Brand Safety is a Difficult Dance in a Chaotic Landscape

Brand safety has always been a two-tiered prospect.  On one side, is the assurance that you are reaching live humans, and not bots and fraudulent traffic.  On the other side is avoiding reputational risk scenarios such as your ad showing up next to violent, offensive, or misleading content. In 2025 the challenges, and the tools, have undeniably evolved as the risks have evolved. All the while, advertisers are trying to build relevance, despite evolving risk in a world where platforms are shifting, customer trust is fragile, and AI is promising to do everything except tie your shoes for you – it's a difficult dance.

The cracks in the digital foundation are hard to ignore; social platforms that once felt like reasonable players, given the industry focus on brand safety (i.e., Twitter, Meta, & TikTok) are increasingly unpredictable as todays’ political landscape shifts. From Twitter’s advertiser exodus to Meta’s recent algorithmic blunder that flooded feeds with graphic content, marketers are being reminded that platforms are flexing their prerogatives and making the avoidance of risk thornier. Even community-driven platforms like Reddit, long seen as peripheral in brand safety conversations, are stepping up. IAS’s Total Media Quality for Reddit now offers advertisers a verified way to reach real, engaged users across many communities – in a world where relevance should translate to engagement. An example of contextual targeting and brand safety unified in action.

Meanwhile, the industry’s push to identify and address Made-for-Advertising (MFA) sites is a clear signal that quality content still matters. The MFA Transparency Utility from BSI and industry partners is helping publishers understand how and why they’re evaluated for MFA inclusion. Through “transparency,” buyers get a vote of confidence in the strength of the brand building power of premium environments. Yet, even with better lists and filters, advertisers are drowning in complexity. Cost pressures are rising, and fears of geopolitical disruption loom large. Technology is supposed to simplify decisions (i.e. pay a vendor or solve a problem). That’s why the growing promise of AI in brand safety is so compelling – it provides an opportunity to dial up relevance in meaningful ways. Practical use cases are emerging: semantic analysis at scale, domain& page level risk scoring, and real-time contextual classification, but AI is young, and we are all waiting for it to achieve better and stronger operability.

No tool will replace human judgment. Brand safety today requires more than just blacklists and buzzwords. Understanding where your brand shows up, who you’re partnering with, and how those decisions reflect your values is worth its effort in gold. Whether you're avoiding toxic content, vetting influencers, or choosing the right platform, the goal isn't just to steer clear of harm - it's to show up in the right places, with the right message, at the right time. The future of brand safety isn’t just risk mitigation. It’s relevance, responsibility, and readiness - for whatever comes next.