IAB Tech Lab’s Signal Shift West Coast on September 25, 2025, brought together industry leaders in Mountain View, California to tackle the most pressing challenges in Privacy , Addressability , and advertising solutions for a world with fewer cookies and reduced signals. A highly engaged audience took part in technical deep dives, reviews of strategic frameworks, and learned about Tech Lab’s Trusted Server, different kinds of Privacy Enhancing Technologies, and the complexities of handling user data in different environments, including CTV. Here are some of the things you missed.

After CEO Anthony Katsur set the stage for what the day would bring, we dug into one of Tech Lab’s major 2025 (and beyond) initiatives: Trusted Server. This open-source solution aims to help publishers maintain monetization and user experience while adapting to increasing restrictions in identity signals from browsers. Trusted Server is an intelligent ad router deployed on the publisher’s edge that fundamentally changes how advertising works. Instead of multiple concurrent third-party calls from a user’s browser, tags and network calls migrate to the Trusted Server on the publisher’s edge.

The advertising technology ecosystem continues evolving to address privacy, measurement, and automation challenges facing the industry.

The result? Improved page performance, better viewability, and increased page depth—a true win for both brands and publishers.

Tech Lab’s Trusted Server Architect Jason Evans and Miguel Morales demonstrated the technical implementation, showcasing how the platform already integrates with Prebid Server, WordPress, Equativ, and Google Ad Manager, while maintaining full publisher control over data and monetization, with more MVP features expected by the end of 2025. The roadmap is ambitious but practical, moving from proof of concept through MVP to full implementation of ad fraud prevention, brand safety, and measurement capabilities throughout 2026. Early adopters can already access the open-source code at on Github , and interested teams are encouraged to collaborate there, or to join the Trusted Server Task Force meetings to gather feedback and drive development forward. Two afternoon presentations showcased how AI can be used to transform targeting without traditional identifiers.

Key points

Two afternoon presentations showcased how AI can be used to transform targeting without traditional identifiers.
Improved page performance, better viewability, and increased page depth—a true win for both brands and publishers.
Also highlighted was a crucial challenge: mixed audience platforms will face “signal overload” rather than signal loss.
Williams pointed out that brand interest isn’t binary, yet traditional targeting treats it that way.
Trusted Server is an intelligent ad router deployed on the publisher’s edge that fundamentally changes how advertising works.

Why it matters: Impacts measurement, privacy, or monetization workflows.

Source: IAB Tech Lab

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