🎉 Today, I'm excited to share IAB's new AI-Era Attribution Blueprint! This buil
By Carolineg · November 13, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
🎉 Today, I'm excited to share IAB's new AI-Era Attribution Blueprint! This builds on the work we did on Measuring Visibility in the AI Era which looked at what good third party measurement looks like for brands and publishers appearing in LLMs like ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot. And as an added bonus, it happens to be launching on my birthday. ⭐️
AI is changing how consumers discover products, make decisions, and complete purchases. But there's a BIG problem: our attribution systems aren't keeping up and well, attribution was already messy. 👀
Here's an example. An AI assistant recommends a product. Three days later, the shopper Googles the brand and makes a purchase. The dashboard credits search. But what actually influenced the purchase? That's the challenge our expert cross-industry working group set out to tackle.
Before we can assign credit, we need to agree on what role AI actually played. Our new blueprint introduces a framework built around three questions:
1️⃣ Who or what created the intent?
2️⃣ Who or what made the decision?
3️⃣ Who or what executed the transaction?
From there, we classify AI's role in conversions, define who is eligible to claim credit, and identify what evidence supports those claims, including what we still can't measure.
And well that last part is CRITICAL as this blueprint stands as a CALL TO ACTION on the evidence which is still missing to inform this measurement so we can look to narrow this gap. 🎯
A HUGE thank-you to these industry leaders for sharing their time, expertise, and perspectives:
👏 Breeze Zhao — Sr Director, Measurement Science, Walmart
👏 Christopher Papes — Head of Growth Strategy and Yield Management, WPP Media
👏 Collin Colburn — VP, Commerce & Retail Media, IAB
👏 David Lewis — Head of Partnerships, emberos
👏 Edward (Teddie) Cowell — Global VP, GSO, WPP Media
👏 Floriana Nicastro — Sr Director, Measurement Product, Criteo
👏 Ihab Rizk — Sr Product Manager, Microsoft AI
👏 Imri Marcus — CEO & Co-founder, Brandlight
👏 Jing Feng — Co-founder and COO, Bluefish
👏 Joseph Geritano — Director of Measurement & Agentic Solutions, WPP Media
👏 Justin Inman — Founder & CEO, emberos
👏 Luke MacLean — US Total Search Lead, WPP Media
👏 Priya Bhasin — Principal Product Manager, AI, Microsoft
👏 Ross Bucholc — Associate Media Director, Prudential Financial
👏 Simon Poulton — EVP, Innovation & Growth, Tinuiti
🔗 READ THE BLUEPRINT: https://lnkd.in/exkKCW7M
📺 JOIN OUR WEBINAR tomorrow 11/13 1P - 2P ET with Jing Feng, Ross Bucholc, and yours truly! https://lnkd.in/epbdZyJm
✍️ POST ON Ad Age: https://lnkd.in/enY53dN6
Would love to hear how you are all thinking about attribution and tackling the challenge. As with all work in AI, this is fluid and constantly being updated based on the consistently evolving market.
#AI #Attribution #commerce #marketing