Topsort, an AI-based retail media infrastructure company, has announced the appointment of Ricardo Zilleruelo as its Principal Engineer, a move which the company believes reinforces its commitment to being “a democratizer of Silicon Valley’s monetization tech and ad tech”. In a strategic shift, Topsort is developing its proprietary ad tech in-house, leveraging its own algorithmic personalisation offering to move beyond reliance on traditional third-party solutions.
New Digital Age spoke with Regina Ye, CEO and co-founder of Topsort, to find out more…
Your company mission is to “democratize walled garden ad technology into infrastructure products for retailers and marketplaces worldwide.” Can you explain that in more detail?
What we’re doing in retail media is trying to take the same technology that’s reaped some of the biggest players in Big Tech massive profits for years and bring that to the masses. For example, a few large players, like Amazon and Google, have built complex, closed ecosystems, where only a few select advertisers can participate. At Topsort, we believe in a different approach and think everyone should get a slice of the retail media boom.
Therefore, our mission is to create the best AI-driven retail media infrastructure that is not only purpose-built for customers’ needs but also maximizes efficiency and ROI. We do this by taking the best of this technology—AI-driven ad auctions, privacy-safe attribution, and seamless media buying—and make it available as easy-to-integrate infrastructure for retailers and marketplaces of all shapes and sizes.
Instead of forcing companies to build costly, in-house ad tech stacks or rely on legacy systems that just don’t meet their goals anymore, we provide a flexible, API-driven retail media solution that allows them to monetize efficiently while giving brands and agencies a more transparent and scalable way to engage with customers. In a sense, it’s retail media their way and that’s how we think it should be.
What is the role of AI in this particular solution?
This is a question we are focused heavily on answering, as many people just don’t understand how AI fits into this retail media equation, and for good reason. There are lots of claims that AI is powering this or that, but it is really having a significant impact on retail media and it’s the reason we are investing so much of our resources into it. AI is at the core of what we do and we describe our platform as “AI-first”.
Specifically, we use AI to make ad buying more efficient, to automate campaign optimization, and to ensure reporting is actually insightful. In addition, we use it to make sure ads are coming in at the right time and place. Our AI-driven auction model ensures that ads are placed where they will drive the most value while remaining fair and transparent for advertisers. AI also helps us process and analyze vast amounts of campaign data in real-time, allowing retailers and brands to make smarter decisions without requiring heavy manual intervention.
For us, AI is really just about making retail media make sense for all players involved in the ecosystem, removing barriers to entry, increasing ROI, and ensuring that everyone gets a fair shake when trying to cash in on the channel.
How does the appointment of Ricardo Zilleruelo move things forward at Tosport?
I’m a former software engineer, and so are my two founding partners, Michael and Francisco. For us, we didn’t want to be a retail media company led by marketers or retailers, but one led by technologists who would know how to innovate as the industry evolved and who were interested in listening to the latter to help guide our product roadmap. For this reason, Ricardo’s appointment is a major step forward for Topsort because it reinforces our identity as a product-led, engineering-first company.
Ricardo brings deep expertise in AI, search, and large-scale engineering—having led teams at Google, Groupon, and Lyft. His experience in AI-driven commerce solutions is perfectly aligned with our vision of creating the most advanced and efficient AI-first retail media infrastructure. With his leadership, we are doubling down on our investment in AI and scalable engineering to stay ahead in an industry that is rapidly evolving.
What are your key business priorities for the rest of the year?
Our key priority for the rest of this year is to continue to build our AI-first retail media infrastructure so it meets the ever-evolving needs of our customers but also maximizes efficiency and ROI. That’s our North Star and the day-to-day goal.
Aside from that, another important priority is perhaps more philosophical, rooted in our desire to continue on evangelizing clean, cookieless advertising. Even though the end of third-party cookies is stalled, we think the industry has already left the creepy advertising station and is well on its way down the tracks. For this, we are always enhancing our data privacy and thinking about how to bring more joy to ads, versus the typical big brother vibe of yesterday.
