In an AI-obsessed ad world, MiQ bets the real problem is fragmentation

At a time when most adtech companies are busy branding themselves as “AI-powered,” MiQ is taking a different route. It isn’t pitching artificial intelligence as the breakthrough. Instead, it is pointing to a more fundamental issue the industry still hasn’t solved: fragmentation.

“AI is not new in this space,” says Varun Mohan, Chief Commercial Officer (India), MiQ. “What’s missing is bringing everything together.”

That “everything” refers to the three core pillars of digital advertising—data, activation, and measurement—which continue to operate in silos. As digital consumption scales, especially in markets like India, the challenge is no longer access to data, but making sense of it across platforms.

From scale to signal

India’s growth makes that gap increasingly visible. Internet users have grown from roughly 20 million a decade ago to nearly a billion today. Connected TV (CTV) households have also expanded rapidly, rising from about 20 million in 2022 to nearly 78 million.

But scale alone does not translate into effectiveness. "The one billion users are not all your customers,” Mohan says. “You need intelligence to figure out who actually matters—based on behaviour, intent, and context.”

MiQ’s Sigma platform is built around that premise. It integrates more than 300 data feeds and processes over 700 trillion consumer signals, mapping behaviour across 1.7 billion audience profiles globally. The focus is not just on identifying audiences, but on linking those insights directly to campaign execution and measurement.

According to the company, early results point to a 132% increase in conversion rates and a 57% reduction in cost per action. Sigma is also designed to continuously learn, retraining on data from over 6,000 campaigns. An interactive trading agent, built on historical trading data, is used to optimise performance in real time.

The neutrality play

MiQ’s differentiation lies as much in what it avoids owning as in what it builds. Unlike platforms such as Google and Amazon, which operate closed ecosystems combining data, media, and inventory, MiQ positions itself as neutral.

“We don’t want to own media, data, or platforms because that can introduce bias,” Mohan says. “Our objective is to stay unbiased and deliver what is best for the client.” Instead, the company works across platforms—including Google, Amazon, and Meta—while integrating signals from a wide network of data partners. The aim is to unify fragmented inputs rather than operate within a single ecosystem.

“If you have commercial commitments with any one platform, it can influence your recommendations,” he adds.

CTV growth, with caveats

Connected TV is emerging as a key growth area, but it brings its own set of challenges.

While adoption is rising, measurement frameworks are still evolving. Unlike mobile devices, CTV is typically shared within households, making precise targeting more difficult. “You can’t always know exactly who is watching,” Mohan says. “It could be a parent, a child; a CTV is still a shared device.”

“You need to think of it as TV getting smarter, not mobile getting bigger," he says.

AI, but with limits

Even as AI becomes central to campaign optimisation, MiQ is cautious about overstating its role. “AI can improve efficiency and outcomes, but it still depends on how you use it,” Mohan says. “The system needs human intelligence.”