Over the years, some ad tech trends have undergone full evolution, whereas others have only iteratively grown. Nevertheless, each trend has been instrumental in pushing advertising, including mobile advertising, a bit further into the future, while exponentially improving the experience for users, advertisers, and publishers alike. Here are five trends that will be dominating forces come 2018. History has shown that industry consolidation is a natural process and that systemic market forces make it possible to predict its evolution. In 2017, we saw consolidation of many ad tech players, with merger and acquisition deals reaching record levels.

Elon Musk is all for it, Mark Zuckerberg warns of its dangers – and, as if to prove the point, Facebook recently had to shut down parts of their AI experiment after chatbots had become too clever and invented their own way of communicating. But science-fiction-fuelled horror scenarios of a future ruled by artificial intelligence aside, how does AI benefit programmatic advertising? Ignasi Prat (pictured below), CMO, Tappx, discusses what AI is contributing to the ad tech industry – and why the use of AI should be welcomed. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is powering the ad industry's transformation into the ad tech industry. This demonstrates why the rise of machines buying and selling ads in real time is more efficient than human ad operations management.