In this NAB Show Live interview, Michael Robinson talks with Adam Spector, Chief Business Officer of LiftIgniter, about the company’s real‑time machine‑learning personalization API. Spector explains that LiftIgniter predicts, in real time, the next content a user will click on, delivering the right video, article, or email at the exact moment to maximize user experience. He emphasizes that personalization at scale is only possible through AI and machine learning, and that every media website competes for user attention against giants like Google, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. Citing LiftIgniter’s co‑founder’s work on YouTube’s first real‑time personalization engine, Spector notes double‑digit percentage gains in engagement that translated into billions of dollars for Google, illustrating the revenue impact of better personalization. He argues that users now expect immediate, relevant content; if a site fails to deliver, they will leave for competitors. Looking ahead, Spector predicts continued growth in media consumption, but stresses that only sites offering superior, AI‑driven personalized experiences will retain attention, time, and money. He warns that any digital property that does not adopt AI‑based personalization risks extinction as competitors become increasingly intelligent. The interview closes with an invitation to meet at the Sprocket Startup Area at NAB Show.
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This is NAB Show Live.
Hi, I'm Michael Robinson, and this is NAB Show Live produced by Broadcast Beat. With me is my guest Adam Spector, Chief Business Officer at Lift Igniter, Welcome to the show, Adam.
Michael, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Thank you. So tell us a little bit about your company.
Yeah, so LiftIgniter is a machine learning personalization API. The goal is pretty simple: to predict in real time what every single user wants to click on and do next on any given media site. So essentially, it's the ability to give the right individual impressions— not just user, but individual impression the right video or the right article or the right email at that moment to give them, frankly, the best possible experience on a given website or app.
I take it you use a lot of artificial intelligence, right?
Correct, yeah. We're a machine learning and artificial intelligence company. Really, the only way, frankly, you can do personalization at scale is via machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Tell us why your customers should care about machine learning personalization.
Yeah, it's a bit of a mouthful. The reason they should care is, frankly, every single media website today is competing directly with every other media site. That includes, of course, the really big ones: Google, YouTube, Google via YouTube, Facebook, Instagram. Every media site is fighting for one thing. They're fighting for users' attention and time. And if I give that media website my attention and time, that means that they will be able to make money from me, right? By more advertising or more engagement or more shares, whatever. But the only way to create an experience that I care about, that I'm willing to give my really valuable attention and time to, is by personalizing that experience for me. My co-founder and his team really built out the world's first real-time personalization engine at YouTube. It had double-digit percentage improvements in engagement time for Google, which in Google's case was billions of dollars in incremental new revenue. And imagine that though, if people are spending double-digit percentage more time on YouTube, that's double-digit percentage less time on a competing media website. Therefore, if these media websites today do not embrace personalization— and once again, personalization at scale has to be done via machine learning and artificial intelligence— if they don't embrace it, Google, Facebook, Instagram will continue to get more and more of my attention and time, and then all the media websites will never be able to catch up.
In other words, it's all about understanding what the customer wants and how to Give it to them in a personalized fashion.
It's exactly it. It's what users expect. I mean, frankly, about, you know, every single person who might watch this video, or even you or me, Michael, um, I want what I want right now. I don't want to spend time trying to find it or discover it. And if I go to someone's website, I expect them to have content I care about immediately. If I have to search for it, I'll just go back to Google Search or go back to Facebook. I'll go back to somewhere else that gives me a better discovery experience. If I can't get that discovery experience on the site or app that I'm on to start.
Makes perfect sense. So what do you see as the future of media in terms of media consumption moving forward?
Yes, I mean, media consumption is obviously going to continue to grow. Granted, there's only so many hours in a day, which is why creating that fantastic experience via personalization is critical. But media consumption overall will continue to increase, but the spoils of that media consumption— in other words, the time that I am as an end consumer is willing to spend on a site— will only continue to grow on a given media property if I get the best experience. The simple fact, once again, go back to the point I was making, I will spend my time, my money, and my attention consuming media on the media sites that give me the best experience. And I've become trained by big companies like Google and Facebook that did personalization first and did it really well to expect that personalized experience. If I don't get it, a competitive website is a click away.
Absolutely. So let's talk about artificial intelligence. It's one of the things I'm totally fascinated about. How do you see it changing our digital world?
Yeah, so artificial intelligence is going to be the underlying key factor to every single digital property out there. I truly believe this. Obviously, I think every company should use LiftIgniter, and if they don't, they're foolish, but I recognize not all of them will actually use LiftIgniter. However, I do believe that if every media property, but frankly, every website and every app in the world, if they If they do not apply artificial intelligence, machine learning to their properties, to their users' activities, then these sites will cease to exist. They will essentially go extinct if they do not have machine learning, artificial intelligence, and then of course personalization turned on. They don't do it, they will cease to exist. So that, that is what they have to do to survive. Because guess what? Their competitors are already massively embracing machine learning and artificial intelligence. If you don't do it, you will get further and further behind as these guys get smarter and smarter and smarter every single day about your users and your consumers.
Well, I'm looking forward to seeing you at NAB Show Live and having you on one of my conversations. I'm going to be talking about artificial learning, and I'd love to have you join me. Adam Spector, Chief Business Officer of LiftIgniter. You're going to be located at Sprocket Startup Area. That's Sprocket Startup Area. Looking forward to seeing you then, sir.
Thank you. I look forward to it as well, Michael. Appreciate your time.
