In the shadow of shiny NAB demos and “transformational” press releases, a more candid discussion unfolded at this week’s virtual Streaming Media Connect—focused on Server-Guided Ad Insertion (SGAI), the Frankensteinian middle ground between server-side (SSAI) and client-side ad insertion (CSAI). While the technology promises something of a utopia for flexible monetization, its current proving ground is far from glamorous. FAST channels are the perfect place for content owners and advertisers to play around with SGAI, with the content low-stakes enough to fail without causing headline-grabbing disruption, but rich enough in experimentation to chart the way forward. “We’re not putting this on the Super Bowl,” quipped Sourya Roy, Senior Product Manager at Google, drawing a line between bleeding-edge innovation and production-grade…