ExchangeWire on Netflix Ad Suite, Meta's $25bn Fine, and Anthropic's New Consultancy

Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome to the Madtech Podcast from Exchangewire, bringing you the latest news and views from the world of adtech media and marketing.

Speaker B: Hello and welcome to the Madtech Podcast. I'm Granja Reid, head of marketing and your host for today. I am delighted to be joined by Rachel Smith, ExchangeWire's CEO. How are you?

Speaker C: Very good, thanks, G. Two weeks in a row. I feel like the special podcast guests.

Speaker B: Delighted to have you. And alongside Rachel, we have Lindsay Ranti, ExchangeWise COO Lindsay, how are you today?

Speaker D: I'm very well, thank you. Was I last week too? I can't remember. Yes.

Speaker C: With

Speaker D: you it

Speaker C: just feels like such a long time ago. Yes. Yes. Lindsay, I think it was you, me and John, wasn't it? It was. We started talking about, um, the Gary Barlow wines. Barlow barrels.

Speaker D: Barlow's barrels or Gary Merlot. Yeah,

Speaker C: Gary Merlot. That was a good one, I have to say. Well done, John. Also, actually I was quite pleased with us, Lindsay, for getting to the answer in the end because it wasn't an ob, it wasn't an obvious answer.

Speaker D: We both went, do you mean Australian? And he's like, no, no. Do you mean Kylie? Yeah,

Speaker C: we totally assumed it was Kylie Minogue. So there we go. For anyone that didn't listen to last week's episode, you got to listen to it now.

Speaker B: I've no fun questions like that for you today. Unfortunately.

Speaker C: Nimante.

Speaker B: Oh, not uh, prepared. Um, but we do have three new stories for the week to discuss so I'm going to dive into our first one which is about Netflix and Netflix announcement of um, several updates to its in house advertising platform Netflix ad suite. Two features include an enhanced conversion API and the new Netflix Pixel which let advertisers test conversion, lift attribution and a B testing with Netflix first party measurement solution and improve audience targeting. The trade desk will also become part of Netflix program offering alongside the Yahoo and Amazon DSPs. So yeah, just let's discuss this. And Rachel, what do you make of this move?

Speaker C: So, um, I do think it's really interesting. I think it's good news in general for sort of Programmatic advertising and streaming in Programmatic Advertising in Streaming and ctv because effectively it's Netflix opening up their advertising ecosystem to try to reach in their own words more audiences or new audiences. And so they're specifically including the trade desk to achieve that aim. Um, and then I also see this as an opportunity for other advertising technology vendors to get a piece of the pie in terms of the Netflix advertising ecosystem because they mentioned specifically that they will be enabling integrations with other first party and third party data and identity solution providers. So I think that's also sort of good news for independent ad tech. Um, but I also see this as a story of Netflix sort of continuing to try to control their advertising ecosystem and if you like create sort of stronger, stronger, um, sort of fences to their walled garden because they're looking to also control measurement infrastructure and the output of that measurement within the ecosystem. So keeping the kind of data inputs in terms of effectiveness of advertising and reach, et cetera, and also the measurement tools that are used to prove those um, those outcomes firmly within the Netflix ecosystem. So it's kind of a, of um, two tails I think. I kind of think in general overall it will bring sort of more um, and better access to advertising supply across the streaming and CTV ecosystem in general. Because once this rolls out in Netflix, advertisers will kind of get used to being able to reach wider audiences, to potentially connect other first and third party data sources, to sort of enrich the audiences that they're trying to reach and to get to really specific outcomes. And they'll get used to that in the Netflix avatar advertising ecosystem. And I think that's then going to mean that they'll have those expectations of other uh, streaming providers and other content owners. So I think in a general sense it's overall good news for the advertising ecosystem. It sort of points towards greater sophistication of advertising opportunities within CCTV and Streams TV and it's definitely moving the advertising offering in that channel much more towards an outcome based advertising model as opposed to just brand building. So I think all of that is really good news. But I definitely think it's also Netflix putting a stake in the ground around how they intend to build out their advertising business. And they've been really explicit about that. They're going to be rolling it out to many more new markets. And if you were Netflix, why wouldn't you be doing that? Because you're potentially struggling elsewhere to build revenue within your business and you're having to make staffing layoffs and cutbacks and so forth and you've got a lot of competition, so you can't blame them for doing that. But it's that I expect other content owners, broadcasters, streaming providers, will look at this model and think, yeah, actually what we need is a walled garden too, where we mostly keep people within our ecosystem. By keeping most of the data about the effectiveness of advertising within our ecosystem to ourselves, we'll let them engage with other third party technology providers as and when that Makes sense to us, but we'll broadly build like an owned and operated advertising ecosystem. And I guess this feels really kind of pertinent because ATS London was only what, six weeks ago or so. And one of the big conversations there, when we start to think about the future opportunities for independent ad tech was, well, there's still plenty of opportunity in ecosystems that aren't, that aren't currently owned by incumbent advertising walled gardens, social media platforms, technology businesses like Google, like Amazon, but I think here. And so ctv, therefore, and TV in general is often heralded as one of those areas of opportunity for independent ad tech. And whilst I think this story is an example of where there will be a bit of opportunity growth, it's equally a story of how the owners of that content are also going seek to create some form of a walled garden as well. So I'd say it's a story of two tails.

