CANNES – The relationship between advertisers and publishers is evolving as brands demand more transparency, efficiency and precision in how they reach audiences, says Darline Jean, managing director of global publisher platforms at Google, the biggest trend shaping this evolution is the desire for buyers to get closer to the inventory source.
“What we are seeing is that buyers are trying to move as close as possible to the inventory source,” Jean said during a conversation with Jon Watts, managing director of the Coalition for Innovation in Media Measurement, at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
Jean leads Google’s sell-side platform (SSP), better known to many in the industry as AdX. She said her team connects buyer demand, whether from demand-side platforms (DSPs) or agency sales teams, to publishers across all platforms, including connected TV, apps and in-stream video.
“We fund the world’s information,” Jean said. “We bring all that advertising to the sell side.”
Curation moves closer to the sell side
As buyers push for proximity to inventory, Jean said this has driven deeper relationships with SSPs and new technology development. One major innovation is curation.
“Curation holistically allows you to target the right audience,” Jean explained. “If you’re a brand and you’re trying to get your information, your brand media out there on an inventory source, you want to make sure you’re in front of the right audience.”
Google’s new Ad Manager Curation platform shifts the data layer closer to the SSP side of the business, improving targeting, match rates and transparency.
“Traditionally the data layer resided within the DSP. With brands trying to get closer to the inventory source, that data now resides within the SSP,” Jean said. “It allows you to reach that audience much more specifically. You will find a tremendous increase in match rate and a greater increase in transparency. It also creates better forecasting.”
AI as a multiplier for efficiency and personalization
AI has long been part of advertising technology, but Jean emphasized that generative AI is set to take the industry to a new level.
“I see generative AI as a multiplier in terms of what we can potentially do if you think about reaching the audience, if you think about personalized ads,” Jean said.
Google’s Ad Manager team is already working on AI-powered tools that will continue to enhance the media buying process. Jean believes AI will also help publishers by improving efficiencies, such as automating tasks like editing or email drafting.
“The efficiency flow is probably the first thing you’re going to see in terms of improvement on both the buy and the sell side,” Jean said. “Being able to automate a lot of that mundane work and really focus on a much more strategic vision is going to be much easier.”
Curation, quality and the challenge of content proliferation
As AI increases the volume of content, Jean warned that maintaining quality will be critical.
“You want to ensure, as always, you’re getting in front of the right, and I want to say, quality publisher,” Jean said. “The type of publisher also determines the monetization. This is where curation comes into play and I think it’s going to have an enormous amount of impact.”
Despite concerns about the overwhelming amount of AI-generated content, Jean believes the right data layers and curation tools will help buyers and publishers maintain standards.
Dramatic shift by 2030
Looking ahead, Jean predicted a significant transformation in media workflows by the end of the decade.
“I think the workflow process is going to be very dramatic,” she said. “Getting an AI to automate that process for you is moving fast. I see a dramatic shift within the next two years. More automation, more iteration, refinement, testing, learning and experimentation.”
Jean also believes the increasing use of AI will make navigating media choices easier for both publishers and brands.
“The publisher will have a lot more choice,” she said. “You get to choose where and what type of advertising you want to run on your site. Having that transparency and that control on the supply side is going to continue to happen.”
From the brand perspective, AI will help identify the right audience and deliver better results.
“My vision is that we are going to get to a place where a lot of the nuances go away and a lot of the efficiency in ensuring that a brand can reach that audience is going to be much more fine-tuned,” Jean said.
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