Retail media borrowed a lot from traditional ad tech: ad slots, sponsored products, audience targeting, and publisher-style ad serving. But what if the industry copied the structure without recreating the intelligence layer that actually made Amazon Ads work?

In this episode, we explore why commerce media may be moving away from static shopper segmentation and toward real-time intent, optimization, and transaction-driven decisioning. The conversation dives into the difference between ad serving and ad engines, why many retailers are rethinking legacy infrastructure, and how auction logic is becoming increasingly central to commerce media performance.

We also discuss global retailer learnings, why some companies are migrating away from traditional retail media stacks, and how commerce infrastructure may evolve as agentic shopping and AI-driven systems continue to reshape the market.

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