Speaker B: I'm gonna get your perspective on this, Lindsay. Just building on what Rachel has said and looking at Netflix and they're building out of this advertising stack, do you think it strengthens or complicates the ecosystem? Because obviously Rachel's perspective is kind of both sides.

Speaker D: Yeah, I think Rachel raised some really good points. I hadn't really come at it from the kind of strengthening their wall garden stance perspective. I wasn't thinking about it from that direction. But it's a really good point. That's exactly what they're doing. I was listening to the rest of the entertainment podcast this morning and there was a section about, about Netflix and about Netflix from the entertainment perspective, kind of how they're doing. And they are struggling, um, but struggling in the sense of kind of what does struggling mean? Right. They're still seeing growth and you know, growth on Wall street, they're still seeing, they're still seeing um, view time growth. And that, you know that on Wall street is, is, is. Is not enough because only 2%. But when you're as old as, you know, Netflix is now like they were frozen. Netflix is like a legacy platform. And actually it's so fun of is. And Netflix was touted to be the kind of the new younger model. And now it's becoming old and legacy. There's always new different things coming up. Like in July 2026, um, YouTube in the US YouTube had 14.2% of all TV viewing in July and Netflix had 7.8%. So YouTube is now the, you, the new younger model and Netflix is struggling. And obviously, you know the joke that we all kind of kept, kept joking about Back in the day was when Netflix kept saying we will never go into TV advertising. And we all went, uh, you will, you definitely, definitely will. Yeah, they've, they've proven the model, they've proven the fact that you know, there is a saturation point when it comes to um, getting subscription. A saturation point when it comes to those people that are subscribing to actually keep on viewing the same, the same content. Ofcom said that Netflix, um, viewers in the UK come to Netflix first when they want to watch something 26% of the time and the BBC 25% of the time. Which is interesting because I think that that makes you think that actually terrestrials still got so not terrestrial necessarily, but the legacy, um, world platforms and terrestrial have still got like um, quite a strong market share in this, in this, in um, in the uk.

Speaker C: Absolutely.

