Within five or so years, I believe, most inventory, even the units I mentioned above, will in some way be purchased via a programmatic platform. That might leave us wondering what the people will do. Currently our industry employees tens of thousands of people who market, sell, manage, flight, optimize, and report on display advertising. There’s going to be disruption in this marketplace, to be certain, but the crucial thing to remember is this: we want to employ people to do what people do best, and machines to do what machines do best. People are very good at creating content (machines, not so much), and very good at working in a consultative fashion with marketers. They are very good at coding and tending machines. And most importantly, we are exceptional at insight. The best publishing teams of the future are going to be partners to brands, publishers, and agencies, creating integrated, native experiences that leverage the machine’s scale and real time algorithms. The future, to me, is bright. Getting there, however, means we embrace change. Let’s get to work"
John Battelle- December 2012