Dive Brief:
- Ad-tech company PubMatic said its use of Nvidia technology for automated programmatic ad buying across the open internet has resulted in processing that is up to five-times faster than traditional systems, per a press release.
- Using Nvidia’s artificial intelligence (AI) tools, PubMatic’s system significantly reduces latency and leads to fewer auction timeouts, makes microsecond decisions at scale and can process twice as quickly than traditional systems.
- The two firms have been engaged in a multiyear collaboration to integrate Nvidia’s technology and create AI-powered systems and solutions for programmatic advertising. The results can help publishers achieve levels of performance that previously have only been possible within walled gardens, according to the companies.
Dive Insight:
PubMatic has been betting big on AI to sustain its model of breaking down the walled gardens of the programmatic internet. The bet seems to be paying off.
The ad-tech firm’s souped up system claims to rival those that require massive technology investments, leveraging Nvidia’s muscle to improve speed and performance across the digital supply chain. The offering was developed through iterative testing and partnership, according to Mukul Kumar, co-founder and president of engineering at PubMatic.
PubMatic’s system reduces inference latency from an industry standard of 5-10 milliseconds to approximately 1 millisecond, achieving 85% fewer auction timeouts. As a result, publishers can recover millions of dollars in revenue lost to technological restrictions, and advertisers can achieve better performance, according to the company.
The system also uses its AI-powered decision-making algorithms to respond to programmatic opportunities in microseconds rather than the full seconds required by publicly available in AI systems like ChatGPT and Claude, PubMatic said. It can also process live campaign data twice as fast and deliver insights 60% more quickly, enabling publishers to respond to opportunities as they occur rather than hours later. PubMatic also claims the system reduces energy consumption by 30%.
PubMatic has been investing heavily in AI to power its programmatic platforms. Earlier this year, the company launched an overhauled system that used generative and agentic AI capabilities to incorporate natural language to simplify deals, forecasting and optimization, as well as automated yield optimization and real-time revenue insights. The company also launched a Live Sports Marketplace that is designed to handle the challenges of placing advertising on live events in the streaming world, where audiences can surge by tens of millions within minutes.
The release of the news was a shot in the arm for the company. Its stock, which has been classified as “very volatile” by IndexBox for having more than 25 swings higher than 5% in the past year, shot up 9.4% on the announcement of the Nvidia results. The company also recently sued Google, alleging the search giant has run an illegal monopoly on internet ad monetization tools and exchanges. Meanwhile, consumers in May filed a lawsuit against PubMatic claiming it gathered and used their personal data without consent.