Speaker D: Which I thought was really interesting and quite surprising. Um, and I think that from Netflix perspective they're realizing ads are the future. Ad revenue has to be the future. They're not really investing in, they're profitable to a degree because they're not really investing in sports yet. Like all the others are investing millions upon millions in sports. And Netflix, aren't we doing much of that yet? Um, but I think they will be, that will cut into their revenue massively but it will also increase the number of people subscribing because they'll have to subscribe there to get certain sports. So that's going to be interesting balance, look at what that, that looks like. But anyway, I'm digressing from the advertising perspective I think this, this paints a picture of Netflix realizing that CTV is not really, can no longer be viewed as a premium brand LED channel. Like it needs to be viewed, everyone's viewing like everyone's outcomes focused and all we hear is outcomes, outcomes, outcomes. And if I want to achieve my outcomes, I need to know how something's performed. I can't just put something into, into something and say it' it's brand awareness, brand visibility. It doesn't cut it anymore with big brands, um, and definitely not with medium sized brands. Definitely not with the top, top tier which is what Netflix have been courting. Netflix need to increase their growth, increase their spread in the advertising market. That means increasing the types of advertisers that invest with them. They will need results. They'll need to be able to see um, how things are working. They need to, they need to be able to tell um, their clients that conversions are happening. They need to be able to prove the value, prove that Things are happening when somebody is watching an ad on Netflix and this is their way of doing that. I think it's about time. And it's, you know, because you can already do that in YouTube. And so they need to. That's. It feels like that's now their big area of competition is how we compete against YouTube. They tried to buy um, Ward above Discovery, um, and that fell through obviously because Paramount put in a ridiculously high bids. They wanted to go down the cinema route. You know, they, they've been saying that the terrestrial TV's dead. They've been saying the cinema is outdated and they're trying to go into all this and they would never do advertising. All the things they've been saying, they're now going, um, the opposite of them. So I question kind of what's next? Apparently it's only available in the us. Well, I don't know actually. It's that the press release said it was tagged as US and Canada. So I assume it's only launching there. First of all, just from a. Yes, from a UK perspective, like, who knows when that will come on board. But I think it would be very, very interesting. I think it will open up doors for a lot of advertisers, uh, to want to invest in CTV who have seen it as a premium option where I can't really get the stats I need. This will now hopefully, um, make that a bit easier. And from a trade desk perspective, bringing them in is great as well because they have all the agencies and so that really helps Netflix be able to kind of go beyond dealing with large brands directly and move into a different pool of advertisers and advertiser led budgets, which I think will be really interesting,

Speaker B: I guess, for these outcomes. Do you think that this viewability on measurement, um, will finally unlock larger TV and streaming ad budgets? Rachel? And I guess like watching you see as the role currently for streaming and TV and media plans.

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean that's an interesting question, G, because listening to what um, Lindsay was just saying about Netflix now sort of being considered a legacy brand. When we look at TV and TV content consumption alongside BBC, which is absolutely a legacy brand and the statistics about, you know, um, where do you go first when you sit down in front of the telly and those two really having the same share of voice in the uk at least I think that's that what that tells you is that um, you know, terrestrial TV viewing and traditional TV viewing has changed significantly enough that you would expect, in answer to your question, G, that that would Unlock more of those legacy TV budgets to be spent in streamed platforms. Because we're now accepting that there is a large enough proportion of people that have moved away from terrestrial TV and traditional TV that it's worthwhile brands trying to capture those audiences in a streaming environment. I also heard from somebody earlier on this week that apparently. Traitors. Is it traitors or celebrity traders? You can tell I'm watching this. Celebrity Traitors. Thank you.

Speaker D: What planet are you on, Rachel? Unbelievable.

Speaker C: Yeah, I know. Well, I'm vicariously through you guys of when we're in the office because you just tell me what's happened. Uh, m. And. And so two super interesting things about that. The first I'm going to say anecdotally was, um, our uh, youngest member of the marketing team explaining that she doesn't watch it, but she just watches the clips on social. So she's just watching it via clips on social. I think that says everything you need to know about the way people consume content these, um, but then subsequent to that, somebody explained to me this week that it's the highest, uh, you know, it's the biggest show on, on, on the BBC at the moment. It's one of the biggest shows that's being viewed in traditional TV in the UK at the moment. And it only got something like 4 million views for the live TV sort of broadcasts. And obviously it will get the rest of its views on catch up and you know, in. Via other methods. But 4 million is nothing in comparison to what would have been considered a reasonable audience for the most viewed TV show in the UK at any one time. So that alone just tells you you're talking about a completely differentiated landscape when you consider eyeballs in front of televisions consuming ads. So if you're uh, a big brand that uh, has traditional TV advertising budgets, I think you are mad if you're not thinking about dedicating those budgets towards streamed TV because you're missing such a massive audience and you're also missing a growth audience as well because that's where young people are. And we're not all talking about, you know, the youngest member of our marketing team who is very sweet but probably doesn't have a huge, um, budget to spend on things outside of essentials. But you're talking about people who are 10 years older than her who do have much more, uh, you know, disposable income. And you're not catching those people if you're not advertising in a streamed TV environment.

