// 20 papers · 2026
Research
Independent research written through 2026. Sixteen papers on how advertising is planned, bought, measured and proved, with a focus on out-of-home and digital out-of-home, which together became the first edition of Media Intelligence. Four more on product management, AI and B2B SaaS.
13 papers can be read in full on this site, with their figures, tables and references, or opened as PDFs. 3 are summarised from the magazine, with the original on ResearchGate. Every paper is on ResearchGate.
Magazine part IITransaction layer
How media is bought, and who sits in the path.
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From Buying Interface to Execution Infrastructure
The Repositioning of the Demand-Side Platform Under Agentic Advertising
AI agents increasingly interpret briefs and run campaigns through APIs instead of a person working inside a DSP. Using 2026 disclosures from The Trade Desk, Amazon Ads, Adform, Magnite and PubMatic, the paper argues that the DSP is not disappearing, but its role as the main buying interface is being structurally challenged.
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Beyond the DSP
Google's Buyer Direct, Supply Path Optimization, and the Road to Agentic Media Buying
Reads Google's Buyer Direct, which lets agencies book guaranteed publisher inventory with no DSP in the deal, as a structural signal about the programmatic supply chain. DSP revenue keeps growing, which points to substitution at the margin rather than wholesale disintermediation. Direct OOH buying may be the next place the shift shows up.
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Consolidation and Intelligence
The Global OOH, DOOH and Agentic AdTech Landscape
Traces the consolidation of OOH technology between 2023 and 2026, including Perion's acquisition of Hivestack, T-Mobile's of Vistar Media and Broadsign's of Place Exchange, and argues that competition has moved from screen count to intelligence.
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Competitive Structure and AI Adoption in Global OOH AdTech
The OOH AdTech Power Index 2026
Maps who leads across six capabilities, from demand-side activation to agentic execution, and finds that no platform leads all six. Introduces a six-level AI maturity ladder and three moats: the inventory graph, the outcome graph and the agentic layer.
Magazine part IIIData layer
Who the audience is, and where they move.
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The Hidden Data Infrastructure Behind Modern OOH
Mapping the Third-Party Data and Measurement Ecosystem
Third-party data in OOH is usually treated as one interchangeable commodity. This paper separates it into five distinct businesses, benchmarks fourteen providers against specific planning and measurement questions, and proposes a seven-layer advertising data stack in place of a ranking.
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United States
The Data Behind the Billboard: United States
A 2026 Analysis of the US Out-of-Home Third-Party Data and Measurement Ecosystem
The US market's operating question is shifting from how many people passed a screen to who was exposed, who visited and whether behaviour changed. The paper examines eleven organisations across a five-layer data ecosystem and finds that the bigger opportunity is interoperability, not another dataset.
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Europe
The Data Behind the Billboard: Europe
A 2026 Analysis of the European Out-of-Home Third-Party Data and Measurement Ecosystem
Europe's challenge is connecting national measurement currencies that each took decades to build. The paper reviews five national bodies and ten multinational providers, and argues for an interoperability layer that normalises signals across markets while keeping local expertise.
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Asia-Pacific
The Data Behind the Billboard: Asia-Pacific
A 2026 Analysis of the Asia-Pacific Out-of-Home Third-Party Data and Measurement Ecosystem
Asia-Pacific is the world's largest and most digital OOH region, and its least programmatic. The paper documents national measurement developments from Australia's MOVE currency to Malaysia's developing initiative, and locates the region's opportunity in the gap between digital and programmatic maturity.
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Africa
The Data Behind the Billboard: Africa
The Africa edition of the regional data-ecosystem series
Africa sits on a different maturity curve: a $1.2 billion OOH market, 18% digital, where verification comes first. The edition covers South Africa's ROAD currency and independent DOOH verification, Egypt's billboard audits and Nigeria's twelve-city audience study.
Magazine part IVProof layer
What the advertising actually caused.
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From Exposure to Impact
A 2026 Landscape of Brand-Lift Measurement Infrastructure Across AdTech, MarTech, OOH and DOOH
The industry has largely solved putting digital technology on physical screens. Connecting exposure to incremental brand impact is still open. The paper assesses seven measurement organisations across five battlefields and finds that no one spans the full chain, a fragmentation it calls the PowerPlay Gap.
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From Brand Lift to Incremental Impact
Attention, Causality, and Optimization in Out-of-Home Advertising Measurement
Asks which organisations can show that OOH exposure caused incremental impact, and turn that evidence into the next media decision. The paper extends the measurement chain from three stages to seven and finds that none of the eight organisations assessed documents all of them.
Magazine part VConvergence
Retail and social media step into physical space.
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OOH and Retail Media
The Convergence of Physical Attention and Shopper Intelligence
Documents OOH and retail media converging into one physical-commerce media category, through deals such as Albertsons Media Collective with Perion and Carrefour with JCDecaux. Proposes a four-layer value chain and argues that OOH's real risk is becoming commoditised supply inside a retailer-led stack.
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From Feed to Street
TikTok's Out of Phone Strategy and the Convergence of Social, Programmatic, and Physical Advertising Ecosystems
TikTok's Out of Phone programme puts creator content on screens TikTok does not own. The paper reads this as the construction of a distribution layer rather than a bid to become a media owner, and positions it against seven adjacent platforms on physical reach and intelligence depth.
Magazine part VIThe agentic turn
Which AI race companies are running, and what agents should be paid to deliver.
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The Rabbit Didn't Lose the Race, He Changed the Story
A Competitive Framework for the AI Race in AdTech, MarTech, OOH and DOOH
There is no single AI race in advertising but at least four, and leading one does not mean leading the next. The paper compares disclosed AI metrics with headline growth across seven companies and proposes an unscored eight-dimension framework instead of a leaderboard.
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From Media Buying to Outcome Engineering
A Proposed Outcome Exchange for Out-of-Home Advertising
Proposes an Outcome Exchange for OOH, where a campaign starts from a business objective rather than a quantity of inventory. The paper maps six positions in the agentic OOH value chain, argues that the sixth, outcome orchestration, is still unclaimed, and sets out a governance model that keeps language models away from pricing and causal inference.
Magazine part VIIProduct frameworks
What an intelligent media product looks like, 2026 to 2030.
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From Screens to Intelligence
A Proposed Product Framework for Out-of-Home Advertising, 2026–2030
Argues that out-of-home is moving from digital media infrastructure to intelligent media infrastructure, where the unit of the product shifts from the purchasable screen to a continuously optimised decision. Proposes five paradigm shifts and works through what each means for planning, transaction, measurement and creative.
On ResearchGateProduct management and AI
Four papers outside the magazine, on B2B SaaS product management, AI-native requirements, and agentic planning for out-of-home. They open on ResearchGate.
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Customer-Informed, Not Customer-Driven: A Framework for Evaluating Feature Requests in B2B SaaS Product Management
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Autonomous OOH Campaign Intelligence: An Agentic Architecture for Out-of-Home Media Planning and Activation
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From BRD/PRD to Living Product Specifications: Rethinking Requirements Documentation in AI-Native Product Management
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From Product Builder to AI Orchestrator: The Psychological Transformation of Product Management in the Age of Generative Artificial Intelligence
No papers match that search
Try a company such as Broadsign or Nielsen, a region such as Europe, or a topic such as attribution.
Read them as one story
Sixteen research papers, one finding: nobody yet owns the layer that connects inventory, data, proof and action.