Creators, Brands and AI Must Grow Up Together: IAB’s Sheryl Goldstein
AMENIA, NY – Creators may have started with ring lights and a dream. Now they are becoming media companies, whether or not they have learned the finer points of viewability reports.
Sheryl Goldstein, executive vice president and chief industry growth officer at the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), said creators are reshaping how marketers reach consumers. She spoke with Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan during the Beet Retreat Berkshires.
“The IAB is doubling down on creators,” Goldstein said. The organization launched a creator board this year with senior executives from leading companies in the sector. Its goal is to help creators and advertisers work together at scale without sanding away the authenticity that made creators valuable in the first place.
Creators meet the media business
Creators can build devoted audiences, but many are still small businesses learning how established media operates. Goldstein said they may lack experience with measurement, viewability and brand safety. Brands, meanwhile, see an unusually short path from product discovery to purchase.
“Creators can be the path of least resistance to go from inspiration to action,” she said.
That influence gives brands an opportunity to reach consumers through voices they already trust. The practical challenge is connecting large advertisers with independent creators in a consistent way. Buying creator media cannot always resemble buying a television schedule, even if a marketer would dearly love another spreadsheet.
Goldstein described creators as “a next gen publisher.” The IAB is working to give both sides the standards and common language needed to turn that emerging category into a more mature market.
AI redesigns the kitchen and the campaign
Artificial intelligence is also lowering the cost of producing and adapting creative work. A single piece of content can be translated, placed in new settings or modified for different audiences with remarkable speed.
Goldstein offered a domestic example. She has used AI to experiment with kitchen designs, including a New York Knicks-inspired look after the team won.
“It’s allowing a lot of creativity at the press of a button,” she said.
Creators can use the technology to explore new forms of expression without requiring blockbuster production budgets. Brands can make several versions of an advertisement for different creators instead of hoping one campaign fits everyone like an ill-advised one-size-fits-all poncho.
Goldstein said AI gives creators “a tremendous amount of flexibility at a minimal cost.” It also allows brands to reduce production expenses and tailor creative work more precisely.
Commerce develops a buy-now reflex
Commerce media is expanding beyond retail websites as companies put their first-party data to work across connected television, podcasts and audio. Goldstein said hundreds of businesses can now operate as commerce media players because they have valuable customer data.
Live commerce is another source of growth. Creators can demonstrate and sell products in real time through services such as Facebook Live and TikTok. The distance between “That chair looks nice” and “Why is a delivery truck outside?” keeps getting shorter.
“We’re seeing commerce becoming almost like an immediate thing where I see something, I can buy it now,” Goldstein said.
AI can help shoppers picture a chair in their living room or test another color before purchasing. Large language models can also gather options that once required visits to several websites. Goldstein cited Anthropic’s Claude as a tool she uses to find backsplash ideas.
The result is a faster buying process with fewer points of hesitation. For brands, she said, that creates a substantial opportunity.
Transparency keeps trust alive
As creator marketing, commerce media and AI converge, Goldstein sees transparency as the essential standard.
“Transparency is key no matter what,” she said.
Consumers want to know who is collecting their data and how it is being used. They also want to understand whether content came from a person or an AI system. Buyers and sellers need consistent definitions, measurement practices and governance.
“Transparency leads to trust,” Goldstein said. “And trust is critical across the board.”
Creators depend on authentic relationships with their audiences. Brands rely on consumer confidence. Goldstein warned that if the industry cannot establish responsible practices, regulators will do it instead. She pointed to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation and the California Consumer Privacy Act as examples of government intervention.
The IAB’s boards and working groups are developing standards for disclosure, terminology and measurement. The organization is also working with the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4As) on AI, commerce and creator-economy issues.
Don’t automate away the next generation
Looking toward 2027, Goldstein expects AI to remain “the topic du jour.” Still, she urged industry leaders to slow down long enough to agree on use cases, terminology and governance before everyone discovers they have built five incompatible solutions to the same problem.
She also challenged companies to reconsider old workflows. Rather than dropping AI into familiar processes, leaders should ask how they would design their businesses from scratch with today’s tools.
Her sharpest concern involved entry-level employment. Junior workers often learn the advertising business through routine tasks such as monitoring and optimizing campaigns. Those jobs can be tedious, but they teach people how systems succeed and how they fail.
“I just worry about the future leadership of our industry if we don’t bring young people in and get them involved and hands-on and learn the business,” Goldstein said.
Replacing every junior task with AI may improve efficiency today while leaving tomorrow’s managers without practical experience. An AI agent may never complain about late-night campaign reports, but it also will not become the seasoned executive who knows why the numbers look suspicious.
For Goldstein, the industry’s assignment is clear: embrace creators, use AI imaginatively and build common standards before the machinery outruns the people meant to operate it.
You’re watching coverage from Beet Retreat Berkshires 2026. For more videos from this event, please visit this page.