Speaker B: Lindsay, have you got any, anything extra to add on the budget side? Of things and where. What this looks like for media plans.

Speaker D: Um, no, I think I agree with everything Rachel said. I think that it needs to be considered. I think it used to be considered a bit like as a test and learn section of a media plan, and now it's becoming the core part of the media plan. Um, and I think that no longer is it just kind of being viewed as TV or video, because obviously YouTube has already kind of made that look completely different from what it was looking like five years ago. Um, maybe even two years ago. And so the way it's being planned and bought has to be completely, completely adjusted. And, um, the fact that every single platform's got different ways of measuring it and you have to try and pull that into your own internal. Mmm, m. Um, uh, set up and everything else that makes it much more complicated. This will hopefully make it easier. Um, but it is, it is a, like I said before, a reminder that, um, and exactly what Rachel said, that CTV streaming needs to be a core part of your plan. It needs to be, ah, it's becoming much more accessible. It's becoming. I think the barriers to entry are much more diminished compared to what they were. Netflix has just proven that by launching this, I would say.

Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. Well, excellent. I'm going to move us on now to our second story, which is about Meta. Um, a New Mexico judge has ordered meta to pay $25 million following a September jury verdict that found the company misled users about their data privacy. The penalties come years after the Cambridge Analytica scandal came to light in 2018, with New Mexico becoming the only state to make its claims to trial after 48 others settled. Mesa's chief legal officer told Axios that the ruling and the Attorney General's approach to its enforcement makes it all but impossible to do business in the state of New Mexico. Yeah, so I guess there's a long gap between the Cambridge Analytica scandal and, uh, now. But, uh, Lindsay, I'm going to come to you. Why are people still spending on Mesa?

Speaker D: I think ultimately because it works. And we joke this all the time like, nobody ever got fired for spending money on Meta and Google and the rule still applies and I think that even worse so. And John is so annoyed that he can't be on this episode because he's off this week and he loves ranting about Meta, obviously. Um, but the worst thing is because this is such a legacy issue. This is from way back in 2016. It, um, came to light in 2018, like you said, and. And then it was brought to court in 2021, and we're still five years on from that. Um, and it's believed that it will take another five years of appeals before anything actually happens. Those that would spend in Meta might look at this and go, we shouldn't be spending in Meta, guys. And then they'll look more closely and go, oh, that was 10 years ago. Things are different now. It's not really that important. So I think that for a lot of businesses, especially smaller ones, Meta is a reliable way to turn money into a. A sale. Like, it, it works. It proves it works. It proves it has good targeting, it proves it has good distribution and good visibility, and it has good measurement. And, you know, we talked about outcomes in the previous story. Meta's able to prove that. And as annoying as it is and as frustrating as it is that we, um, you know, we like, get so frustrated by people continually investing so much money into. Into Meta. Like, they have made changes compared to kind of what was happening in 2016. Um, and also, like, it's been proven that ad boycotts don't work. So if any brand is particularly annoyed about this and wants to boycott their ads, it does nothing to their revenue. Netflix. Not Netflix. Wow. Other story Meta have tried to reduce. So I think that the, um, plaintiffs have come out and said that the fee that Meta owe to New Mexico, New Mexico is $219 billion. The judges said, no, no, no, 25 billion feels more reasonable. Meta have said m. What about like 3 billion billion? Um, 25 billion is six weeks revenue for Meta. So it, like, it doesn't, like, it doesn't matter. Like, you can, you can do what you like. You can say, I'm never going to invest in Meta, in Meta again, like, uh, doesn't make a difference. Doesn't really matter what you do. But if every single state looks at New Mexico because New Mexico applied the 219 billion on a per individual that was affected basis, I think it was $5 per individual, which came to 290. Well, not 5. That's ridiculous. Whatever it was $219 billion. If every state did the same thing, Meta are in trouble. But they're not in trouble. But then. And that's what they're trying to appeal against. They don't care about this one individual fee. But if every, if every state, and why not every country looks at this and goes, hang on a second, there's something to this. That's where they're in trouble. But, you know, I've digressed, because that wasn't the question. But I think that they keep on delivering. So why wouldn't you use the them? Because you need results and they give them.

