Ad fraud and brand safety will still be issues even when third-party cookies are just a fond memory. The online ad industry Is building support for buyers.json, a proposed standard from IAB Tech Lab that lets ad sellers identify ad buyers and shut down the bad guys. Related: content classification vendor GumGum is enhancing its brand safety ratings to include news site quality scores from NewsGuard.  

Another day, another AI survey.  This one by Morning Consult for IBM offers a good overview of AI adoption and obstacles.  Key findings: adoption stalled during the pandemic but is set to accelerate; 51% of companies have a unified view of their data; and data issues trail only expertise as adoption barriers.  Fun facts: marketers invest less in AI than most other departments and 77% of companies with over 1,000 employees draw on more than 50 systems for AI and analytics inputs.

Here’s a sign of the times: Salesforce has confirmed it is no longer selling its Audience Studio DMP, which started as its $700 million Krux acquisition in 2016.  Current users will be supported but the company expects third-party audiences to be loaded into its CDP in the future, and first-party audiences to be pushed to Facebook, Google, Amazon and other closed ad platforms via Advertising Studio.