AMENIA, NY – Creators may have started with ring lights and a dream. Now they are becoming media companies, whether or not they have learned the finer points of viewability reports.
Sheryl Goldstein, executive vice president and chief industry growth officer at the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), said creators are reshaping how marketers reach consumers. She spoke with Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan during the Beet Retreat Berkshires.
“The IAB is doubling down on creators,” Goldstein said. The organization launched a creator board this year with senior executives from leading companies in the sector. Its goal is to help creators and advertisers work together at scale without sanding away the authenticity that made creators valuable in the first place.
Creators meet the media business
Creators can build devoted audiences, but many are still small businesses learning how established media operates. Goldstein said they may lack experience with measurement, viewability and brand safety. Brands, meanwhile, see an unusually short path from product discovery to purchase.
“Creators can be the path of least resistance to go from inspiration to action,” she said.
That influence gives brands an opportunity to reach consumers through voices they already trust. The practical challenge is connecting large advertisers with independent creators in a consistent way. Buying creator media cannot always resemble buying a television schedule, even if a marketer would dearly love another spreadsheet.
Goldstein described creators as “a next gen publisher.” The IAB is working to give both sides the standards and common language needed to turn that emerging category into a more mature market.
AI redesigns the kitchen and the campaign
Artificial intelligence is also lowering the cost of producing and adapting creative work. A single piece of content can be translated, placed in new settings or modified for different audiences with remarkable speed.
Goldstein offered a domestic example. She has used AI to experiment with kitchen designs, including a New York Knicks-inspired look after the team won.
“It’s allowing a lot of creativity at the press of a button,” she said.
Creators can use the technology to explore new forms of expression without requiring blockbuster production budgets. Brands can make several versions of an advertisement for different creators instead of hoping one campaign fits everyone like an ill-advised one-size-fits-all poncho.
Goldstein said AI gives creators “a tremendous amount of flexibility at a minimal cost.” It also allows brands to reduce production expenses and tailor creative work more precisely.
Commerce develops a buy-now reflex
Commerce media is expanding beyond retail websites as companies put their first-party data to work across connected television, podcasts and audio. Goldstein said hundreds of businesses can now operate as commerce media players because they have valuable customer data.
Live commerce is another source of growth. Creators can demonstrate and sell products in real time through services such as Facebook Live and TikTok. The distance between “That chair looks nice” and “Why is a delivery truck outside?” keeps getting shorter.
“We’re seeing commerce becoming almost like an immediate thing where I see something, I can buy it now,” Goldstein said.
AI can help shoppers picture a chair in their living room or test another color before purchasing. Large language models can also gather options that once required visits to several websites. Goldstein cited Anthropic’s Claude as a tool she uses to find backsplash ideas.
The result is a faster buying process with fewer points of hesitation. For brands, she said, that creates a substantial opportunity.
Transparency keeps trust alive
As creator marketing, commerce media and AI converge, Goldstein sees transparency as the essential standard.
“Transparency is key no matter what,” she said.
Consumers want to know who is collecting their data and how it is being used. They also want to understand whether content came from a person or an AI system. Buyers and sellers need consistent definitions, measurement practices and governance.
“Transparency leads to trust,” Goldstein said. “And trust is critical across the board.”
Creators depend on authentic relationships with their audiences. Brands rely on consumer confidence. Goldstein warned that if the industry cannot establish responsible practices, regulators will do it instead. She pointed to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation and the California Consumer Privacy Act as examples of government intervention.
The IAB’s boards and working groups are developing standards for disclosure, terminology and measurement. The organization is also working with the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4As) on AI, commerce and creator-economy issues.
Don’t automate away the next generation
Looking toward 2027, Goldstein expects AI to remain “the topic du jour.” Still, she urged industry leaders to slow down long enough to agree on use cases, terminology and governance before everyone discovers they have built five incompatible solutions to the same problem.
She also challenged companies to reconsider old workflows. Rather than dropping AI into familiar processes, leaders should ask how they would design their businesses from scratch with today’s tools.
Her sharpest concern involved entry-level employment. Junior workers often learn the advertising business through routine tasks such as monitoring and optimizing campaigns. Those jobs can be tedious, but they teach people how systems succeed and how they fail.
“I just worry about the future leadership of our industry if we don’t bring young people in and get them involved and hands-on and learn the business,” Goldstein said.
Replacing every junior task with AI may improve efficiency today while leaving tomorrow’s managers without practical experience. An AI agent may never complain about late-night campaign reports, but it also will not become the seasoned executive who knows why the numbers look suspicious.
For Goldstein, the industry’s assignment is clear: embrace creators, use AI imaginatively and build common standards before the machinery outruns the people meant to operate it.
You’re watching coverage from Beet Retreat Berkshires 2026. For more videos from this event, please visit this page.
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