Speaker B: Yeah. And actually one of my questions was going to be, would this penalty, is this a meaningful change and is it a significant figure to kind of make Meta, uh, stand back? But obviously you've just, you've done some calculations,

Speaker D: answered that for you. Sorry about revenue. Yeah.

Speaker B: But I guess Rachel, like to you, if other people, if there was more attention on this, could the ruling become a turning point for privacy regulations across the tech sector?

Speaker C: Well, I think that there is a couple of really interesting elements to this case. First of all, Lindsay's right. 25 billion is, um, modest for Meta. I don't think we can say it's exactly loose change, because if it, part of me represents 6 weeks revenue, there's only so many 6 weeks chunks available in a year. So it isn't insignificant, let's say, but it's certainly affordable for them. Them. Right. But it also is five times more the, the, the settlement fee that the other 48 states that tried to sue Meta after the Cambridge Analytica scandal settled for. So it's significantly larger than the fees that were applied, however, many years ago when the Cambridge Analytica scandal first came up and Meta settled that with various other states. The other thing is that the judge has attached a 15% interest payment, um, on this year by year for as long as it remains unpaid. Not being an expert in the U.S. legal, uh, system, I'm not sure if that's applied from now because obviously Meta are going to, are going to, um, appeal, uh, this, but that's a significant amount of money in and of itself as well. It's 3.75 billion a year. So it's not something that you're just going to sit around and leave on appeal forever because you feel like you've got, you can play the long game and you're just going to try to wear the other party down. But I think more importantly, what's interesting about this story is that it comes at a time in Meta's history where it is being, where it is becoming the focus of litigation from a number of different angles. And at the moment, from a populist point of view, I would say that the general public care a little bit less about data privacy concerning use on Meta, and a lot more about harms to children and to vulnerable people. And that's what's really been taking the headlines when it comes to, it comes to litigation against Meta over the last 12 months. Shall we say, and from everything that we've learned from the lawsuits that we've been underway this year and how they've been ruled, um, and conversations on this podcast, we've dug into this in a bit more detail too. I don't see the pace of those lawsuits slowing down anytime soon. And certainly back over in Australia where they spearheaded the legislation for banning under 16s on social media platforms, even though that hasn't necessarily been smooth and, and implementation of rollout of that hasn't been straightforward or especially successful from both the government's point of view and from general users point of view, they are not slowing down. In fact they're ramping up and in fact they're getting far more litigious and they're now talking about suing Facebook, Google and other companies who haven't put sufficient controls on their platforms to actually block under 16s as users on their platforms. So I don't see that sort of stuff going, going anywhere or disappearing anytime soon. I don't see that, that type of litigation going, going anywhere, you know, favorably for Meta anytime soon. I see it's only going to increase. And so the reason I mention all of that is because it does throw additional um, speculation and um, light on whether Meta is the type of platform that advertisers should morally be investing, investing on. And Lindsay raises a good point, which is that not only is advertising on Facebook evidently, apparently allegedly really effective, I have no idea why, because I have absolutely no idea who is on that platform. Certainly I've got no idea who's on that platform. That's under about 70. But anyway, that's another, that's another, that's another thing. Um, but we know that that kind of moral crusade doesn't really do anything. It doesn't shift the needle. We saw it with, with ah, Elon Musk's acquisition of X, it's not going to make that much difference. But my point here is that, you know, I think Meta's statement in the media about, about this lawsuit making it impossible to do business in the state of New Mexico has probably got some truth to it. Because I guess what they're going to try to argue is if you really think there's been this significant volume of data privacy violations, then what you're doing is digging into the mechanics of how data is shared and, and moved around behind the scenes via algorithms on the platform to serve people content and also to serve people advertising. And if you're going to get into the depths of that, then that means we're going to have to unpack the entire process that, you know, that sort of underpins how digital advertising works on any website or any platform. So I can imagine they'll have some, that argument will have some weight because they'll start to say, well, this isn't just going to impact, uh, Meta, it's also going to impact any digital platform that hosts advertising on its website. But, but more importantly, I think the point here is that it's becoming more and more difficult for Meta to justify the way that they run their platform. And I don't see that slowing down. Do I think the 25 billion is going to make a huge difference for them at the moment? Probably not. And also they will do everything they can to negotiate that amount down. And I don't think, you know, executing their right and proper moral duties. I don't think the state of New Mexico will walk away from a settlement if it's offered to them. Them. They'll obviously want to make it meaningful. But I can imagine that this could get settled somewhere in between the two figures, 0 being one end and 25 billion being the other. And then ultimately it will be down to Meta to just keep carrying on and doing business. But I think in the course of carrying on and continuing to do business, they're just going to keep coming up against litigation after litigation after litigation after litigation. And I don't know what stops that, but it's certainly not an argument about data privacy. It's much more likely to be an argument about safe safety online harms, safety to children and vulnerable people.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I think more and more and more people are conscious of their data, what can be done to it. And it's definitely not going to be the last case that we see against Meta anyway. Um, great. Well, I'm going to move us on to our third and final story for the week. Anthropic has agreed to back a new European consultancy with a London based private equity firm and hg. It's Anthropic's first move to create an independent business selling AI expertise to companies in the region. The venture will reportedly embed AI consultants and engineers into client businesses where they will lead the design for new AI products using AI or support existing efforts. So yeah, this is quite an interesting, um, news story this week and Rachel, I'm going to come to you and what you think about this and what do you think clients needs are for your um, for this AI take up.

