Our Senior Director, Industry Development & Marketing, Marie-Clare Puffett, headed across the pond to New York this week for the IAB Connected Commerce Conference. In this blog post, she shares her reflections from the event, exploring the conversations, insights, and defining shifts that are setting the agenda for commerce media.
A day at the IAB US Connected Commerce Summit in New York underscored just how quickly commerce media is evolving. It’s no longer an emerging discipline finding its footing - it’s a fully formed force reshaping how inspiration turns into action, how media is planned, and how value is created. AI is accelerating that shift, moving from an optimisation layer to a system that rewrites the rules. At the centre of this transformation are commerce signals - intent, behaviour, and context - the connective tissue that now underpins the entire ecosystem.
The conversations throughout the Summit made one theme impossible to ignore: the companies that win won’t be the ones treating commerce as a channel, but the ones that integrate it across the full consumer journey. With IAB US forecasting 12.1% growth in commerce media in the US this year, the focus is shifting from expansion to execution. In a crowded, undifferentiated market, fundamentals matter more than ever, and the industry is confronting the reality that it cannot sustain hundreds of commerce media networks.
Collin Colburn, VP Commerce and Retail Media at IAB US captured the moment with four imperatives for progress:
Transparency, in particular, resonated across the room. As commerce expands across the ecosystem, interoperability and accountability become non‑negotiable. This is exactly where initiatives like IAB Europe’s Retail Media Certification play a critical role. By providing a shared framework for operational quality, data responsibility, and transparency, certification is becoming a marker of maturity in a market that urgently needs clarity and consistency.
The Summit also highlighted the shifting expectations of Gen Z, who value authenticity, reciprocal brand relationships, and in‑person retail experiences. Physical retail is re‑emerging as a discovery and social channel, and attribution models must adapt to non‑linear, shared purchase paths. Retail media itself is evolving from siloed placements into a connected commerce engine powered by shoppable media, integrated signals, and closed‑loop data.
AI and agentic commerce added another layer to the discussion. As AI systems begin to act autonomously on behalf of consumers, traditional decision points shrink, but new opportunities emerge. Retail media networks are well-positioned to become the data and infrastructure powering these agents. AI won’t replace retail media, but it will redefine which players remain relevant.
The moment things feel hard is often the moment just before a breakthrough. Commerce media is at that point now, and the question is whether the industry is ready to rise to the expectations that come with it.
