Brand partnerships can be a tricky beast to navigate. Brand safety, payment, measurement and more can all weigh heavy on the minds of marketers. But could AI be set to supercharge the space in 2025? B&T sat down with Partnerize’s chief product officer Andy Crossen and CEO Matt Gilbert to discuss the future of partnerships.
Back in November 2024, the company announced the launch of its advisory council and the addition of Andy Crossen. Matt Gilbert has been CEO of Partnerize for the last four years and before that, he was CEO of Pepperjam, a performance marketing solutions provider.
B&T: What changes should marketers expect to see in the partnerships space with the rise of AI?
Matt Gilbert: The category’s growth trajectory, while continuing to exhibit up and to the right trends, has yet to achieve its full potential due primarily to not having found a solution for using data (not people) to supercharge the three primary accelerants for category growth. The first is data-driven decision-making, specifically in the way we identify opportunity, optimise performance and prove effectiveness.
The second is the automation of manual workflows, including new partner activations, campaign optimisations including commission rate modelling, and offer and copy optimisation through personalisation, and the third is the ability to protect both the brand and the partner from fraud. AI presents an extraordinary opportunity to measurably improve in each of these critical areas and at Partnerize we are moving aggressively to leverage AI in each of these key areas.
B&T: How will AI impact advanced attribution modelling?
Andy Crossen: AI-driven real-time attribution can enhance how marketers track and evaluate partner contributions with higher precision. By integrating machine learning models, platforms can deliver greater visibility into customer journeys and more precise insights. This powerful combination can offer marketers strategic next steps and optimizations, such as spend optimisation recommendations, partner commissions adjustments, or suggested partner composition.
B&T: How will it impact brand safety? Do you expect it to enhance or jeopardise brand safety?
AC: AI is expected to enhance brand safety by allowing more proactive and thorough monitoring. It can improve screening processes during partner onboarding, track real-time activity through social listening, detect fraud more effectively within active partnerships, and help expand the definition of safety. These capabilities help ensure compliance and build trust across the partnership ecosystem, addressing some of the reputational challenges the industry has faced.
B&T: How will Partnerize’s newly introduced advisory council look to tackle marketing’s most pressing topics?
MG: As a customer-first organisation, we moved to formalise the council to ensure that Partnerize is fully and persistently engaged with our customers in a manner that allows us to improve the quality of our solution and to continue to play a vital role in driving the overall progress of our category. It is also important to highlight that at Partnerize we view our customers as both the brand side and partner side of our marketplace, equally. This council is the brand council, and we expect to form a similar group on the partner side.
B&T: How will AI transform the work that Partnerize does as a platform that focuses on partnership automation?
AC: Partnerize was founded on the need to automate manual processes that limited the partnership category’s potential. Since then, we’ve driven significant advancements, and now AI offers new ways to accelerate that progress. Machine learning and generative AI can enhance how partnerships are formed, optimised, and monitored. For example, predictive analytics can help brands identify high-performing affiliates early, while generative AI simplifies content creation. These tools free up resources, allowing teams to focus on more strategic opportunities and higher-value initiatives.
B&T: How has Crossen’s experience in AI-driven product innovation impacted Partnerize and its plans for the future?
MG: Andy Crossen’s expertise in AI-driven product innovation will be instrumental in advancing Partnerize’s product strategy, focused on category-redefining innovation and enhancements. With deep ad-tech and mar-tech experience and a background in large language models and machine learning, Crossen is poised to lead Partnerize’s product strategy into a powerful, new era of data-enabled solutions. His track record in AI innovation and data-driven insights will enable our brands and partners to predict opportunity, optimise payment structures and value, improve measurement, combat fraud, and reduce costs and reliance on manual workflows, setting a powerful new standard in partnership marketing.
B&T: How do you continue to keep the customer front of mind amid the AI landscape, and what should marketers prioritize in this new age?
MG: AI should not displace customer feedback, rather it should be used as a tool in response to customer needs. How can it improve the customer’s day-to-day? Can it eliminate inefficiencies? By dually keeping the customer front of mind while embracing generative AI, organisations can deliver better outcomes for their customers while staying ahead in an evolving digital landscape.
Partnerize is relentlessly focused on solving mission-critical customer challenges. To deliver on that commitment, it requires that we have a deep understanding of their needs, of which our Advisory Council is a great example of how we go about sourcing that intel.
