The 2025 IAB Connected Commerce Summit brought together leaders across the industry to focus on and discuss how commerce media can evolve, innovate, and mature.
While subsequent events have focused on growth, this year’s event honed in on scale and maturity—to lay the groundwork for a sustainable, future-proofed industry. Why? Because commerce media is no longer a side hustle—it is reshaping how all businesses think about their customer relationships and go-to-market strategies. In fact, commerce media is becoming central to how businesses grow. The IAB Connected Commerce Summit focused on structure, trust, and leadership as key tenants for building the foundation. From the conversations and discussions, five central themes emerged:
Commerce Media Extends Beyond Retail
Once confined to retail, commerce media now spans financial services, B2B, travel, and other sectors. Brands are partnering with the likes of Kinective Media by United Airlines, Intuit’s SMB Labs, and Chase Media Solutions to leverage rich, first-party data to reach consumers across their journeys in measurable, integrated ways.
Retail Media Networks Continue To Grow
Retailers such as Best Buy showed how large datasets, consumer trust, and precise targeting drive results for brands. We also heard from RMNs like Costco on how they are approaching sustainable growth while focusing on the member experience. Retail media networks continue to innovate despite heavy competition.
Digital and Physical Channels Converge
In-store media—from smart carts to connected shelves—are becoming part of omnichannel campaigns. Brands and retailers are blending online and offline channels to influence every stage of the purchase journey.
Data Collaboration and Measurement Still Matter
Cross-company data sharing, clean rooms, and joint attribution frameworks enable more accurate measurement and smarter investment. We also debated the difficulty and readiness of using incrementality as a measurement approach. The learnings? While frameworks are improving and showing impact, the industry has to mature in order to fully leverage incrementality.
AI Will Increasingly Shape the Shopping Experience
Personalized recommendations and conversational commerce are changing how consumers shop. New, never-before-seen research from IAB showed that consumers are using generative AI assistants across their shopping journeys. The most interesting takeaway: AI in shopping sparks further research and consumers rely on brand sites, third party reviews, and other sources to validate what AI is telling them—tempering fears that retailers will be disintermediated from the shopping journey. Marketers must understand these interactions to create relevant, measurable experiences.
