From Dentsu’s Carat to indie shop Apollo Partners, agencies are threading generative AI deep into their daily operations—not to kill jobs, but to give humans a smarter, faster colleague. Carat recently partnered with tech firm Vurvey Labs to roll out agent-based tools through Dentsu.Connect, aimed at building richer consumer personas, auto-tracking trends, and speeding up decision-making. These tools ingest data from Dentsu’s own sources, clients’ first-party info, and third-party reports, making them especially helpful in real-time collaboration and creative ideation.
In one live test with a restaurant chain, Carat tapped into Vurvey’s massive video feedback repository and quickly turned it into both smarter media recommendations and sharper creative input. Carat’s team was able to assess which channels and formats (like social, OOH, or CTV) resonated best—without lengthy decks or endless research. According to Carat’s Michael Liu, “writing the questions took longer than getting the insights.” Their AI agents aren’t basic bots—they mimic team specialists, brainstorm 24/7, and apparently take no days off.
Meanwhile, Apollo Partners is building its AI stack from scratch. Led by new hire Trevis Milton, a media pro who also codes, Apollo is focusing on shaving tons of hours off manual QA work and putting deterministic tools directly in planners’ hands. One QA process has already been compressed from eight hours to two minutes—and they’re just getting started. Milton says building in-house means taking control over risk, while founder Eric Perko notes that it’s rare to find someone who speaks both AI and media fluently.
Full story at Digiday.