IAS's Ashish Trivedi: closed ecosystems capture 5.5x more ad spend than open web

September 6, 2026 · storyboard18.com

At Storyboard18's Global GenZ Summit in Mumbai, Ashish Trivedi of Integral Ad Science told editor Delshad Irani that advertising's shift into closed ecosystems, quick commerce, CTV and AI-driven environments makes independent measurement a brand-protection imperative. Citing Statista data, he said closed ecosystems capture 5.5 times more ad spend than the open web, a gap he called disproportionate to how much time consumers actually spend there. Quick commerce is now central to that shift: one in four digital advertising dollars goes into e-retail, and IAS's Papyrus fraud report found sophisticated code mimicking scrolling, clicks and attention signals to siphon millions of dollars from mobile campaigns.

Brands funding festive-season quick commerce and CTV budgets through platforms that grade their own performance risk absorbing fraud losses and brand-safety failures without ever knowing it. Trivedi compared the arrangement to a bank auditing its own books. He also warned that consumers hold brands responsible for mismatched placements, such as a sustainability brand appearing next to climate-denial content, even when an algorithm made the call. IAS, which has spent 17 years on trust and transparency, is building a cross-channel measurement layer across the open web, social platforms and retail media to close that gap. "You cannot have trust without an independent verifier," Trivedi said, naming quick commerce and CTV as the two channels advertisers most need to verify over the next 12 to 16 months.