Media Tech Talk

Media Tech Talk is a weekly video podcast decoding the media industry across commercial, publishing, and marketing technology. Through a uniquely Australian lens - delivering local insights with global perspectives - hosts Daevid Richards and Paul Luckett draw on more than 50 years of combined experience to explore the tools, strategies, and technologies transforming how media is built, distributed, and monetised. Each episode dives into the how and why behind AI, automation, and emerging innovations accelerating change across the sector, with sharp analysis and candid conversations featuring

Media Tech Talk is a technology podcast hosted by Daevid Richards and Paul Luckett, with 40 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Daevid Richards and Paul Luckett hosts Media Tech Talk, a technology show with 40 episodes published.

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  Episode #41

  Starting & Selling Playground XYZ to GumGum. Rob Hall (Parallel) Media Tech Talk #41

  Sep 28, 202622 min

  Media Tech Talk #039 - Rob Hall (Parallel) Part 1 What does it take to build an ad tech company from nothing, sell it, and then come straight back to do it all again? Rob Hall has done exactly that. He co-founded Playground XYZ in 2015 on a bold bet that real, measurable human attention could be put on a scoreboard for advertisers, at a time when almost nobody believed it was possible. GumGum went on to acquire the business, Rob stayed on to lead its global data function, and then he did something most founders don't: he stopped, took a year off and travelled. Now he is back as founder and CEO of Parallel. In Part 1, Daevid and Rob go back to the beginning: cold calling out of the Yellow Pages selling gym and pub ads, the phone trick that cracked one of the biggest accounts in the country, and why that early grind built the resilience and solution selling instincts that carried into every venture since. Rob opens up on leaving a stable managing director role to start Playground XYZ with his co-founders, the moment COVID brought the business closer to the wire than ever, and the values-driven call the team made when the obvious answer was to cut jobs. From there the conversation turns to the exit. Rob explains why they chose to sell while the business was still accelerating, the market forces that made the timing right, how an exploratory look around quietly turned into a process, and why, despite a deal he is proud of, it remains the hardest decision he has ever made. Part 2 picks up with Parallel and the big question: can an AI digital twin of a customer really tell a brand what a real customer will do, before a single dollar is spent? Chapters: (00:00) Cold open: build it, sell it, do it all again (01:22) Welcome Rob Hall, calling in from London (02:21) Starting from zero: the early sales grind (04:34) The cold call that cracked a big account (05:46) Resilience, adaptability and selling a new category (06:59) Solutions over analysis paralysis (08:06) 2015: betting a stable career on attention (09:45) What nearly broke Playground XYZ (11:10) One in, all in: a values test under pressure (12:49) Staying hungry: the challenger mindset (15:06) Why sell to GumGum while still accelerating (17:33) Consolidation and competing with the giants (18:34) The hardest decision a founder makes (19:06) Keeping publisher trust through the transition (19:41) How the deal actually came together (20:37) When exploring quietly becomes a process (21:26) Coming up in Part 2: Parallel and AI digital twins Guest: Rob Hall, Founder & CEO – Parallel https://www.linkedin.com/in/hallrob/ | https://helloparallel.com/ Host: Daevid Richards – https://www.linkedin.com/in/daevidrichards/ Media Tech Talk explores ad tech, digital media, AI in advertising, programmatic monetisation, audience engagement, and the technologies shaping the future of publishing. ️ #MediaTechTalk #Parallel #PlaygroundXYZ #GumGum #AttentionMeasurement #DigitalTwins #AdTech #Founders #Startups #MergersAndAcquisitions #Leadership #DigitalAdvertising #Podcast

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  Episode #39

  Andrew Mole & Andrew Gilbert (pubX) AI Agents. Buy & Sell Side. What's Next for Humans? - Media Tech Talk #39

