AI Doesn't Need More Data—It Needs Better Guardrails: Ed Davis, OpenAP

Artificial intelligence is now embedding itself into the fabric of the advertising industry, ushering in a new era of speed: speed to market, speed of analysis, an acceleration of execution that on its face seems only positive. But without control, Ed Davis says, that speed might carry businesses into risky territory.

In our newest videos series AI and Outcomes, Davis, President of Product & Technology at OpenAP, argues that AI isn't limited by a lack of data—it's limited by a lack of structure. The key to winning in the AI age is for companies to organize their data, establish the right guardrails and create systems that allow AI to make decisions responsibly, transparently and efficiently.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

TVREV: Everyone is excited about AI, but what foundational capabilities need to exist before agentic advertising becomes reality?

Ed Davis, President, Product & Technology, OpenAP: The first requirement is having your data organized in a way that AI can actually use responsibly.

A lot of companies have valuable information sitting in private databases or internal systems, but simply exposing all of that data to an AI model isn't the answer. People understandably want confidence that proprietary information remains protected.

The better approach is to structure data in privacy-safe ways and create clear permissions around what AI can access. Those guardrails allow organizations to benefit from automation while maintaining control over how their data is used and how decisions are made.

TVREV: You’ve announced several AI initiatives this week. How are you approaching agentic advertising?

Ed Davis: We're focused on building tools rather than trying to build one giant AI agent.

Buyers and sellers are going to use different AI systems, but they'll all need access to trusted data and common services. Our role is to provide those building blocks—tools that allow AI agents to create audiences, analyze campaign performance, optimize media plans and activate campaigns using data that advertisers already trust.

Rather than replacing the ecosystem, we're enabling it. We see OpenAP as the infrastructure layer that helps AI agents make better decisions.

TVREV: “Outcomes” are everywhere. Where does OpenAP fit into that conversation?

Ed Davis: One of the biggest challenges is making outcome data usable across the ecosystem. Today, advertisers often have different ways of collecting conversion data, and publishers have different ways of consuming it. That creates unnecessary friction.

Our philosophy is simple: let advertisers send us their conversion data once, in whatever format they're already using, and we'll normalize it so it can be shared with publishers and platforms in the way they need it.

Instead of asking the industry to adopt yet another standard, we're trying to reduce complexity by making the existing ecosystem work together more effectively.

TVREV: AI can automate many parts of advertising. What do you think still requires human judgment?

Ed Davis: Strategy. Technology is incredibly good at helping people execute faster. But execution isn't the same as vision.

The best marketers will continue using intuition, creativity, and a willingness to take calculated risks. AI can accelerate the process, but it shouldn't replace the thinking behind it.

Some of advertising's biggest ideas don't emerge from pattern recognition. They come from people willing to challenge assumptions and try something unexpected. That's not something I see AI replacing anytime soon.

TVREV: Finish this sentence: The future of advertising belongs to those who...

Ed Davis: "...understand that technology and human judgment aren't competing forces—they're complementary."

The companies that win won't automate everything. They'll combine AI with experience, intuition and strong decision-making to create better outcomes than either humans or machines could achieve independently.