Brand Safety Institute Blog

Victor Mills

AI - The Next Economic Boom or the Next Tech Bubble?

by Victor Mills on Sep 1, 2025 1:29:46 PM

For advertisers and ad-tech leaders, the rapid ascent of artificial intelligence has opened a new frontier of promise, and risk. The advertising ecosystem could inadvertently find themselves in hot water when they simply intended to move business forward...

Online Safety for Youth: A Chasm of Alarming Proportions

by Victor Mills on Aug 20, 2025 6:10:18 PM

The topic of brand safety and the online safety problem now extend well beyond gaming and social media, into the broader ad tech ecosystem. Advertisers can help transform brand safety from a defensive posture into an opportunity for leadership, aligning...

Rethinking Brand Safety in the Age of AI

by Victor Mills on Aug 11, 2025 9:00:00 AM

In 2025, safety isn’t the absence of harm, it’s the presence of responsibility. You can’t build trust if your content, like much of today’s generative media, is engineered to approximate meaning rather than actually say something.

Brand Safety or Suitability in the Age of AI?

by Victor Mills on Jul 28, 2025 12:48:52 PM

The adoption of AI tools has outpaced the industry’s ability to regulate their use. For advertisers, this means adapting from risk avoidance to proactive strategic risk management, where intentionality becomes a competitive advantage. Upgrade your stance...

Brand Safety and the Fight for Effectiveness

by Victor Mills on Jul 21, 2025 9:00:00 AM

There is a new fault line in advertising, it’s brand safety, and this raises the uncomfortable reality that current brand safety tools can’t keep pace with the deluge. We have an uphill walk ahead of us.

Brand Safety in an Age of Constrained Optionality

by Victor Mills on Jul 11, 2025 10:46:32 AM

Are we trading in brand suitability for brand sustainability in the near future? The answer is important. What began as an industry-wide effort to keep ads away from the internet’s darkest corners has since evolved into a highly politicized dilemma.

Brand Safety is Now a Double-Edged Sword

by Victor Mills on Jul 3, 2025 1:46:56 PM

Brand safety now sits at the confusing intersection of politics, social responsibility, and platform accountability. The way forward is going to be to invest in clear and adaptable brand safety frameworks that prioritize reputational risk – which is now...

2025 & Beyond – The Shifting Impact of AI, Creators, and Community Notes

by Victor Mills on Jun 24, 2025 6:07:57 PM

The brand safety conversation in 2025 isn’t about facts or integrity, it’s about how quickly the ground beneath it is shifting. In an era when AI and creator-led content will drive much digital reach, these dependencies underscore the difficulty of...

AI, Accountability, and Assurance - Getting it Right

by Victor Mills on Jun 11, 2025 11:57:22 AM

As AI-powered ad tech advances, platforms, providers, and brands are racing to show they can both scale their current efforts and safeguard their strategies. The connective thread across these developments is clear: brand safety isn’t just about...

The Brand Safety Industry Needs to be More “Fit” for Purpose

by Victor Mills on Jun 3, 2025 2:53:34 PM

Brand safety has seemingly become a sometimes loaded, & often misunderstood term. The future of brand safety won’t hinge on buzzwords or broken systems - it will belong to those willing to build transparent, reliable frameworks that reflect not just...