Algorithms are flooding feeds with AI slop. What’s a brand that’s spending money and time to capture attention to do?

During an ADWEEK House Possible panel co-hosted with Silverpush, industry leaders tackled that question as well as how to evaluate risk and protect your brand’s media buy in an ever-messier landscape.

Brand integrity on the line

With so much low-quality content clogging up feeds, Sarah Larkin, VP of sales at Silverpush, suggested that brands may need to redefine what success and performance mean for them and put the proper protections in place. “You have to have your own guardrails around what that brand safety definition is for you, because every brand is so different,” she said.

Maintaining brand integrity is a top priority for Best Friend Animal Society, Jessie Earl, the group’s associate director of paid media strategy and digital engagement, shared.

“We are trusted with donor dollars to do the best we can to reach more people,” she said. (5:04) As such, while the nonprofit does lean into machine learning, it limits certain placements that don’t align with the brand mission. “We know where we belong and where we don’t. Over the years, we’ve removed politics and religion, conversations that homeless pets don’t need to be part of, and we’re good with that,” explained Earl.

Freddy Dabaghi, chief transformation officer at Crispin, acknowledged that although most brands have certain types of content they prefer not to be part of, there is always some gray area, too.

“Some consumers are OK with AI slop; for some consumers, that is their entire feed. And if they’re engaging with your content, they’re purchasing your products, then I don’t think it actually is that bad,” he said.

It becomes problematic when there’s an obvious disconnect between the brand message and where it’s placed. “If you have a brand that is talking about skincare and all the content is AI, then it does feel inauthentic to your brand,” said Dabaghi.

Same slop, different trend

AI slop may be the problem du jour, but the sentiment surrounding it harkens back to the days when user-generated content started appearing on YouTube to the dismay of brands, said Larkin. But over time, she pointed out, the industry pushed back, and UGC became better.

“I think the same thing is going to happen with AI. I think those that are true AI slop are going to be optimized out,” said Larkin.

For now, the comfort level around AI will be brand-dependent, said Earl. That’s why you won’t see Best Friend Animal Society using AI-generated pets in their videos anytime soon. “We’re not going to start making up pet stories,” she said. Instead, she shared that they’ll be staying “true to our brand integrity, through and through.”

Dabaghi applauded Earl for taking that stance, but added he’s excited for the prospect of working with more brands that decide to use AI intentionally as well.

The session ended on a positive, hopeful note that in the next year or two, AI slop will be but a faint memory. “I think we’re going to see a lot less of that and a lot more of the well-produced, well-thought-out, well-intentioned AI content,” said Larkin.

First appeared on Adweek.

Silverpush announced the EMEA rollout of  SilverScreen™, its broadcast-quality classification layer for YouTube. SilverScreen is a solution capable of classifying channels against broadcast standards at scale, enabling advertisers and their agency partners to identify and activate TV-like YouTube inventory with the same confidence they apply to linear television.

YouTube is now the most-watched video platform on TV screens, with 182 million hours viewed daily, and over 40% of CTV and YouTube on TV viewers are typically unreachable through linear TV alone. Yet linear television and AV advertiser budgets have been slow to follow. The reason is not reach, but the absence of a reliable quality signal. Premium and non-premium content appear indistinguishable, and conventional proxies such as subscriber counts or view volumes do not reflect the production quality, format consistency, or viewing behaviour that AV buyers require.

SilverScreen by Silverpush addresses this gap directly. Using AI-powered classification, SilverScreen evaluates YouTube channels against the signals that define broadcast-quality content: professional production standards, long-form episodic formats, consistent publishing cadence, and strong connected TV and co-viewing behavior. Qualified channels are grouped by interest categories, spanning sports, entertainment, food, automotive, travel, and more, giving media planners a curated, TV-like YouTube inventory layer they can activate with confidence.

A recent campaign for a leading hospitality brand used SilverScreen to extend the brand’s linear TV plan onto YouTube, activating only channels that met broadcast-quality classification standards. The results demonstrated that YouTube, when bought against TV-grade inventory, can deliver genuine AV-grade performance:

1. 7.9% incremental reach vs. linear TV, demonstrating SilverScreen’s ability to extend campaign reach beyond the scope of traditional television.
2. 19x more efficient at reaching the 18-34 demo vs. linear TV by delivering significantly stronger cost efficiency against audiences that are increasingly difficult to reach through traditional AV.
3. 82% unassisted delivery to TV screens, confirming that SilverScreen inventory naturally skews towards lean-back, big-screen viewing without the need for manual CTV targeting.