Speaker C: So I think that what's interesting about this story is it's the first piece of evidence that We've got that AI companies, if you want to call Anthropic that, let's say owners and architects of LLMs and AI tools that we're using to kind of discover content and products. It's the first piece of evidence that we've seen that companies like that want to move from just being the providers of that technology and if you like the sellers of that technology technology, to actually having a direct relationship with the businesses that use that technology, which is of course much more a traditional consultancy role. Right. So it's like not just uh, Salesforce selling their software, it's um, it's Salesforce deciding that they also want to handle the implementation and the consultancy to get that software embedded into other people's businesses. And by the way, there's been plenty of businesses that have been born off the back of exactly that that are not necessarily, um, you know, big fall style consultancies, but they are businesses that exist for the explicit purpose of helping other companies and businesses integrate those software products into their businesses. And it's not always handled by the, by the company that provides that software. So this is an example of um, Anthropic doing exactly that and doing it for their own, for their own technology. So it's definitely an immediate threat to consultancy, specifically the big four consultancies. But I also think it's got a really direct impact, um, that's worth discussing on advertising agencies and what that advertising agency model looks like, um, for marketers and advertisers. Of course, we talk about the advertising agency model all the time and we talk about how much has evolved and changed and had to sort of re architect itself over the years since we've been, you know, since we've been on the MadTech podcast and beyond. But I think that not just AI, because pretty much every single agency worth their weight is using AI to a very significant degree and using it to build out lots of capabilities for their own clients. But I think it's more AI companies trying to handle, set up and own that relationship, business relationship, um, uh, process and the management of that. I think that's a huge threat to advertising agencies. And so my interpretation of that is that I know specifically that's one of the reasons that whole COs are so aggressively acquiring technology tools, because they need to make sure that they've got something unique that they can offer their clients and they will be busy using AI, uh, for various elements of integrating those tools both within their own business and making it purposeful for clients as well. But if you speak to Some independent agencies at the moment, you'll see that that the way that they're setting their businesses up for their clients from here onwards is probably very similar to what Anthropic is trying to do here and now, which is say, so we've got these fantastic AI tools and solutions and we can help you implement them in your business and this is how you'll save money. And we'll also provide a suite of experts that can help you with all of that. I think that's what independent ad agencies. I mean, Holcos too, perhaps, but I just happen to have been speaking with a lot of independent advertising agencies over the last couple of months. I think that's what some of the best and most competitive independent agencies, uh, are doing for marketers at the moment. They're saying, listen, these are all the services that we would typically provide to you. We're now building AI models to perform some of those activities and this is how we can help you implement it in your business and this is how we can help coach and guide you to make best use of it. And I think that's going to become a real ground for competition because not only do advertising agencies have an obvious role there, but also tech platforms do too. I moderated a panel at ATS London where we were talking about what does AI, uh, infrastructure look like in the advertising industry at the moment? And we discussed tokenomics and best use of, um, uh, tokens and AI tools within your business. And then we also talked about tech tools and platforms that are emerging specifically to help people manage their, their tokens, manage their AI activity within their business, manage and educate their staff to understand and learn how to use those AI tools properly, which, you know, includes, um, you know, better, more sophisticated prompting and also understanding what you should be using those tools for versus what you don't need to use those tools for. So I think this is a really interesting area where you're going to see a number of competitors coming into it at the same time. Evidently anthropic OpenAI and the owners of those big, um, legacy LLMs, also advertising agencies and also other technology businesses and consultancies as well.

