top of page

The Complete Feed
Explore every Signal & Noise podcast, article & video in one place from all our guests & contributors.


The Middle Manager Extinction Event?
AI won't just eliminate managers—it will collapse entire categories of work. As AI absorbs research, analysis, coding, design, and coordination tasks, the value of specialization declines while the value of judgment rises. The winners won't be the people who know the most, but those who can combine experience, context, and AI into unprecedented leverage. The real challenge isn't replacing workers—it's figuring out how the next generation gains the experience needed to become
Jun 17


The Godfather of MarTech on the Great Convergence: Scott Brinker on AI, First-Party Data, and the Future of MadTech
The future of marketing isn't about managing more software—it's about connecting data, intelligence, and decision-making. Scott Brinker explains how AI is dissolving the boundaries between MarTech, AdTech, and enterprise operations, creating a new operating model built around context, automation, and orchestration.
Jun 1


Ads in AI: Why Advertising Will Matter More Than Skeptics Think — But Less Than Google Needed It To
Advertising is coming to AI, but it may not reshape the industry in the way many expect. In this article, Rio Longacre examines the fierce debate between skeptics, optimists, and purists, arguing that ads will become a significant revenue stream for AI platforms like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Gemini. The key insight: unlike Google Search, these companies already generate extraordinary subscription and enterprise revenue, making advertising highly valuable—but ultimately incremen
May 27


Ad Fraud, Part 2: Dr. Augustine Fou on Hidden Fees, Phantom Outcomes, and the Agentic Al Trap
In Part 2 of our ad fraud series, Brett and Rio go deeper with Dr. Augustine Fou — and it gets uncomfortable.
This isn't just about bots. It's about the system that profits from them: hidden take rates, spoofed supply, and "performance" that's often fabricated.
Then: agentic AI. Because broken inputs don't get fixed by automation — they scale. Who's getting paid? And how much are they taking?
Apr 15


Agentic Aftermath: Who Wins (and Loses) When Media Becomes Negotiated
Who wins and who loses when media buying goes agentic? AdCP isn’t just a new protocol—it’s a shift in where media decisions happen. As allocation moves upstream from auctions to agent-driven negotiation, DSPs, SSPs, publishers, and agencies all face structural disruption. This isn’t about better automation. It’s about control—and a fundamental reshaping of how the market operates.
Apr 13


The GTM Slop Problem, Part 3: WTF is GTM, Anyway?
The current market is full of adjacent providers and short on anyone willing to own the full chain between product value and commercial execution. What fills that gap is not just strategy and not just execution. It is GTM Intelligence.
By GTM Intelligence, I don't mean RevOps dashboards, sales intelligence, or pipeline inspection tools.
I mean the decisioning layer that determines what matters, what deserves focus, what the market needs to hear, and where the commercial
Apr 9


The UX Reckoning, Part II: From Interfaces to Intent
UX isn’t being redesigned—it’s being replaced. As AI shifts systems from navigation to action, interfaces fade and design moves upstream. This piece explores the collapse of traditional UX, the rise of agentic systems, and why the future of design is about orchestrating outcomes—not building screens.
Mar 30


The GTM Slop Problem, Part 1.5: When Coding Agents Become the New Gatekeepers
What if your next biggest competitor is not another vendor, but Claude Code deciding your category does not need to be bought at all? This piece looks at how coding agents are starting to shape technical vendor selection, why that changes GTM, and what B2B software and AI companies need to do now to avoid getting bypassed before a salesperson ever gets involved.
Mar 24


Rewriting the Rules of Programmatic: Adam Heimlich on Agentic Bidding, ARTF, and Building Chalice AI
What if dashboards are dying—and analytics is becoming more human? In this episode of Signal & Noise, Brett House and Rio Longacre talk with Adam Greco about “Vibe Analytics,” a future where AI, natural language, and warehouse-native stacks replace rigid dashboards. They explore how this shift could democratize analytics, impact tools like Adobe and Amplitude, and reshape how marketers, analysts, and data teams measure and use data.
Mar 23


AdCP and the Agentic Reckoning: RIP RTB?
For fifteen years, advertising has revolved around real-time auctions. But as agentic AI and protocols like AdCP emerge, machines can now reason, remember, and negotiate—not just bid. This shift could move value upstream into continuously negotiated, agent-to-agent deals, relegating open exchanges to clearing remnant supply. The result: a market defined less by speed and auctions, and more by automated, machine-executed negotiation.
Mar 9


AI Doesn’t Fix Data Problems — It Amplifies Them: Acxiom's Crystal Wallace on Governance, Agentic Workflows & the End of “Monolithic SaaS”
In this episode of Signal & Noise, hosts Rio and Brett sit down with Crystal Santos Wallace for a candid conversation about what AI is actually doing inside modern agencies.
Drawing on her experience across global holdcos and at Omnicom Group and Acxiom, Crystal explains why AI doesn’t fix broken data — it amplifies it. They explore the shift from monolithic platforms to agent-orchestrated systems, why governance is becoming mission-critical, and how synthetic audiences and
Mar 9


The UX Reckoning: Designing for an Agentic AI World with Drew Burdick, Founder of StealthX
The marketing industry spends more than $4,000 per U.S. household every year.
Analysts estimate that 20–30% of that spend may be lost to waste, inefficiency, and outright fraud — tens of billions of dollars annually.
So here’s the uncomfortable question:
If everyone knows the plumbing is broken… Why does the system keep running?
In this episode of Signal & Noise, Rio Longacre and Brett House sit down with Sarah Caputo & David Nyurenberg to unpack what rarely gets said out
Mar 2
bottom of page