“YouTube is undeniably becoming part of the living room TV experience, with consumption of TV-like content on the big screen growing rapidly. This presents a strong opportunity for advertisers to engage audiences watching high-production-value, brand-safe content,” said Sasha King, Group Head, UK at Silverpush. “We built SilverScreen to help advertisers and AV teams reach their desired audiences within broadcast-quality environments, driving incremental reach across campaigns – one of SilverScreen’s most important success metrics.”

For advertisers and their agency partners, SilverScreen means YouTube can now function as a genuine extension of linear TV planning. AV buyers can use SilverScreen to identify broadcast-quality YouTube environments, extend reach into audiences that are increasingly unreachable through linear TV alone, and do so without compromising the brand-safe, lean-back viewing standards their campaigns require.

The approach has already been proven in-market, and to help qualify YouTube’s position and importance in the AV media plan, Silverpush worked with leading measurement provider AudienceProject, who offered this feedback: “AudienceProject were delighted to be Silverpush’s SilverScreen measurement partner and provide independent reach and targeting analysis to validate and report on their approach,” said Martyn Bentley, Commercial Director, UK.

SilverScreen is now available across key EMEA markets.

Silverpush, the contextual intelligence company, today (27th April, 2026) announced a rapid expansion across the Americas, with the business achieving the biggest period of revenue growth in history and new offices across Chicago, LA, and New York.

Since last year, the company has expanded its product line across all major video platforms to include YouTube, YouTube Shorts, TikTok, Meta, Facebook, and CTV while launching partnerships with The Trade Desk, Pubmatic, Airtory, Lumen Research, and Locala. The team also recently celebrated a finalist award with Digiday for “Best Use of YouTube” for a Bobcat (a Doosan Group company) campaign with agency partner True Media.

“At True Media, we’re always on the lookout for innovative media partners. Silverpush brings smart processes and tech to the table to help us get the most out of our clients’ media dollars,” says Vaughn Ericsson, SVP at True Media. “To us, they’re true partners. They’re part of our team, working right alongside us with one shared goal: delivering industry-leading solutions and top-notch results.”

With a new US headquarters in New York City’s Union Square, Silverpush has partnerships with agencies and brands across the region to drive better results with contextual intelligence. The company was recently listed in the industry’s first AI LUMAScape as a leading company in the contextual and semantic intelligence category.

As part of Silverpush’s rapid Americas expansion, Jeffrey Rich has stepped into an elevated role as EVP and managing director, Americas. “I joined Silverpush last year based on the power of our contextual intelligence technology,” says Rich. “Video has become the full funnel when it comes to consumer engagement, interest, and action. We believe that video-level context is the key to driving scale, quality, and precision for our partners’ advertising strategies. Our technology helps marketers reach the right consumers at relevant moments. And with Silverpush’s deterministic intelligence, we eliminate wasted ad placements to maximise efficiency in a privacy-compliant manner.”

With Silverpush contextual intelligence, brands have recently seen:

• 2X VTR
• +500% search lift
• +37% higher attention
• +30% brand lift

The Americas region, which spans from Brazil to Canada, has grown by 60% and is on pace for its most productive year yet.

“Last year, we built an omnichannel platform that allows advertisers to activate and measure omnichannel media plans based on context, not audience or channel,” says Blaise Lucey, vice president of global marketing at Silverpush. “This year, Silverpush is building a contextual intelligence placement engine that can help agencies and brands eliminate AI slop from media plans – ensuring that we can stop the slop and focus on meaningful connections and intentional touchpoints.”

With major partnerships with Media Post, Adweek, Digiday, and others, Silverpush kicks off the next chapter of the company’s growth at Possible in Miami with Adweek, with a single mission: to eliminate ad waste in the era of AI and to stop the slop.

Silverpush, the contextual intelligence company, today (17th February, 2026) released a first-ever attention study on the impact of contextual intelligence for YouTube advertising with agency partner Epitaph. By working with Lumen, the global attention measurement company, Silverpush and Epitaph analysed more than 60 million impressions across 30+ campaigns to see if contextual video advertising on YouTube generated higher attention.

“We believe in the power of context for YouTube advertising and our clients have seen great results across the funnel from it,” says Scott Stewart, executive vice president at Epitaph Group. “Now, by analysing attention scores for these campaigns, we have a new way to show that performance.”

When compared to standard YouTube advertising attention benchmarks, Lumen found that contextual YouTube advertising powered by Silverpush and Epitaph drive:

• +12% higher viewed rate (relevance)
• +22% higher average view time (engagement)
• +37% higher attention per mille (efficiency)

“At Lumen, we know that context is a key factor behind high attention to ads. By showing strong scores across the board, this attention study found that Epitaph and Silverpush consistently drive higher relevance. This, in turn, keeps YouTube audiences engaged and ensures much higher efficiency by delivering YouTube ads that actually capture people’s attention,” says Donia Baddou, global VP of partnerships at Lumen Research.

