People Inc.’s Jonathan Roberts on the untapped power of content

Publishers have always understood the value of content, but in an ad ecosystem built on cookies and IDs, that value has often been sidelined. In this episode of The Big Impression, Jonathan Roberts, chief innovation officer at People Inc. — the largest U.S. publisher, formerly known as Dotdash Meredith) — explains how his team is rethinking contextual advertising with D/Cipher, an AI platform designed to capture real-time intent.

For Roberts, yesterday’s signals aren’t good enough. “Using content as a real-time signal is a hundred percent addressable,” he says. By focusing on what people are reading in the moment, D/Cipher promises sharper predictions and more relevant outcomes.

The conversation also expands to the bigger question of where content sits in the AI economy. As Roberts notes, “If AI is powered by chips, power and content … content is probably the most undervalued at the moment. But if reasoning is a commodity, then content is king.”

The discussion throws light on how contextual advertising is being reinvented and why the way content is valued today could shape the internet of tomorrow. And yes, Roberts also happens to be the official cartographer for George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones. We explore what mapmaking can teach us about the open internet — because in ad tech, like in Westeros, you win … or you get retargeted.