  Sep 14, 202631 min

  For years, automation in advertising meant software following rules: bidding, buying, optimising. What is emerging now is something different. AI agents that reason, negotiate and strike deals on your behalf, on both sides of the trade. This episode brings together the two people building that for publishers and advertisers at the same time. Andrew Mole is co-founder and CEO of pubX, his second ad tech company, built on five years and more than a trillion auctions of pricing data. Andrew Gilbert has just stepped in to lead pubX across Australia and New Zealand, after senior roles at Yahoo, Afterpay and IAS and a spell running his own AI advisory. Across part one, Daevid Richards asks what advertising actually becomes when the buying and the selling are handled by machines talking to each other. Both Andrews trace how they got here, why an industry this inefficient was always ripe for disruption, and what a sales agent and a buying agent really do once you take the bid request out of the middle. Andrew Mole makes a call on whether agentic supplements programmatic or eventually replaces it, and Andrew Gilbert explains where the genuine ANZ appetite sits, why every publisher conversation starts from suspicion, and how AI assisted, autopilot and truly agentic are three very different things. If you work in programmatic, publisher monetisation, agency trading or brand safety, this is the clearest look yet at where the supply chain is heading, and what happens to the people who have always managed those relationships. Part two goes deeper into what really happens when two agents negotiate a deal, the honest question of what could go wrong when machines trade at this speed, and Andrew Mole's call on what it all means once this becomes the norm. CHAPTERS 0:00 - The shift no one has explored on this show yet 1:17 - Welcome, and how many Andrews are at pubX 1:47 - Cotswolds shorts and the Central Coast commute 2:44 - Andrew Mole: Platform360, PubGalaxy and founding pubX 5:02 - Andrew Gilbert: Yahoo, Afterpay and going deep on AI 7:14 - Why agentic and AdCP moved this fast 8:51 - The swing back towards the publisher 10:47 - What is pubX, and the problem it is solving 14:08 - Signals agents, governance agents and the new stack 15:21 - Does this supplement programmatic, or end it? 17:12 - Who actually captures the media dollar 18:10 - What a sales agent does on a publisher's behalf 20:54 - Why pubX's pricing heritage matters here 22:38 - The ANZ reaction: appetite, and suspicion 24:53 - AI assisted, autopilot, or truly agentic 26:04 - brands.json and a new level of advertiser control 26:47 - How the buying agent works for an agency 28:15 - Collapsing the pre DSP and the activation layer 29:09 - Wrapping up, and what is coming in part two CREDITS Guest: Andrew Mole, Co-Founder and CEO - pubX https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-j-mole/ Guest: Andrew Gilbert, Country Manager ANZ - pubX https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewgilbert01/ pubX: https://pubx.ai/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/pubxai/ Host: Daevid Richards https://linkedin.com/in/daevidrichards/ ️ #MediaTechTalk #pubX #AgenticAdvertising #AdCP #AdTech #Programmatic #AIAgents #PublisherMonetisation #DigitalAdvertising #Podcast

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  Episode #38

  Alex Storey (Google) - Agentic Commerce, AI Ads & the End of the Keyword - Media Tech Talk #038

  Sep 7, 202625 min

  Media Tech Talk #038 - Alex Storey (Google) Part 2 Alex Storey, Senior Client Manager at Google, returns to Media Tech Talk to take on the topic causing the most anxiety in publishing right now: zero click search. If the answer appears on the page, what happens to the click? Alex doesn't dodge it. She makes Google's case that its AI features are built to point back at the web rather than away from it, and walks through the newer mechanics designed to keep readers moving through to publishers, including one feature rolling out now that hands control over which publications show up in your AI results straight back to the user. From there the conversation moves into agentic commerce, and Alex's line that Google is the matchmaker, not the merchant. She explains the open standard being built so retailers, payment providers and AI agents can finally speak the same language, then runs a live worked example that starts with a 90s colour blocked ski jacket that doesn't exist yet and ends with an agent completing the purchase on her behalf while she's doing something else entirely. She is also clear about which parts of this are already switched on in Australia and which are still US only, and why one unglamorous piece of retail infrastructure has quietly become the most valuable asset a merchant owns. The final stretch turns to the paid layer and the future. Alex breaks down what happens to search marketing when the manual keyword goes away, and what conversational ads inside AI Mode mean for brands that are used to buying a slot rather than an answer. Then comes the crystal ball. In 2022, a nervous client made a bet with Alex about whether search would still matter a year later. Alex tells you how that turned out, then makes a new bet with Daevid for September 2031, and shares the piece of career advice she wishes she'd taken far earlier. Chapters: (00:00) Cold open: picking up on zero click search (00:55) Welcome back Alex Storey (01:11) What zero click search actually means (01:35) Publisher anxiety and the open web (02:35) How AI responses link back out (03:47) Preferred sources: pick your own publishers (04:57) Agentic commerce: matchmaker, not merchant (06:42) The shared language behind agentic shopping (07:31) The ski jacket test: from prompt to purchase (09:12) Virtual try-on and letting an agent buy for you (10:44) What is live in the US versus Australia (11:20) The retail data that now decides everything (12:10) The advertiser toolkit: the paid layer (13:03) What happens when the keyword disappears (14:49) Conversational ads in AI Mode (15:56) Closing the loop the internet was built for (17:06) Crystal ball: the 2022 bet, and a new one (19:43) Voice, screens and the Star Trek device (21:33) The advice Alex would give her younger self (22:55) What the future of media looks like (23:52) Wrapping part two (24:30) Coming next on Media Tech Talk Guest: Alex Storey, Senior Client Manager – Google https://www.linkedin.com/in/storeyalex/ | https://www.linkedin.com/company/google/ | https://ads.google.com/intl/en_au/start/ Hosts: Daevid Richards – https://www.linkedin.com/in/daevidrichards Media Tech Talk explores ad tech, digital media, AI in advertising, programmatic monetisation, audience engagement, and the technologies shaping the future of publishing. ️ #MediaTechTalk #Google #ZeroClickSearch #AgenticCommerce #AIMax #AIMode #GoogleAds #AdTech #DigitalMarketing #Ecommerce #ArtificialIntelligence #SEM #MarTech #Podcast

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  Media Tech Talk

  Alex Storey (Google) - AI Chatbots, Death of Keywords & the Future of Search - Media Tech Talk #037

  Aug 31, 202628 minS37

  Alex Storey, Senior Client Manager at Google, joins Media Tech Talk to unpack the biggest era of change in search since the search box first appeared. From starting on the AdWords billing desk 13 years ago to leading Google's advertising relationship with Canva, Alex has had a front row seat to a decade of change compressed into 12 months.In part one, Alex takes us back through the eras of Google Search: the story of the very first search ad (a live mail order lobster business in the year 2000), the shift from desktop to mobile, the rise of vertical and visual search, and the 25 billion searches now flowing through Google Lens every year. She explains how AI has quietly powered search for more than a decade, from BERT's breakthrough in understanding conversational language in 2019 to Smart Bidding's 70 million auction-time signals that turned paid search from manual day trading into a predictive engine.Then we address the elephant in the room: ChatGPT's 2022 launch and the obituaries written for search. Far from shrinking, the search pie has expanded. AI Overviews now serve 2.5 billion monthly users, AI Mode has scaled past a billion monthly active users in its first year, and Google is seeing 5 trillion searches a year, with query volume in AI Mode doubling every quarter and queries running three times longer than traditional search. Alex closes part one with a look under the hood at search fan-out, and why one conversational paragraph can now do the work of a dozen searches.Chapters:(00:00) Cold open: the search box you now talk to(01:18) Welcome Alex Storey(01:58) From Nielsen to Google's AdWords billing desk(05:13) Keeping up with a decade of change in 12 months(07:30) The lobster ad: Google's first ever search ad(09:50) Three eras of search: mobile, vertical and visual(12:10) Smart glasses, privacy and augmented reality search(14:24) BERT and the AI quietly under the hood since 2019(16:46) Smart Bidding rebuilds paid search(18:47) The ChatGPT elephant in the room(21:08) The Jevons paradox: searching more, not less(22:54) AI Mode and the rise of conversational search(24:07) Search fan-out: one query, many searches(27:25) Wrapping part one Guest: Alex Storey, Senior Client Manager – Googlehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/storeyalex https://www.linkedin.com/company/google https://ads.google.com/intl/en_au/start Host:Daevid Richards – https://www.linkedin.com/in/daevidrichards/Media Tech Talk explores ad tech, digital media, AI in advertising, programmatic monetisation, audience engagement, and the technologies shaping the future of publishing.️ #MediaTechTalk #Google #GoogleSearch #AIMode #AIOverviews #SearchAdvertising #AdTech #DigitalMarketing #ArtificialIntelligence #GoogleAds #SEM #MarTech #Podcast

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  Media Tech Talk

  Tom Dover (Microsoft Advertising) Part 2 — AI, Identity & the Future of Publisher Monetization — Media Tech Talk #036

  Aug 4, 202623 min

  In part two of our conversation with Tom Dover, Senior Director and Head of Monetized Partnerships at Microsoft Advertising, Daevid Richards and Paul Luckett dig into what comes next for publisher technology now that Microsoft Invest has been retired. Tom walks through Microsoft Monetize's new Copilot-powered MCP server, how AI is opening new audience and revenue verticals for publishers, and how curated marketplaces are reshaping supply path optimization. The conversation moves through identity and addressability in a post-cookie world, why trust is the real currency between platforms and publishers, and how a company the size of Microsoft keeps moving fast on AI. Tom closes with career advice for the next generation of ad tech professionals.This conversation is essential viewing for publishers, ad tech leaders, and anyone navigating programmatic advertising, identity resolution, and AI-driven monetization strategy. Chapters:00:00 Welcome Back & Recap: Setting Up Part 200:53 Automating Floor Pricing & the New Monetize MCP Server04:29 How AI Will Reshape Publisher Monetization07:48 Curated Marketplaces & Supply Path Optimization10:05 Content Marketplaces: Programmatic's Next Frontier11:33 Identity & Addressability After the Cookie15:05 Trust, Safeguards & the Microsoft Ecosystem15:31 Moving Fast: AI as Microsoft's Gravitational Pull16:16 Advice to a Younger Tom Dover21:04 Wrap-Up & Thank You21:44 Season Outro: What's Next on Media Tech Talk Guest: Tom Dover, Senior Director & Head of Monetized Partnerships – Microsoft Advertisinghttps://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-dover-9b3a3122/ Hosts:Daevid Richards – https://www.linkedin.com/in/daevidrichards/Paul Luckett – https://www.luckettmediaconsulting.com | https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-luckett/ Links:Microsoft Monetize – https://about.ads.microsoft.com/en #MediaTechTalk #MicrosoftAdvertising #AdTech #ProgrammaticAdvertising #PublisherMonetization #AI #Copilot #SupplyPathOptimization #Identity #DigitalAdvertising

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