Ep 26. AI Bias Is a Business Problem — Not Just an Ethics One, with Stefanie Beach & Nadia Koski

Amazon just killed Rufus. The upfronts just tried to sell data like it was primetime inventory. And every streaming platform announced an AI tool that sounds exactly like every other streaming platform's AI tool. Meanwhile, the industry is barreling toward agentic commerce built on data that excludes half the world — and most marketers haven't noticed yet. This week, Shiv and Miles welcome two guests who are doing something about it. Stefanie Beach is the founder and CEO of The Marketeer Group and host of the Digital Marketeer Podcast. Nadia Koski is a 15-year ad tech and publishing veteran, American expat living in Florence, and the founder of a new podcast launching this week. Together, they're producing a panel at Cannes Lions focused on AI bias, inclusive data, and what the industry needs to do before it's too late. They break down why Amazon sunsetting Rufus in favor of Alexa is actually a smart long game — and why agentic commerce will cannibalize commerce media in the process. They also get into why the upfronts are in their awkward teenage years, why selling data on an upfront timeline is a structural contradiction, and why every streamer announcing an "AI personalization tool" this week needs to actually show who's buying it and why. Then the conversation gets more serious. Only 52% of the world's data is represented in today's AI systems. An AI crop app built for African farmers failed female farmers entirely because the training photos were all taken by men. Roughly 1 in 4 women feel that using AI at work is cheating — men simply don't carry that hesitation. And if agentic commerce gets built on this foundation, brands risk alienating Gen Z and Gen Alpha — the largest spending generation of the next decade — before they ever get a chance to reach them. 🎙 Check out Stefanie's podcast: The Digital Marketeer Podcast https://bit.ly/4uhs5oj 🎙 Nadia's new podcast launches Tuesday, May 19th — Still Human: Real Talk in the Age of AI Listen to the trailer here: https://bit.ly/3RMqCrJ