI to do.
They also talk about why every ad platform now has basically the same "AI does everything" product with a slightly different name, why being operationally efficient isn't special anymore, and Sarah's take on how OpenAI should actually make money (spoiler: not by copying Google's playbook). Plus, why these new autonomous tools might shake things up for DSPs and what agencies better start doing if they don't want to become irrelevant.
You don't want to miss this one. Straight from the CES floor with perspectives you won't get anywhere else: practical, honest, and built for marketers. New episodes every Monday. Get your AI Edge here.

No guest this week, just Shiv and Myles answering listener questions in their first-ever mailbag episode. And the questions got deep.
Will agency jobs disappear or are we headed back to a Mad Men era?
What does a fully AI-enabled agency actually look like (and which ones are about to fail)?
How do you trust AI to build client profiles when ChatGPT is basically a sycophant telling you everything's brilliant?
Your hosts unpack this and so much more.
Then things get existential: How can we tell if AI is speeding up good judgment or slowly eroding it? And what AI workflows do Shiv and Myles actually trust enough to use every day at U of Digital?
Shiv confesses his secret Claude projects, Myles admits his "workflow" is just opening another browser tab, and they both tackle whether we should be measuring the quality of human judgment before worrying about AI making it worse.
Plus: synthetic audiences, B2B data garbage, and why anti-sycophancy technology might be the thing nobody's talking about.
New episodes every Monday. Get your AI Edge here. 

Simon Poulton searched for toilets in Google's AI Mode and saw his first AI-generated ad. That moment confirmed what he's been saying for months: Google's already won the AI platform wars, and OpenAI has 12 months to prove otherwise.
This week, hosts Shiv Gupta and Myles Younger sit down with Simon Poulton, EVP of Innovation & Growth at Tinuiti, to break down the AI platform wars and what's actually happening behind the hype.
They dig into why Google's distribution advantage beats model quality, what happens when ChatGPT remembers your furniture preferences from six months ago, whether agentic advertising is real or just a stunt, and why brands keep building AI tools they don't actually need.
Plus: Simon's take on vibe coding, the rise of "agentic deference," and what marketers should actually be doing right now instead of chasing every shiny AI object.
Link to Tinuiti's 2026 AI Trends report we referenced in this episode is available here.
New episodes every Monday. Get your AI Edge here.