IAB State of Data 2026 Report Reveals Buy-Side Believes AI-Driven Improvements in Advanced Measurement Could Help Unlock $32B in 1-2 Years
NEW YORK, Feb. 2, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Today, at the 2026 IAB Annual Leadership Meeting (ALM), CEO David Cohen announced Project Eidos, a coordinated, industry-wide effort to fundamentally modernize advertising and marketing measurement.
“While advanced measurement is widely used across the industry, it’s still falling short of its core promise. The time for a single-channel fix or a one-off framework has passed,” said David Cohen, CEO, IAB. “It’s time to address the foundational issues that have quietly undermined measurement for years.”
Eidos takes its name from the Greek verb “to see,” reflecting the initiative’s goal of bringing clarity, consistency, and confidence to modern media measurement.
Project Eidos is a holistic, 360-degree multi-year measurement project, bringing together industry leaders from every IAB Center of Excellence, board members from Commerce, Experience, Measurement, Media, and beyond.
Measurement Is More Advanced Than Ever — Yet Confidence in Results Is Eroding
The urgent need for Project Eidos is underscored by the just-released IAB State of Data 2026: The AI-Powered Measurement Transformation report based on a survey of over 400 senior decision-makers at brands and agencies with expertise in planning or analytics, conducted in partnership with BWG Global.
To better understand the current state of AI adoption in advanced measurement, the IAB State of Data 2026 report examined how AI is being applied today, what value it’s delivering, and what measurable improvements it can realistically drive over the next 1-2 years.
The findings reveal critical insights into adoption trends, practical use cases, and the challenges organizations face when integrating AI into measurement processes:
- While advanced measurement is broadly adopted on the buy-side, 60-75% of users say it falls short on rigor, timeliness, trust, and efficiency. None believe all paid channels are well represented today in marketing mix models (MMMs).
- The buy-side believes AI can materially improve advanced measurement within 1-2 years: improvements could help unlock $26.3B in media investment and $6.2B in productivity value.
- About half report scaling AI within their current advanced measurement frameworks; among those not yet scaling 70%+ expect to do so within 1-2 years.
- Roughly half of the buy-side cite significant or critical concerns related to legal and security risks, accuracy, and data quality within 1-2 years, yet fewer than 40% report having or planning to put solutions in place to mitigate these challenges.
- There’s a shift toward contractual accountability for AI. AI-related clauses currently exist in ~40% of brand-agency and partner contracts and are expected to double within 1-2 years.
“One of the most important things the report reveals is AI’s potential for improving measurement. But there are major concerns related to legal and security risks, accuracy, and data quality. We need to tackle problems that are systemic and foundational,” added Angelina Eng, VP, Measurement Center, IAB. “Past workarounds and band-aid approaches have allowed the underlying issues to become worse over time.”
Project Eidos: a Full, Industry-Wide Effort
Working collectively with industry leaders, Project Eidos will replace today’s patchwork of channel-by-channel measurement with an interoperable approach based on shared constructs and consistent language that deliver scalable, privacy-resilient measurement across all channels, including clear standards for Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM). It is meant to work in the here and now and be sturdy enough to withstand the future.
“There’s no single methodology that can answer every measurement question; different approaches exist in order to answer different business questions,” said Maggie Zak, EVP, Analytics & Engineering, Havas Media Network, NA. “As media has become more complex, the lack of alignment across those approaches has become a real constraint, leaving agencies to reconcile differences instead of driving growth. Project Eidos addresses this at the foundation, creating shared constructs that allow measurement approaches to work together in a more flexible and scalable way.”
Specifically, Project Eidos will focus on:
- Unifying & Harmonizing Measurement — creating shared structures, classifications, and data flows that allow the ecosystem to speak the same measurement language and build interoperable systems.
- Cross-Channel Outcomes, Attribution & Incrementality — developing a unified but flexible approach that connects exposure to outcomes and enables consistent attribution and incrementality measurement across channels.
- Modernizing MMM — establishing a modern, comparable approach to MMM built on standardized, privacy-ready inputs, enabling consistent ROI signals, actionable budget guidance, and cross-channel comparisons across diverse channels, strategies, and tactics.
“To create great consumer advertising experiences that deliver business outcomes and drive sustainable growth, we must deliver interoperability, transparency, and accountability. IAB’s Project Eidos is the kind of coordinated industry effort needed to rebuild confidence in how advertising performance is measured,” added Shenan Reed, Global Chief Media Officer, General Motors.
Project Eidos Board Members and Participating Companies
In January 2026, IAB convened its new Measurement Advisory Committee, bringing together senior experts across brands, agencies, publishers, platforms, and measurement companies. Members gain early influence over emerging measurement standards, development of new taxonomies and specifications, and direct collaboration with leaders shaping how the ecosystem rebuilds measurement for the decade ahead.
Participating Companies Include:
3 Day Blinds
Albertsons Media Collective
Amazon Ads
DG Media Network
Digitas
DoubleVerify
Google
GSTV
Harmelin Media
Havas Media Network
Horizon Media
Integral Ad Science
Marketing Architects
Meta
National Football League
Outfront Media
Ovative Group
Paramount
Pinterest
Publicis Media
Roblox Media
RPA
Quigley Simpson
SiriusXM Media
SMG
Spectrum Reach
The Trade Desk
TikTok
Tinuiti
Unilever
USIM
WPP Media
To learn more about Project Eidos, visit iab.com/project-eidos
Click here for more details on the “IAB State of Data 2026: The AI-Powered Measurement Transformation: Implications for Attribution, Incrementality, and MMM” report.
About IAB
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) empowers the media and marketing industries to thrive in the digital economy. Its membership comprises more than 700 leading media companies, brands, agencies, and the technology firms responsible for selling, delivering, and optimizing digital ad marketing campaigns. The trade group fields critical research on interactive advertising, while also educating brands, agencies, and the wider business community on the importance of digital marketing. In affiliation with the IAB Tech Lab, IAB develops technical standards and solutions. IAB is committed to professional development and elevating the knowledge, skills, expertise, and collaboration of the workforce across the industry. Through the work of its public policy office in Washington, D.C., the trade association advocates for its members and promotes the value of the interactive advertising industry to legislators and policymakers. Founded in 1996, IAB is headquartered in New York City.
About BWG Global
BWG Global has set the industry standard as the premier provider of industry intelligence to more than 100,000 professionals across leading hedge funds, mutual funds, long-only investment firms, family offices and corporations. Supported by a robust compliance structure and anchored in proven research methodology, BWG Global identifies key market inflections and uncovers unique investable ideas. The firm offers products and services through a license subscription to its digital research library and live events, including Primary Intelligence Virtual Forums, Forum Synopses, Channel Intelligence Research Reports, Market Insight Survey Reports and Custom Research.
BWG Global pioneered an investigative, interview-based methodology providing channel research to the institutional investment community in the 1990s and then expanded its footprint internationally to conduct live, in-depth interviews in more than 20 countries in North and South America, Europe and Asia. In 2013, the company fundamentally changed how investment managers and corporations’ access real-time information through live forum events. BWG Global provides much-needed transparency by creating access to real-time information and data on sector, company and technology trends.
SOURCE Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB)