Xaxis global chief executive Brian Lesser and Vivaki president, AOD and North American client services, Marco Bertozzi have both denied that the reported trend of advertisers taking programmatic in-house is actually taking place. The pair were interviewed during an ExchangeWire event in New York and were in agreement that reports that major advertisers have taken their programmatic buying in-house were false, and claimed that companies considering such a move was as a result of the "distracting" transparency conversation.