Nodals AI

AI Revolutionizes Publishing: Premium Publishers Poised to Thrive

Aly Nurmohamed of Nodals argues that AI-driven changes in discovery are shifting the industry from a 'search' economy to an 'answer' economy, which reduces high-volume, low-intent search traffic but increases the value of loyal audiences and trusted sources. He contends premium publishers can benefit by leveraging first‑party data and applying AI models to demonstrate outcome-based performance, competing with walled gardens. Nurmohamed also predicts the rise of 'agentic' media buying—AI agents that plan and execute media buys—making inventory effectiveness and demonstrable outcomes more important for publishers. He points to industry work (IAB Tech Lab, AdCP movement) and examples like Meta’s Advantage+ as signs the ecosystem is preparing for these shifts.

Curation Could Replace Programmatic Advertising

VideoWeek columnist Aly Nurmohamed argues that curation is set to overhaul programmatic advertising. While programmatic helped advertisers reach consumers in real time, it also created incentives that favored volume over quality. Curation enables advertisers to evaluate an ad placement in depth by surfacing signals from media owners about sentiment, engagement, and past ad responses before buying. Scope3 has launched the Agentic Media Platform to use Agents to understand every impression, and The Trade Desk has acquired Sincera to deepen insights into media owners. The author suggests that in 2025, curation could not only enhance but potentially replace traditional programmatic approaches by delivering higher-quality signals, improving privacy protections, and aligning buyer-seller incentives. The article references Meta’s Advantage+ as a model for leveraging signals across platforms, illustrating how richer, privacy-preserving signals could be replicated on the open internet with stronger buyer-seller collaboration.

Nodals AI Disrupts Ad Tech with Custom Algorithm Platform

Nodals AI, a London-based startup, launched a custom algorithm advertising platform designed to replace traditional DSPs, SSPs, and ad exchanges by building direct publisher relationships. Led by Aly Nurmohamed—formerly Global Managing Director of Publisher Partnerships at Criteo and GM/COO at Permutive—the company aims to create bespoke identity and audience signals for advertisers without cross-site identity graphs or third-party IDs. Nodals positions itself as an ad network-like, fully transparent solution that integrates directly with publishers and targets advertisers who have moved beyond clicks, using incrementality testing to guide targeting and channel mix. The startup has raised €2 million (~$2.1 million) from Stride and a group of ad tech angel investors, including Aperiam, Brian O’Kelley (AppNexus, Scope3), Mike O’Sullivan (Sincera), Joe Root (Permutive), Ben Barokas (Admeld, Sourcepoint), Marc Grabowski (IAS COO) and Mike Ng (Epsilon revenue chief). Early pilots involve seven top UK publishers and two to five large advertisers; potential future integrations with third-party DSPs/SSPs are planned after validating the use case.