With additional attention studies across social and YouTube campaigns planned, Epitaph will now build an advanced buying model that focuses on relevance, context, and attention. In part powered by Silverpush, Epitaph clients will now be able to deliver video ads more effectively and efficiently to inventory and placements that are guaranteed to be high-quality and high-attention.

“We are thrilled to show that context truly does drive a lot more attention for advertisers,” says Jeff McCann, RVP of Canada at Silverpush. “Our work with Epitaph’s clients has shown that contextual intelligence makes a big difference, and now the results from Lumen prove that, when a video ad is delivered at the most relevant moment in a viewer’s journey, they’re more likely to pay attention – and take action.”

Silverpush will incorporate attention metrics from Lumen as a new layer of measurement for clients going forward to both better show a holistic picture of ad performance as well as understand the quality of context, quality, and relevance on YouTube.

Silverpush, the contextual intelligence company, announced the launch of the Silverpush Trend Intelligence Platform, a new contextual intelligence solution built to help brands and agencies analyse, plan, and act on real-time cultural trends.

As trends across social and digital platforms emerge and peak after days or even hours, advertisers are under increasing pressure to respond faster while maintaining relevance and brand safety. By continuously analysing signals from social and web sources, the Trend Intelligence Platform enables advertisers to filter by category, market, audience, and more to identify relevant trends. Unlike traditional social listening tools that focus on trend visibility alone, the Trend Intelligence Platform converts these signals into brand-safe, audience-relevant, activation-ready contextual topics that can be applied directly to media plans.

“By ingesting trending signals from open web and social sources, the Trend Intelligence Platform allows advertisers to identify the latest trends relevant to their target audiences and markets, and immediately generate the right contextual targeting tactics to reach them,” said Mansi Matela, chief product officer. “With testing already underway with clients around the world, we’re excited to bring this first-to-market solution to truly help agencies and brands market to the moment.”

Powered by the Silverpush Contextual Intelligence Engine, the Trend Intelligence Platform continuously analyses signals from social and web channels, so ad campaigns are always relevant to what matters most to the audience. Rather than surfacing trends at a high-level, the platform allows teams to filter trend signals by geography and audience attributes such as age and gender.

This helps identify:

1. Which trends are emerging within a given market or audience filter across different social and video platforms
2. Which channels and platforms are most relevant for activation for a given trend

The solution evaluates each trend within a given market based on audience relevance, how strongly the trend is emerging, and brand safety considerations, then converts those signals into contextual topics that generate platform-native placements for activation within the same cultural moment.

For example, if celebrity news resonates with a specific audience or a new toy begins trending within a particular age group, the Trend Intelligence Platform detects these signals and converts them into ready-to-activate contextual signals. This allows brands to align media placements with how trends are unfolding in real time.

These signals map directly into media buying workflows across platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, and Meta, removing the need for market research or campaign planning for the opportunities that come and go with a viral moment.

At the core of the platform is the Silverpush Multi-Agentic AI Framework, which continuously refreshes contextual signals and optimises targeting based on real-time performance, allowing media plans to evolve with cultural momentum rather than remaining locked into static assumptions.

Currently, the Trend Intelligence Platform is in limited availability across select markets, with general availability planned for March 2026. During testing, the solution has already seen strong adoption and retention among global and regional advertisers as a new solution to stay current in the trending economy and to cut the time required for campaign launches for breaking news and viral topics.

As advertising moves toward context-driven and signal-based planning and buying becomes based on trends across multiple channels, Silverpush’s Trend Intelligence Platform provides the necessary infrastructure to help brands stay culturally relevant at scale.

Silverpush, the contextual intelligence company, today (23rd September 2025) announced a formal global partnership with Adsquare, a leading platform for location intelligence, to power measurement for YouTube ad campaigns.

By combining the AI-powered contextual intelligence of Silverpush Mirrors for YouTube with Adsquare’s location measurement solutions, Silverpush now allows brands and agencies to directly attribute foot traffic from YouTube ad campaigns across the Americas, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Asia.

“We’re proud to offer clients a new way to understand the impact of contextual ad campaigns on YouTube,” says Jeff McCann, Regional Vice President, Canada. “With this new partnership, it’s now possible to see exactly how YouTube ads are impacting the full funnel journey.”

