IAB Tech Lab unveils technical standards roadmap for digital advertising in 2025
New specifications aim to address live streaming, privacy compliance, and artificial intelligence in digital advertising sector.
IAB Tech Lab announced its 2025 product roadmap on January 29, focusing on technical standards development across digital advertising sectors. The organization plans to deliver 31 new specifications or specification updates throughout 2025, compared to 23 releases in 2024.
According to IAB Tech Lab's CEO Anthony Katsur, the organization completed 79 initiatives in 2024. The 2025 roadmap, developed with input from over 800 member companies, outlines several technical priorities addressing market changes in privacy regulations, data handling, and streaming media.
A significant focus area involves standardizing Connected TV (CTV) advertising formats. The organization aims to establish specifications for emerging ad formats, including picture-in-picture ads, pause screen ads, and shoppable advertisements. This standardization effort, named the "Ad Format Hero" initiative, intends to enable programmatic trading of CTV advertising through consistent technical specifications.
The roadmap addresses increasing privacy regulation compliance requirements. With 14 U.S. state privacy laws enforceable at the start of 2025 and six more expected throughout the year, IAB Tech Lab plans to consolidate privacy signaling through the Global Privacy Platform (GPP) API. This system aims to manage user privacy permissions across multiple global jurisdictions.
Technical specifications for live event streaming represent another key priority. The organization acknowledges specific challenges in delivering advertisements during live streamed events, leading to the development of new Open RTB signaling protocols and implementation guidance for programmatic advertising in these environments.
In response to artificial intelligence developments, IAB Tech Lab is researching new open-source APIs for large language model interactions with publisher content. These specifications aim to implement publisher controls over AI crawler access and establish advertising opportunities within AI environments.
The organization plans to release a Conversion API (CAPI) standard, expanding beyond current walled garden implementations. This specification targets accurate conversion measurement in environments where traditional tracking faces limitations, such as CTV or browser-restricted scenarios.
Educational initiatives form a substantial component of the 2025 plan. The organization will conduct CTV Ad Ops workshops, release a comprehensive programmatic CTV advertising guide, and update privacy technical training. Two classroom-style privacy training sessions are scheduled, one in New York and another in California.
Long-term technical development includes the Ad Creative ID Framework (ACIF) for cross-television measurement, device attestation integration into the Open Measurement SDK for fraud prevention, and commerce media extensions in Open RTB.
The roadmap also addresses taxonomy standardization. A Content Taxonomy 3.0 upgrade aims to improve contextual targeting capabilities, particularly for CTV revenue growth, by reducing friction associated with free text fields and mismatched taxonomies.
For implementation support, IAB Tech Lab plans to develop testing tools for the Global Privacy Platform and new compliance programs for privacy preference signals and Open RTB supply chain integrity. The organization will also implement PAIR protocol certification to verify adherence to privacy principles.
Statistical projections cited in the roadmap indicate significant market growth in specific sectors. According to data referenced from Statista, podcast advertising is expected to reach $5 billion by 2027, leading to the development of specific podcast RTB guidance.
The technical standards body maintains a working group structure for industry participation in standards development. These groups focus on specific technical challenges across digital advertising sectors, including privacy technology implementation, measurement standards, and programmatic trading protocols.
Through these initiatives, IAB Tech Lab aims to address technical challenges in digital advertising while maintaining compliance with evolving regulatory requirements. The organization emphasizes the need for standardization to support efficient implementation and operation of advertising technologies across different platforms and environments.
Updates on the roadmap implementation progress will be released throughout 2025, with specific technical documentation and guidance becoming available as individual specifications are completed.