AI and the human touch dominate MADFest 2025

So, another MADFest has been and gone. And, once again, the organizers pulled it off in style – with panels, presentations, and fireside chats. Not to mention a unique roll call of headline speakers from adtech and entertainment, including Ogilvy’s Rory Sutherland, Nescafe’s Jane Aldridge, Disney’s Angela Affinita, and comedians Jimmy Carr and Richard Ayoade. One thing is for sure: the organizers more than did justice to the event’s overarching theme of ‘Be Less Boring’.

For Limelight, this was our first time partnering with the event, as we co-hosted a Cabana with our PR company, the Digital Voice, and three of their other clients, and there was a real buzz about the booth, as all five companies welcomed clients and prospects to chew the adtech fat.

In between meetings, our team of 10 made the most of the opportunity to catch up on the sessions running across the site. Here are the key themes from MADFest 2025 as we saw and heard them.

AI is everywhere, but needs the human touch

AI is now table stakes in adtech. It is increasingly integral to measurement, optimization, targeting, creative production, automation, and attribution. But while there’s no doubt that AI boosts productivity and optimization, it cannot overshadow human intuition. AI needs human guidance if we are to make the most of its undoubted capabilities.

In short – and this aligns perfectly with Limelight’s own mantra of ‘technology with a heartbeat’ – AI is only as good as the people that manage it and guide it. People are still the driving force behind good ideas, and AI tools and platforms should be deployed to help them apply their real intelligence, not replace it.

Even in a business as technologically sophisticated as programmatic advertising, there are things that, for example, an ad network can achieve through personal relationships and human guidance that AI simply can’t replicate. Indeed, as one of the speakers said in a session I attended: “The people are what makes this industry. Events like this wouldn’t happen without other people. There’s a lot of talk at the moment about AI taking all our jobs, but quite frankly, that’s not possible. The things we do, the conversations we have, the things we create, are all down to the amazing people in this industry.” Hear hear.

This was also a key theme that emerged from a panel session I took part in alongside Lauren Barnett, head of UK sales at Samsung Ads, and Alice Anson, director of digital (retail) media at Nectar360. All the panelists agreed that the potential for AI is immense: not just in adtech, but in every part of life. Talking about your health issues to an AI-powered avatar clinician, for example, will just become routine. But the panel was in agreement, too, that AI will only reach its full potential when it is guided by human intuition. Harness the tech, for sure, but make sure you retain the human element.

Nothing is off-limits at MADFest

There were, of course, many other themes up for discussion. Sessions focused on responsible media, carbon-aware campaigns, and eco-products such as organic bouquets and sustainable dairy products, reflected the growing ethical expectations placed on brands and adtech companies. These sessions were a welcome reminder that sustainability is a key consideration for brands, even if AI hogs the headlines. These sessions were also another reminder, given AI’s significant environmental footprint, that we should use it selectively and sensitively, and do all we can to reduce its environmental impact.

I was also pleased to see attention taking center stage, with sessions from companies like Dragonfly AI and Lumen Research, who are focused on providing attention data, including eye tracking and engagement heatmaps, spotlighting attention as a deterministic way of assessing the impact of advertising campaigns.

Elsewhere, we heard about fraud, brand safety, retail media, Connected TV, influencer marketing, transparency, and everything in between, which is the beauty of MADFest. It takes a village to achieve anything in life, and for three glorious days, The Truman Brewery becomes an adtech village, where nothing is off-limits, everyone has the right to express their opinion, and we all come out the other side better informed and better prepared for the weeks and months ahead.

Also published in: The Drum