Adtech firm Ogury launches AI persona modeling

Ogury's "Personified Advertising" technology builds its AI-powered personas from a foundation of zero-party data, gathered through large-scale, opt-in surveys. This is enriched with billions of other data points like contextual, semantic, and campaign delivery signals to create anonymized audience groups based on shared interests and behaviors, rather than individual tracking. The system is designed to work with or without personal identifiers, future-proofing it against cookie deprecation. This strategy directly addresses the signal loss crisis in adtech, where an estimated 50% of the open web has become unaddressable to advertisers due to the phase-out of third-party cookies and new privacy regulations. Ogury's Chief Product Officer, Stéphane Dupayage, previously SVP of Retail Media at Criteo, is leading the charge on this ID-less and cookieless solution. The company has extended this persona-based targeting to Connected TV (CTV), allowing for a consistent audience strategy across mobile, desktop, and streaming platforms. The move from a hands-on engineering role to a CTO position at a B2B SaaS company requires a significant mindset shift from technical execution to strategic leadership. The focus changes from product development to shaping the company's future through technology, managing budgets, and aligning engineering with broader business goals. A key responsibility becomes translating complex technical concepts for the CEO, board members, and investors. For growth-stage SaaS companies, the CTO role evolves from a "player-coach" who actively codes to a leader focused on scaling the engineering organization, setting architectural direction, and managing technical debt versus innovation. This transition involves mastering delegation, empowering teams, and shifting success metrics from code commits to business outcomes. The ability to build and lead high-performing teams is paramount. The London tech ecosystem remains a major hub for investment, with the city's AI startups raising $3.5 billion in VC funding in 2024, making it the top AI hub in Europe. Overall, UK startups raised over $22.9 billion in 2025, with significant activity in financial services and AI. Recent notable CTO appointments in London include Phil Withey, formerly of the London Stock Exchange Group, who joined Hiscox as CTO for its London market division to shape its AI and data strategy. As the 2026 Formula 1 season approaches, new regulations are set to be a major focus, with significant changes to car design and engine compression ratios. Following a dramatic end to the 2025 season, McLaren's Lando Norris enters the new season as the reigning World Champion. Off the track, the FIA has introduced a new engine test mid-season to close a technical loophole, while debate continues around the impact of the budget cap on team competitiveness.