Signal & Noise

About Signal & Noise

Join advertising industry veterans Brett House and Rio Longacre as they share regular updates and analysis on the changing world of data, tech, and AI. You’ll hear real talk from thought leaders across industries about the latest trends having the biggest impact on our jobs… and lives. Signal & Noise means no BS - only straight talk and first-hand insights from leading operators, creators, and founders.

Publisher

Signal and Noise

Category

news

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

19 May 2025

Latest episode

22 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

90 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   22 Oct 2026

   The Future of the Connected Customer Stack | Zack Wenthe & Adrian Bolosan | Signal & Noise LIVE at Advertising Week 2026

   What happens to the enterprise marketing stack when AI becomes more than another feature—and starts changing how data, technology, people, and decisions actually work together? Recorded live at Advertising Week 2026 in New York City at MCM Creative Studios, Rio Longacre and Brett House sit down with two longtime friends of the show and two of the smartest voices in data and marketing technology: Zack Wenthe, Director of Product Marketing & Customer Data Evangelist at Tealium, and Adrian Bolosan, Head of ISV GTM, AMER Enterprise & Emerging at Databricks. This conversation goes well beyond the usual AI talking points. It’s a wide-ranging discussion about how enterprises are actually adapting their MarTech and AdTech stacks for an AI-driven world—and what’s real versus the latest industry hype. The conversation starts with one of the industry’s favorite words: composability. Has the composable stack actually won? Or has it become another catch-all marketing term? Zack and Adrian explore why enterprises are moving applications closer to their data, the growing role of federated architectures, and why flexibility increasingly matters more than buying another monolithic platform. From there, the discussion gets into the foundation underneath every AI strategy: data. AI is only as useful as the signals feeding it. The group discusses data collection, tag management, governance, identity resolution, consent, context, and why enterprises need to understand what data they have before trying to unleash agents on top of it. They also tackle one of the biggest unresolved questions in marketing technology: Where should decisioning live? In the data cloud? The CDP? The CRM? Or directly inside the activation channel? The answer may increasingly depend on the moment—combining historical intelligence from platforms like Databricks with real-time signals captured at the edge. The conversation then turns to how AI is changing the marketing organization itself. The traditional marketing technologist is evolving into the marketing engineer—someone who can connect systems, data, agents, models, and workflows while understanding the business problem being solved. At the same time, marketers are gaining the ability to interrogate enterprise data through natural language instead of waiting on analysts, engineers, or data science teams. Rio, Brett, Zack, and Adrian also dig into: The resurgence of tag management in an agentic world Why context may matter more than perfect one-to-one personalization Identity resolution and the changing economics of third-party identity “Perishable moments” and the need for real-time customer decisioning How AI could break down data and organizational silos The rise of disposable, use-case-specific applications Whether the predicted “SaaSpocalypse” is actually happening How AI is changing consulting, systems integration, and enterprise technology buying Why the companies that win with AI will combine strong data foundations with people who know how to turn technology into business outcomes For anyone working in MarTech, AdTech, customer data, enterprise AI, cloud data platforms, advertising, or digital transformation, this is an outstanding conversation about where the enterprise tech stack is headed. A huge thank-you to Tealium, one of the sponsors that helped make our Advertising Week possible and an ongoing sponsor of Signal & Noise. And a special thanks to MCM Creative Studios for hosting Signal & Noise LIVE during Advertising Week 2026. Hosted by: Rio Longacre & Brett House Guests: Zack Wenthe, Tealium | Adrian Bolosan, Databricks Recorded live: Advertising Week 2026 | New York City #ArtificialIntelligence #EnterpriseAI #MarTech #AdTech #CustomerData #CDP #DataCloud #MarketingTechnology #AIinMarketing #AgenticAI #ComposableArchitecture #DataStrategy #DigitalTransformation #MarketingEngineering #CustomerExperience #Databricks #Tealium #AdvertisingWeek #AdvertisingWeek2026 #SignalAndNoise

2. 

   20 Oct 2026

   AI Intelligence and Competitive Advantage | Matt Krepsik & Vas Bakopoulos | Signal & Noise LIVE at Advertising Week 2026

