IAB’s The Great Debate: Retail Media 2026

Empathy Lab joined the opening panel of IAB Europe’s highly anticipated 2026 virtual edition of The Great Debate: Retail Media. A dynamic program of Oxford-style debates, interactive panels, and showcase sessions that tackle the most pressing topics in retail and commerce media.

Moderated by James Taylor, Founder and CEO, Particular Audience, this session explored how AI is reshaping the retail media supply chain from insight to real-time activation.

Diana Abebrese, Global Lead, Retail Media, Empathy Lab by EPAM captured a key theme early on: “AI reality is moving us closer to making true omnichannel a reality.” She highlighted how AI is helping us make sense of signals across the entire shopper journey, especially for off‑site where real‑time data is transforming audience strategies.

Polina Melnikova, Strategic Growth Director, Moloco Commerce Media, reminded us that “AI works within guardrails, and retailers use that to stay in control,” while Cedric Epiard spoke candidly about fragmentation:

“Expecting brands to master a different platform for every retailer creates prohibitive entry costs. This is where AI protocols like MCP become genuinely transformative.”

One of the most fascinating moments came when Diana shared that synthetic audiences are now performing at 75–80% accuracy compared to real‑audience studies. An impressive indicator of how AI can reduce risk and accelerate testing.

James closed the session by underscoring the importance of governance as AI scales beyond human capacity; a theme that echoed throughout the day.