Speaker B: And Lindsay, I'm going to come to you on this and just building on what Rachel was saying there about the Hulco, um, agencies and indie agencies, and obviously indie agencies being a lot more AI first, what do you think this means then for the hold Cos. And I guess then building on that too, this move by Anthropic,

Speaker D: I think this is useful for them. It's useful for everyone. I mean, obviously Rachel mentioned kind of the impact this will have on the big four that are already trying to offer such services and trying to offer um, assistance and support with how to make your business AI ready. Um, but I think that what's interesting about it is there's this notion that it could, I'd love to hear kind of um, from media agencies what they actually think about this news, whether they feel like it could be a threat, threat to kind of how they're trying to operate and a threat to kind of their, their very existence. But I think that we need to make sure that it's separated in terms of what this is trying to do. Like your job as an agency is still to advise on like how AI and the use of AI changes your marketing, your creative, your media, et cetera. But it isn't your job to re engineer your whole business around AI. Like that's still not your fundamental role as an agency. Your job is still client based. So this next opportunity, this next phase of how to make yourselves AI ready is I think a very, very interesting one. Um, and I think that what I'm intrigued by is to kind of how um, democratized access to this kind of service will be because Rachel mentioned indies and I've got a couple of points I think I mentioned on the podcast before that anecdotally I know a few indies that have had to sort of turn off AI completely because they haven't really got a strategy with how to use it it. And um, the comment that Rachel made about um, tokenomics and kind of they're not knowing how to use tokens. They have for example, Claude set up so once the tokens have been re. Been used up, it'll charge you more and more and more. And before they knew it, they had no strategy for how anybody in the company was using AI and they'd all use up all the tokens. It was costing them tens of thousands of pounds a month. Um, with no real insight as to how it was being used, how it was improving efficiencies, et cetera, et cetera. That is where consultancies and this kind of, this work from Anthropic and HG could actually kind of move the needle and kind of make people ready and allow people to then focus on, of how they can focus on how AI changes what you do strategically and bridges the gap between what AI is doing for you and how you're help making sure your client is going to be able to use that effectively. Because I think that's what's probably missing is a lot of large companies, um, do not even the largest companies do not yet have a proper strategy or have a proper sense of what AI can do for them. Many are still using it as a search engine. They're still using it just to put their queries in. They're not using any agents effectively to kind of do their. Do that, do, um, menial tasks for them and to kind of like set it up in the background to have it running constantly on various things. So I think that's where this will help. As long as any media agency was going into this and looking into kind of how this can. Can assist them, they're doing it, I suppose, with eyes wide open and ensuring that kind of all data still belongs to them. Um, and you know, that the ownership becomes like a big thing that needs to be kind of questioned, legally looked at, I suppose. My voice is really going now.

Speaker C: We've made you talk too much, Lindsay.

Speaker D: Too much. Yeah,

Speaker B: sorry, I feel like we're. We're breaking you.

Speaker D: Long broken. Long broken. Fine.

Speaker B: Amazing. Well, perhaps we can call a third, uh, for the podcast today, considering we've got poor Lindsay, who's ill, and Rachel who's just recovering. But, yeah. Rachel, thank you for joining today.

Speaker C: My pleasure. Jay

Speaker B: and Lindsay as well. Thank you. And we'll let you go rest the voice.

Speaker D: Oh, thank you.

Speaker B: And, um, that's it for the MadTech podcast this week. And, um, look forward to you tuning in next week.

Speaker A: You've been listening to the MadTech podcast, brought to you by ExchangeWire.