Ozone, the digital advertising platform built by publishers, has announced the launch of Ozone Labs, a collaborative research and development centre focused on better understanding how AI technologies may impact future product and commercial models of the publishing and marketing sectors.
Ozone Labs will operate alongside the core business, enabling Ozone and its partners to experiment, to build product prototypes and try new business models, in a sandbox environment and at the pace of LLM evolution. Ozone Labs will be accessible at ozonelabs.ai, where open content will be published and secure partner logins will supply access to collaborative research, joint project outputs and hackathon materials.
With over half of Ozone’s workforce working in product, engineering and data roles, the Ozone Labs programme will be run by existing team members with experimentation led by Scott Switzer, Chief Technology Officer.
New Digital Age spoke with Damon Reeve, CEO of Ozone, to find out more…
What sparked the idea behind launching Ozone labs?
It really came from a couple of places. One of the main drivers is that there’s a huge amount of innovation and R&D happening inside Ozone that we don’t typically talk about externally. When we go to market, we tend to focus on products that are finished, polished and ready for general release.
But behind the scenes, there’s a lot of experimentation, especially with the rise of new technologies like large language models. What we’ve found internally is that people learn faster and produce better outcomes when they collaborate, rather than working in silos.
We’ve seen that through things like our quarterly hackathons. Historically, those were mainly product and engineering-led, but more recently we’ve brought in people from across the business. That shift has led to some really exciting results.
So Labs is about creating a vehicle to bring that to life: a more open, collaborative R&D environment where we can share what we’re working on, even if it doesn’t ultimately become a product. There’s a lot of value in the journey itself.
Will Labs be limited to Ozone partners, or are you opening it up more broadly?
We’ll likely start with our existing network, but the intention is definitely to cast the net wider over time. A big part of Labs is about collaboration with partners, clients and, where possible, the wider industry.
We want to be as open as we can. That means publishing work publicly where appropriate, so people can see what we’re doing and learn from it. Some projects will remain private, especially where they involve specific partners, but the overarching goal is to foster a more collaborative ecosystem.
We already do a lot of open-source work in our engineering teams, publishing code on platforms like GitHub. Labs gives us a more visible home for that activity, as well as for new initiatives.
AI is dominating industry conversations right now. Beyond search, what are the biggest challenges it’s creating for publishers?
There are a few different areas we’re focused on. Internally, we think about Labs in three broad buckets.
The first is collaboration or what we call “Labs Live.” These are essentially hackathons or partner sessions where we bring people together to solve specific problems. AI is often a key part of those conversations.
The second is experimentation. A lot of what we’re working on is about how we use AI and large language models in our own processes, whether that’s operationally or in product development. Not all of that work will become customer-facing products, but it’s critical in shaping how we evolve.
The third area is research and benchmarking, particularly in relation to publishers. There’s a growing need to understand how publisher content is being surfaced within AI environments, for example, how it appears in prompts or responses generated by large language models.
That’s not strictly an advertising issue, at least not yet, but it’s hugely important for publishers. They want to understand what’s driving value, what isn’t, and how their content is being used. We see an opportunity to support them in that journey.
It sounds like Labs is as much about learning as it is about building products. Is that fair?
Absolutely. Not everything we do in Labs will result in a product and that’s intentional. The goal is to create a space where we can experiment, test ideas and share insights.
There’s a tendency in the industry to only talk about finished outputs, but there’s a lot of value in the process of getting there. By opening that up, we can help accelerate learning, both internally and externally.
Looking more broadly at Ozone, what are your key priorities for the year ahead?
There are two big areas of focus for us right now.
The first is international growth, particularly in the US. I’m actually in New York at the moment, and expanding our presence here is a major priority. It’s about building a stronger foundation so we can work more closely with publishers, partners and advertisers across markets.
The second is evolving our proposition to provide more full-funnel support for brands. Historically, we’ve been very strong in brand strategy and building awareness, driving that initial intent.
Now, we’re putting more emphasis on delivering measurable outcomes further down the funnel. That means helping brands drive actual sales and proving that impact through better measurement and reporting.
We’ve been developing what we call outcomes strategies with a small group of partners, and later this year we’ll be rolling that out more broadly. It’s a significant area of investment for us.
How does that tie into the broader changes happening in digital advertising?
There’s definitely a shift happening. Advertisers are still focused on performance, but there’s a growing recognition that you need to connect brand and outcomes more effectively.
For us, it’s about bridging that gap and combining strong brand-building capabilities with clear, measurable results. AI and data will play a role in that, but so will collaboration and experimentation, which is where Labs comes in.
Finally, what would success look like for Ozone Labs in its first year?
Success would be creating a genuinely collaborative environment where people can come together, experiment and learn from each other. If we can surface interesting ideas, share meaningful insights and help our partners navigate some of the challenges, particularly around AI, then we’re on the right track.
It’s not just about launching products. It’s about building a culture of innovation that’s open, inclusive and ultimately useful to the wider ecosystem.
