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The brand-safety battles that once pitted CMOs against Big Tech are over. Now, there's a new war brewing over "AI safety."

More and more dollars are flowing into AI-powered platforms that promise to automatically create ads and choose where they're placed.

The rapid shift is causing headaches for some CMOs.

"CMOs want to see the numbers" to help them understand precisely how these AI platforms are driving metrics like revenue, new customer acquisition, and brand equity, Tim Lathrop, a VP at the media agency Mediassociates, told me.

Cross-industry efforts are taking shape to demand more transparency from tech giants like Google and Meta. Industry groups are pushing for more action around AI ad auction transparency and the responsible use of AI tools in marketing.

Some recent developments:

• The Media Rating Council, which sets standards for ad measurement, released a framework this year designed to bring transparency to online ad auctions that lean on machine learning and AI.
• Last month, the Interactive Advertising Bureau published a white paper on how agentic AI systems are being used in video ads, which recommended guardrails and greater insight into how AI-driven decisions are made.
• The International Chamber of Commerce published a guide in March on the responsible use of AI tools for advertising and marketing.

Marketers and their agencies are treading carefully, though. Nobody wants to risk becoming another political and legal target like GARM.

The Global Alliance for Responsible Media — which established brand safety frameworks — shut down in 2024 after Elon Musk's X filed an antitrust lawsuit against it. While that suit was tossed out by a Texas federal judge late last month, the chilling effect of GARM's dissolution still gives the industry goosebumps.

As embarrassing emails between GARM and its members became public through a Republican-led investigation and X's lawsuit, "brand safety" became a Voldemort-like term — one not to be named for fear of drawing political fire.

Industry insiders tell me it's unlikely that another brand-safety group will rise from GARM's ashes. Jamie Barnard, Unilever's former general counsel for media, told me that businesses have largely shifted away from wokism and "softer" policy issues like ethics, DE&I, and sustainability.

Right now, the more pressing industry issue is AI — especially for CMOs.

"You can't allow AI pioneers free rein unencumbered by scrutiny," when it comes to AI's effect on the ad market, said Barnard, who now leads a privacy tech company called Compliant.

Government regulation is notoriously slow.

"So who's going to regulate? It's the buyer," he added.

Industry leaders are keen to avoid accidentally falling into any political traps.

A media agency exec heavily involved in cross-industry AI safety efforts told me that communications are deliberately kept "methodical." Flash point topics — such as the potential for biases to be hardwired into the design of AI-powered ad algorithms — are being avoided.

The goal is making "something as antiseptic and apolitical as possible," the exec said.