Aperiam Insights Q1 2025: The Future of Connected TV (CTV)

At Aperiam, we consistently explore the forefront of innovation through conversations with industry leaders. In this edition of Aperiam Insights, we've asked experts and influencers in Connected TV (CTV) for their perspectives on emerging trends, AI impacts, budget challenges, and industry improvements.

1. Unappreciated Emerging Trends in CTV

CTV leaders highlighted multiple under-appreciated trends set to significantly impact the industry in the next two years.

Miles Fisher, Sr. Director Strategic Advertising Partnerships, Roku

"Over the past year, one of the most significant shifts has been the steady growth in the programmatic space, with three-quarters of CTV transactions conducted programmatically in 2024... Investment will shift to partners that have both scale and identity, which Roku has as both an OS and publisher."

Jason Fairchild, CEO, tvScientific

"Performance TV will have a huge impact on the TV ecosystem... more demand liquidity will create higher CPMs. This class of advertiser will demand better access to data... Platforms will need to offer transparency and sophisticated buying algos to achieve performance KPIs."

James Borow, VP Product and Engineering, Universal Ads a part of Comcast

"The positive impact that the shift to incrementality testing will have on the category as a whole."

Adam Epstein, CEO, Gigi

"The human aspect of budgets being silo'd between brand and performance... Once that does happen, the shift to CTV will come very fast."

Other observations include luxury brands discovering the value in targeted CTV strategies, audience expansion, and the robust growth of ad-supported CTV channels.

2. AI's Impact on CTV

Respondents unanimously agreed that AI will dramatically reshape CTV—affecting measurement, creative, buying, and automation. Basically, no part of CTV will go unchanged.

Senior Leader from a Luxury Advertiser

"Hopefully frequency capping and audience deduplication."

James Borow, VP Product and Engineering, Universal Ads a part of Comcast

"The creative barrier will continue to be reduced dramatically. AI lets anyone make high-quality creative."

Yan Liu, CEO, TVision

"AI is touching and changing every aspect of CTV... We are doing a proof of concept right now that uses our second-by-second attention data to generate high-attention creative."

Adam Epstein, Gigi

"AI is touching and changing every aspect of CTV... (repeating Liu’s point) ...uses second-by-second attention data to generate high-attention creative."

Leader from large CPG company

"Measurement will support de-duplication buying / while ideally everything will be able to be bought in a programmatic way where you can do frequency capping."

Miles Fisher, Roku

"AI is also mitigating former big overhead costs... Brands can now use cost-efficient AI-generated CTV assets to deploy in the market with the likes of Roku."

3. Biggest Challenges for Budget Allocation

Industry experts outlined key hurdles for brands and agencies allocating budgets to CTV:

Miles Fisher, Roku

"Our ultimate ambition is to turn the problem of fragmented attention into a solution for focused intention..."

Jason Fairchild, tvScientific

"Lack of education around the ability to buy TV and measure against business outcomes vs reach and frequency."

Yan Liu, TVision

"The biggest challenges for brands and agencies today are measurement fragmentation and the complexity around evaluating campaign performance."

James Borow, VP Product and Engineering, Universal Ads a part of Comcast

"As Eric Seufert says, 'the medium is the measurement.' Many agencies are still applying linear TV strategies to a fundamentally digital medium."

Leader from large CPG company

"Three main things: audience size, measurement, & competitive pricing."

Further points included addressing scale issues, better audience targeting, and validation for niche markets like luxury and high-net-worth individuals.

4. Desired Improvements in Buying and Selling CTV

CTV professionals suggested changes to improve the ecosystem:

Yan Liu, TVision

"Transparency. It should be easier for advertisers to qualify and value opportunities across CTV apps..."

Miles Fisher, Roku

"Advertisers have diverse goals... We’re elevating both our UI content and advertising offerings—that's all unique to us... and represents a massive opportunity ahead."

Adam Epstein, Gigi

"I'd personally like to see top publishers become more accessible to performance-based budgets."

Jason Fairchild, tvScientific

"Introduce outcome KPIs for all buyers. When you optimize for business results, everything else follows."

Additional suggestions included lowering supply chain fees and enabling more confident, targeted buying—especially for luxury segments.

Conclusion: Transforming CTV Is Now

The Aperiam take: CTV is on the cusp of massive changes.

It starts with shifting how ad buying teams operate—getting comfortable, allocating budgets, and knowing the best use cases. Broader shifts will include:

  • Performance marketing adoption through AI

  • Changes to measurement and creative development

  • Mature platforms offering end-to-end capabilities

  • Industry-wide metric standardization to support smarter budget allocation

We're watching the CTV stack evolve with great interest—from outcome-focused buying platforms to creative automation to measurement innovations. The next two years are likely to be transformative.

Special thanks to those who contributed to this edition of Aperiam Insights.

Interested in future editions? Reach out to the Aperiam team.