Mobile Dev Memo Podcast

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by Asad Awan, who leads monetization product and engineering at OpenAI. We explore the strategic foundations and product principles behind OpenAI's entry into the advertising space.
My conversation with Asad focuses on how conversational AI shifts the advertising paradigm from transactional keyword matching to a deeper understanding of user journeys and intent, all while navigating the tension between monetization / commercial utility and user trust.
Among other things, we discuss:
How the conversational interface creates a unique environment for surfacing latent consumer intent and preferences
Whether user trust can be maintained when AI responses are supplemented by paid commercial placements
Why the direct value exchange of ads for compute might reshape consumer perceptions of digital advertising
What role ChatGPT's Sponsored Agents will play in streamlining the path from discovery to transaction within chatbots
How OpenAI's approach to automation and simplified bidding differs from traditional social media ad stacks
When generative AI will be capable of fully automating the creation of contextually relevant ad creative
If the integration of first-party conversion data is essential for grounding LLM-driven ad targeting systems
Thanks to the sponsors of this week’s episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:
⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.
⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming back
Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.
The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:
Spotify
YouTube
Apple Podcasts

Among the many disastrous consequences predicted of artificial intelligence is a jobs famine: widespread worker displacement that devastates the economy and brings about a second Great Depression.
But that hasn't happened. In fact, the US economy is doing well and, with a 4.1% unemployment rate, operating roughly at full employment, despite other headwinds like persistent inflation. And while whether humanity is "early" in the adoption phase of artificial intelligence is debatable -- I argue that, certainly, from an exposure standpoint, AI is a familiar technology at this point -- the notion that AI has displaced large swaths of the workforce is not supported in the current data.
Given the buoyancy of the economy, should we reduce the odds of that happening? We can't definitively say that it won't, of course, but we can use the data at our disposal now -- in September 2026, nearly four years after ChatGPT's launch -- to update our likelihoods. And one likelihood that I believe is underestimated, sitting somewhere between The Prosperous Society and total economic Armageddon, is that everything turns out alright.
Thanks to the sponsors of this week’s episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:
⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.
⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming back

Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.
The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:
Spotify
YouTube
Apple Podcasts

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by my friend Nebojsa Radovic, the Senior Director of Mobile User Acquisition at Zynga and a battle-hardened mobile marketing veteran. In the course of our conversation, we discuss the evolution of mobile user acquisition from the era of manual campaign configuration to the contemporary operating environment of automated, AI-driven workflows. We reflect on how the industry has shifted from highly technical, high-headcount operations toward lean, specialist teams focused principally on creative optimization and signal engineering. Among other things, we cover:
How AI-driven automation will permanently redefine the technical requirements for marketing roles
Whether the consolidation of major ad networks will eventually stifle innovation within independent mobile gaming studios
Why high-volume creative production has become the primary lever for performance in an algorithmic buying environment
If traditional media buying expertise is becoming obsolete in the face of sophisticated signal engineering strategies
What future organizational structures will look like as marketing teams become smaller and more specialized
When the industry will reach a saturation point regarding the effectiveness of cross-channel attribution models
Thanks to the sponsors of this week’s episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:
⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.
⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming back
Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.
The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:
Spotify
YouTube
Apple Podcasts

The Conversions API, or CAPI, represents a revolutionary development in the digital economy: it allows any platform with sufficient scale to extend its advertising scope beyond local context into the broader and more commercially valuable function of behavioral advertising, entirely outside of the purview of a browser or operating system. In this episode, I provide a history of the CAPI and its role in the Everything is an ad network phenomenon. I also explore the fundamental shift in the digital advertising landscape driven by the transition from browser-side pixels to the server-to-server CAPI, moving beyond the immediate impacts of Apple's App Tracking Transparency to a more permanent structural change in how commercial data is shared and utilized.
Articles cited in this episode:
Everything is an ad network
The App Tracking Transparency recession
Is CAPI future-proof?
The privacy shuffle (part one, two, three, four)
Privacy manifests, fingerprinting, and Apple’s intentions
Podcast: Meta’s Renaissance
Does Apple police fingerprinting?
Google embraces IP-based fingerprinting
Apple’s privacy “nuclear option”

Thanks to the sponsors of this week’s episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:
⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.
⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming back

Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.
The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:
Spotify
YouTube
Apple Podcasts

This week's podcast episode is a long-form companion piece to an article I published last week: The privileged position of chatbot advertising. In this episode, I make the case for why the chatbot advertising model is differentiated from those of both search and social media, feed-based display, and why it benefits from greater targeting scope through the optionality and flexibility it can utilize in determining which signals should inform that targeting, based on the context of a conversation.
Articles cited in this piece:
OpenAI’s advertising opportunity
Google's Gambit and Google’s Gambit, Part 4: The end of Static Search
Obviously, OpenAI will monetize with ads
Digital Advertising, Demand Routing, and the Millionaires’ Mall
Search is the wrong mental model for chatbot advertising
The prosperous society
Thanks to the sponsors of this week’s episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:
⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.
⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming back
Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.
The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:
Spotify
YouTube
Apple Podcasts