MUMBAI: The pipes of programmatic plumbing are finally getting an upgrade and it’s all going into the container. In a bid to declutter the tangled maze of today’s digital ad infrastructure, the IAB Tech Lab has launched its Containerization Project, aiming to give the ad tech industry a fresh, streamlined foundation for real-time bidding (RTB). The move comes as the sector grapples with a decade’s worth of bolted-on innovations, latency headaches, and a spaghetti bowl of fragmented systems especially under pressure during high-volume events.

Rather than patching up the cracks, IAB Tech Lab wants to rebuild the pipes altogether.

“The digital ad ecosystem has grown enormously, but the technical foundation hasn’t kept up,” said IAB Tech Lab CEO Anthony Katsur. “The way ad tech is built today is complex and inefficient. This project isn’t about tweaks, it’s about designing a future-proof foundation from the ground up.”

At the heart of the project is the standardisation of container technology for OpenRTB. Think of it as an elegant Bento box for real-time bidding, modular, measurable, and ready to scale. The new framework introduces common standards for everything from network protocols and metrics to image performance and data privacy, offering supply-side platforms (SSPs), demand-side platforms (DSPs), and other players a shared architecture to innovate on without reinventing the wheel each time.

Crucially, it allows for plug-and-play functionality: ad tech partners can be added or swapped mid-auction without slowing things down or breaking core systems.

“This gives engineers a shared technical foundation to build from,” said Chalice AI head of product Meera Choudhury. “By establishing clarity on what’s required, we can build in a way that respects those boundaries.”

The IAB Tech Lab is actively rallying participation from across the ecosystem publishers, platforms, buyers, and technology vendors alike to co-develop the next-gen container framework.

So, while OpenRTB isn’t being scrapped, it’s getting a much-needed house remodel. And with standardised containers at the core, the programmatic future might just be cleaner, faster, and finally scalable with less duct tape.