Key points
- LUMA Partners hosted its Digital Marketing Summit on November 9 in New York, with CEO Terry Kawaja and partner Conor McKenna opening.
- LUMA says AI shifts ad tech advantage from running campaign workflows to making better real-time decisions on signals, creative and placement.
- Speakers expect more competition among DSPs, SSPs, agencies, retail media networks and major platforms, plus possible consolidation, as M&A rises through 2026.
- SWYM.ai's Ravi Patel says unified media platforms can set budgets across platforms, but Google, Meta and Amazon still pick individual impressions.
Why it matters for marketers: If AI commoditizes campaign workflows, marketers should judge ad tech partners on decision quality, signal access and proven results, not on automation features alone.
At the Digital Marketing Summit hosted by LUMA Partners in New York on November 9, CEO Terry Kawaja and partner Conor McKenna argued that AI is changing ad tech on two fronts: how ads are selected and delivered, and how consumers find and buy products. The event came as ad tech M&A has been climbing through the end of 2026.
On the ad tech side, the pitch is that AI makes complex workflows easier to automate, so the advantage moves to firms that choose better signals, creative and placements in real time. McKenna said the workflow moat "begins to evaporate." Kawaja framed efficiency as a roughly 10% gain, while effectiveness could deliver a 10x difference. He also predicted that decisioning paired with unique signal will separate winners from losers and drive consolidation.
On the consumer side, the speakers said AI assistants could fold research, discovery and comparison into one interface, shortening the purchase journey. They expect people to stay involved for now, delegating tasks to agents rather than handing over decisions. If ads appear in those experiences, trust will matter.
Speaking separately with Digiday, SWYM.ai CEO Ravi Patel said unified media platforms can handle how much to spend and where, but not which impression to buy, because Google, Meta and Amazon make those calls inside their own systems. Sparrow Advisers cofounder Ana Milicevic described the shift as outsourcing the brain to agents.
For marketers, the practical step is to ask vendors how their decisions are made, what signals they use and how they prove better outcomes. Watch for acquisitions aimed at decisioning capability, and for how much of the buy stays in walled gardens.
Sources
This brief is our own summary. Read the full reporting at the source.