Early access clients like Porsche Canada partnered with Silverpush and Adsquare to run YouTube ad campaigns that specifically drove qualified car buyers to specific dealerships based on context, geotargeting, and location intelligence. Ultimately, the campaign determined that the YouTube advertising campaign, powered by Silverpush, drove 73 qualified buyers to local dealerships after being exposed to an ad.

After running a YouTube ad campaign powered by Silverpush Mirrors, Adsquare makes it possible to link digital ad exposure with real-world visits through a sophisticated visit matching algorithm. By building precise polygon geometries around key Porsche dealerships, Adsquare accurately detects when consumers who were exposed to an ad later visit a specific dealership.

This visit data is then sent in real-time to the DSP, powering in-flight campaign measurement, optimization, and post-campaign attribution. The result: Silverpush and Porsche were able to clearly understand what’s working, shift budget toward high-performing audiences, and prove ROI with confidence.

“This partnership brings real-world accountability to YouTube advertising,” said Chris Gurciullo, General Manager, Americas at Adsquare. “By pairing Silverpush’s contextual precision with our location intelligence and measurement capabilities, we’re helping advertisers go beyond views and clicks — they can now attribute and optimise for actual footfall. It’s a game-changer for brands looking to drive real outcomes from their video investments.”

Silverpush, the contextual intelligence company, announced today (9th September, 2025) the expansion of its leadership team in Germany. As vice president DACH, Nasir Khawaja will, effective immediately, drive the strong growth in the DACH region alongside Donovan Anwander, sales director DACH. Silverpush has seen record-level growth in Germany since entering the market earlier this year and expects that to continue with Khawaja’s leadership.

Khawaja brings over ten years of experience in advertising technology, media planning, and sales. He most recently served as director of go-to-market EMEA and APAC at Ogury Germany, where he developed and implemented go-to-market strategies for product launch and market expansion. Prior to that, he worked as agency sales director at Sizmek Germany and activation & client service at OMD Düsseldorf.

“Building and growing innovative products for global markets is my passion,” says Nasir Khawaja, vice president DACH. “I’m delighted to join the Silverpush team in Germany to drive our next growth phase in the DACH region. The combination of entrepreneurial spirit, team strength, and innovative technology at Silverpush convinced me to be part of this journey.”

Driven by strong demand for contextual advertising solutions and thanks to successful acquisitions of major brands like BAYER AG, DWS-Investment, and Campari Group, the DACH market has rapidly developed into a strategic cornerstone for Silverpush in Europe.

With extensive experience in digital marketing and advertising technology, Khawaja will report directly to Paul Briggs, senior vice president Europe at Silverpush.

Paul Briggs, SVP Europe, emphasises the strategic importance of the region: “The DACH market has quickly become the second-largest market for Silverpush in Europe, thanks to the team’s excellent groundwork and the trust our clients place in us. With Nasir, we are bringing an experienced industry expert onto the team to drive our development forward.”

“The first year for Silverpush in the DACH region was intense, exciting, and exceptionally successful,” adds Donovan Anwander, sales director DACH. “We’ve demonstrated that contextual intelligence for video advertising has enormous potential.”

Smart technology, positive market feedback

At the centre of Silverpush’s successful market entry is Mirrors AI, the contextual intelligence engine that analyses metadata content across video and images to deliver relevant ads without depending on first-party data.

The fast-paced growth in the German market is also reflected in partnerships with established media agencies, as Daniela Schindler, director client service at Mindshare (WPP), confirms: “In close collaboration with our clients, we continuously evaluate innovative approaches from new marketing partners like Silverpush. Particularly in contexts like walled gardens such as YouTube, this proves valuable, as external solutions complement existing capabilities and open up new potential for campaign optimisation.”

Silverpush, the contextual intelligence company, today (20th August, 2025) has announced new AI-powered enhancements to the company’s proprietary contextual intelligence platform, Mirrors, allowing brands and advertisers to maximise performance and streamline, automate, and optimise contextual campaigns across YouTube, social, and programmatic.

These enhancements introduce a multi-agent AI framework in which multiple AI agents work together like a team, with each agent focused on a key part of the campaign journey. Here’s how the new system works:

• One AI agent manages automated campaign setup, turning a brand’s brief into a contextual media plan ready to activate across platforms like YouTube, CTV, TikTok, Meta, and programmatic channels.
• A second agent ensures ads are delivered in brand-safe and contextually relevant environments.
• A third agent actively optimises campaigns in real time, adjusting targeting and placements to improve metrics such as engagement, viewability, and conversions.
• A fourth continuously analyzes performance data to generate deeper insights and actionable recommendations.

