How Advertising, AI and Algorithm...

How Advertising, AI and Algorithms Shape What We See [Alessandra Di Lorenzo, Advertising Leader] #28

The AI Lyceum by Samraj Matharu

E28

Apr 20, 2026

01:03:21

Episode notes

‘The web is one big fat ad.'

That was Alessandra DiLorenzo’s quote of the podcast, and it gets right to the point.

In this episode of The AI Lyceum®, Samraj Matharu speaks with Alessandra DiLorenzo, former CEO of lastminute.com media and former leader at eBay and Vodafone, following her recent TEDx Royal Tunbridge Wells talk at the March 8, 2026 event themed ‘Momentum’. Her TEDx speaker profile framed the idea simply and sharply: ‘My daughter could skip ads before she could read the word advertising.’

A key theme running through this conversation is reversibility. Alessandra makes a sharp distinction between decisions that can be reversed and those that cannot. If a decision is reversible, AI can help optimise it. If it is irreversible, especially where trust, brand, or human relationships are at stake, leaders should think very carefully before handing it to a machine.

They explore how AI, advertising, and algorithms shape what we see, how the zero-click web is changing the economics of publishing and discovery, and why brands now have to think beyond traffic and performance alone. The conversation also gets into trust, direct traffic, language, intelligence, ethics, agents, media literacy, and the growing need for human judgment in an age of machine-led optimisation.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

0:00 ➤ Intro / Alessandra DiLorenzo on AI as the new silent gatekeeper

2:18 ➤ Motherhood, media, and why algorithmic influence starts early

7:01 ➤ The zero-click web, Google AI answers, and the pressure on publishers

14:44 ➤ What language models get wrong about meaning and intelligence

20:01 ➤ AI ethics, human judgment, and why some decisions cannot be outsourced

25:03 ➤ Reversible vs irreversible decisions in brand and business

31:01 ➤ Direct traffic, trust, brand equity, and surviving outside the gatekeeper

37:21 ➤ How CEOs should think about AI transformation, goals, and timeframes

45:46 ➤ Agents, black boxes, and the future of brand discovery

50:24 ➤ Critical thinking, media literacy, and ‘feed the feed’

59:57 ➤ Closing question on responsible AI and human judgment