   What happens when everyone has access to the same AI? In this special live episode of Signal & Noise, recorded in front of an audience at MCM Creative Studios during Advertising Week New York, Brett House and Rio Longacre sit down with Matt Krepsik, CEO of MediaRadar, and Vas Bakopoulos, SVP and Head of Industry Research at MMA Global, for a fast-moving conversation about AI intelligence, marketing, creativity, and competitive advantage. The discussion starts with new research from MediaRadar examining how advertising and media professionals are actually using AI. Among 500 industry professionals surveyed in July 2026, 87% said they actively use AI in advertising and media decisions, while 92% reported changes to products, services, or pricing as AI reshapes the industry. But widespread adoption raises a much bigger question: If everyone has the same tools, where does real differentiation come from? Matt and Vas dig into the tension between AI adoption and AI trust: data provenance, outdated information, hallucinations, proprietary data, governance, and why brands need to think carefully about the intelligence and data sitting underneath their models. The conversation explores why the competitive advantage may increasingly live not in the model itself, but in the data, memory, skills, guardrails, workflows, and proprietary knowledge surrounding it. From there, the panel goes deep on what AI means for the future of advertising: agency operating models, in-housing, the ad-tech supply chain, creative intelligence, and the opportunity to finally reconnect planning, creative, activation, and measurement. And then comes one of the biggest ideas of the conversation: when everyone has the same box of AI-powered crayons, the advantage shifts back to the painter. Matt and Vas make the case that the future of marketing will place an even greater premium on taste, craft, judgment, perspective, and distinctive ideas. AI can accelerate production, analyze enormous numbers of permutations, and expose new opportunities—but it still takes people to decide what is worth creating in the first place. It’s thoughtful, provocative, occasionally irreverent, and a lot of fun—exactly what a live Signal & Noise conversation should be. A huge thank you to MCM Creative Studios for giving us an incredible home for the evening, and especially to MediaRadar, the main sponsor of our Advertising Week activation, for helping make this special live event possible. This was also a milestone for Signal & Noise: our first episode recorded in front of a live studio audience. If you work in advertising, media, marketing, AI, data, or creative, this is one you’ll want to hear. Topics include: • AI adoption in advertising • AI trust and data provenance • Proprietary data • Brand data sovereignty • AI governance • agency transformation • In-housing • Creative intelligence • Taste and craft • Human creativity • Advertising measurement • Agentic AI • The future of marketing #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #AdvertisingWeek #Advertising #Marketing #AdTech #MarTech #MediaRadar #MMAGlobal #CreativeAI #AgenticAI #MarketingAI #SignalAndNoise

3. 

   19 Oct 2026

   Building the Agency Operating System | Adam Woods & Amy Crowther | Signal & Noise LIVE at Advertising Week 2026

   If AI can execute in seconds what agencies once billed for in hours, what should clients pay for next? Filmed live at Advertising Week 2026 at MCM Studios in New York City, this episode of Signal & Noise features Adam Woods, Global Chief Product Officer, and Amy Crowther, CEO, Americas, at Incubeta. They join hosts Rio Longacre and Brett House for a candid conversation about the future of agencies, the economics of AI, and what it takes to connect technology, talent, and data around better business outcomes. Building an agency operating system means more than assembling a collection of tools. Adam and Amy discuss how agencies can bring creative, media, measurement, and client-owned intelligence into a more connected way of working—and why changing how people work is just as important as changing the technology. From creative production and data infrastructure to client relationships and pricing, this conversation gets into the practical decisions behind agency transformation. In this episode: • Beyond billable hours: How AI challenges staffing-based fees and traditional service models, and why the real opportunity is in how agencies reinvest efficiency gains. • Connecting creative and media: Why clients still struggle with the gap between creative ideas and media execution, and how shared performance data can give teams a stronger starting point. • Creative intelligence in practice: How understanding which assets work—and why—can inform production, testing, and optimization, rather than leaving creative teams waiting for feedback. • Client-owned data and intelligence: Why brands should build on their own knowledge, how fragmented tools create disconnected data, and what agencies can do to help clients retain control. • Measuring business impact: Moving beyond click-through rates, cheap impressions, and platform-reported success to questions about profitable growth, customer acquisition costs, and incremental contribution. • Bringing brand and performance together: Why short-term results need to be understood alongside long-term brand investment, and how agencies can help CMOs make a stronger case to CFOs. • Making transformation practical: Why the starting point may be as simple as getting a brand’s creative assets consistent, proving value, and building momentum from there. • Rethinking the value exchange: When to challenge an RFP, why trust matters, and how outcome-based pricing can work when costs, incentives, and shared goals are realistically aligned. Adam brings a product and technology perspective to building connected capabilities. Amy grounds the discussion in the realities of leading teams, educating clients, and turning those capabilities into work that makes a difference. Together, they make the case for an agency relationship built around informed decisions, shared accountability, and measurable value. AI expands what is possible; the harder work is deciding what to build, how to deploy it, and which problems are worth solving. Watch or listen, then tell us: What should the agency of the future be accountable for—and how should clients pay for it? Subscribe to Signal & Noise on YouTube or follow on Spotify for more conversations about data, technology, AI, and the people shaping advertising. #SignalAndNoise #AdvertisingWeek2026 #AdWeek2026 #Incubeta #FutureOfAgencies #AgencyTransformation #CreativeIntelligence #AgenticAI #MarketingEffectiveness

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

2 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

4 ratings

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Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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