These agents don’t operate in silos: the agents communicate and learn from one another. For example, if the system identifies that a certain contextual signal (such as a specific podcast, influencer, tutorial, or video category) is performing exceptionally well, the AI agents will automatically shift more investment to the winning context across all active platforms.

This innovation is founded on Silverpush’s client-first AI philosophy, which focuses not only on improving internal efficiency, but about delivering real, measurable impact for advertisers.

“This is more than an upgrade, it’s a shift in how advertising will be run in the future,” said Hitesh Chawla, chief executive officer at Silverpush. “By having multiple AI agents work in sync, we’re building campaigns that can improve on their own, while delivering smarter insights & better outcomes for our clients.”

With the new upgrade, advertisers benefit from:

• Multi-platform campaign automation
• Continuous performance optimisation
• Deeper context-level insights for smarter decisions

This multi-agent framework marks a major step toward intelligent, outcome-driven advertising, where AI doesn’t just support the process but actively leads it.

Silverpush, the contextual intelligence company, today (16th June, 2025) announced the company’s expansion across Europe with the business now operating in seven key markets: the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Italy.

Since opening the Silverpush London headquarters in 2023, Silverpush has experienced rapid growth across agencies and brands looking to drive better results with AI-powered YouTube advertising, seeing revenue increase more than 200% year-over-year revenue increase in the region and a rapidly growing client base.

Silverpush’s proprietary Mirrors AI technology has revolutionised video advertising by enabling advertisers to deliver highly relevant ads based on influencers, emotions, sentiment, brand mentions, niche audiences, specific metadata, and more. This contextual precision ensures every ad placement maximises impact and relevance, moving beyond traditional targeting.

“Silverpush has been a fantastic partner for us across key EMEA clients over the past year and a half. They have helped us scale up our contextual offering across video and YouTube and, more importantly, showcase business outcomes for our clients through mixed media modelling and brand measurement,” says Catherine Chappell, managing partner at Mediahub Worldwide. “The technology is unique, and their attitude to collaboration continues to help exceed our clients’ expectations.”

In 2025, Silverpush continues to innovate with a new line of advertising solutions powered by the company’s proprietary contextual intelligence technology.

Today, the company offers:

• AI-powered contextual targeting for YouTube, online video, and social media
• Dynamic ad creative and programmatic technology
• Pre-bid CTV segments for brand safety and relevance
• Omnichannel contextual insights dashboard

“Our rapid growth across Europe is a testament to the Silverpush product and our best-in-class team,” says Paul Briggs. “Global brands and agencies have turned to us to make YouTube advertising more effective and efficient. We’re thrilled to bring our market-leading technology to more markets across Europe.”

Silverpush, the contextual intelligence company, today (11th June, 2025) announced the release of Silverpush Mirrors for TikTok, an AI-powered contextual intelligence solution that allows brands to plan, activate, and optimise brand-safe TikTok campaigns at scale.

Powered by the company’s award-winning contextual intelligence engine, Silverpush Mirrors for TikTok brings TikTok ad performance to a new level by analysing the video-level environment of each video, processing and categorising ad groups based on contextual signals, and delivering campaigns to the best possible audience at the best possible moment.

With custom brand safety filters that go beyond standard TikTok filters, brands have more flexibility and control when it comes to ensuring every ad is aligned with brand-safe, relevant content, including:

• 21 advanced brand safety filters
• Creator and video exclusion lists
• Up to 10,000 negative keywords blocked
• Insight-backed safety from historic campaign data

“Silverpush is thrilled to bring our contextual intelligence technology to TikTok to help brands and agencies activate and automate TikTok ad campaigns based on contextual signals,” says Hitesh Chawla, CEO at Silverpush. “By adding a layer of contextual intelligence to TikTok campaigns, brands can ensure more relevance and better performance across the funnel.”

Silverpush Mirrors for TikTok is managed through Silverpush Campaign Manager, the contextual intelligence platform that analyses and activates context across channels and devices. With an end-to-end analytics dashboard, advertisers can measure context-level insights to understand which tactics are performing best and optimise campaigns based on AI-powered recommendations. These insights can be compared within the platform to YouTube and CTV campaigns, offering an intuitive and straightforward way to access performance and contextual insights across channels.

“We’ve heard from many clients that campaign set-up is the most time-consuming day-to-day task when running multiple campaigns across different channels,” says Jeff Rich, SVP, Americas. “By streamlining TikTok campaigns through Silverpush Campaign Manager, brands and agencies can automate bidding strategies and ad tactics, eliminating the time it takes to go-to-market and ensuring that every video ad is delivered with hyper-relevant context.”