Tag: agency news
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👀 Eye See What You Did There: Dentsu Bakes Eye-Tracking Into Retail Media Planning
Dentsu is betting that where shoppers look matters just as much as what they buy. In what it’s calling a “world’s first,” the agency network has integrated real-world eye-tracking data into its global media planning system. Partnering with Co-op Media Network and Lumen Research, the system pulls in attention data from surveys done at UK…
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Cannes Gets an AI Concierge
Agencies heading to Cannes this year aren’t just packing sunscreen—they’re also loading up AI copilots. From Pereira O’Dell’s custom GPT that spits out packing lists and fashion tips, to Lerma/’s “Podemos AI” navigating unofficial venues like Spotify Beach, AI is the unsung assistant helping teams survive the conference chaos. Even Google’s latest AI-enhanced search is…
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Ask, Analyze, Act: Direct Agents Debuts Kanopy AI
Direct Agents is making marketing data a team sport with the launch of Kanopy AI, a platform built to tackle the chaos of disconnected data streams across channels. Data is pulled together and organized into a single, coherent view, then made navigable for marketers via a natural-language interface—no SQL wizardry needed. This means anyone from…
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WPP Media launches Open Intelligence
GroupM may have a new name (hello, WPP Media), but it’s a familiar ambition: dominate digital media through smarter targeting. The holding company has rolled out Open Intelligence, a new AI-powered identity solution designed to create tailored predictive models using first-party data and sources like CTV and retail networks. Unlike consumer-facing LLMs scraping the web’s…
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Bye-Bye Billable Hours? Sorrell Bets Big on Output in the Age of AI
S4 Capital’s Sir Martin Sorrell is inching away from the traditional billable hour, leaning into a future where output trumps time. On a recent earnings call, Sorrell explained how generative AI is nudging the agency world toward performance-based pricing models, especially as marketers face mounting pressure to trim production costs without shrinking media budgets. The…
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If This, Then Brand: Landor’s AI Playbook for the Future
WPP’s brand transformation agency, Landor, is rolling out what it calls an “Intelligent Brand System,” a kind of AI-friendly blueprint that codifies brand behavior with if-then logic, data-informed guidelines, and governance structures. This system aims to serve as a real-time decisioning engine for anything from media buys to creative execution, ensuring that a brand’s essence…
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Built for Bots: Inside the First Agentic-First Agency
10,000 Robots (10KR) isn’t just a catchy agency name—it’s a literal headcount. The newly launched agency is powered by more AI agents than human employees, and its founders (all former YML executives) intend to keep it that way. With AI handling tasks typically farmed out to junior staff, 10KR relies on a lean team of…
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Ammunition Fires Up Venture Studio for Startups and Agencies
Atlanta-based creative agency Ammunition is throwing more than just clever campaigns into the mix—it’s launching a full-blown venture studio. Dubbed Ammunition Ventures, the initiative aims to give early-stage startups and creative agencies a much-needed boost, combining up to $500,000 in capital and agency services per investment. The plan? Select two to three strategic partners over…
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From 40 Days to 4 Hours—How Jellyfish’s AI Agents Are Rewiring Media Buying
Jellyfish, a Brandtech Group agency, is leaning into AI for efficiency — and the results are eye-opening. By automating tasks traditionally handled by junior media buyers — like campaign setup, reporting dashboards, and daily budget optimization — Jellyfish has slashed campaign launch times by a massive 65%. Instead of waiting up to 40 days, clients…
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“Talk to the Bot, Get the Job” — Monks’ AI Recruiter Is the New Interview Gatekeeper
Forget cover letters and corporate jargon. S4-owned Media.Monks is testing a different kind of first impression: WesleyBot, a chatbot recruiter modeled after co-founder Wesley ter Haar. Built inside ChatGPT with a custom 1,200-word system prompt, WesleyBot is designed to identify AI-savvy candidates by mimicking ter Haar’s tone — direct, witty, and Dutchly pragmatic. It quizzes…
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AI-Powered Pitches: How One CEO Used ChatGPT to Build a Winning Proposal
When tasked with delivering a high-stakes RFI and RFP during the holiday season, Dave Gaines, CEO of Media By Mother, turned to generative AI instead of disrupting his team’s time off. The pitch was for a global multinational client, typically requiring a team and weeks of effort, but Gaines decided to experiment with ChatGPT. He…
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WPP’s AI Playbook: Less Hype, More Smart Decisions
At The Drum’s Predictions 2025 event, WPP’s Chief AI Officer, Daniel Hulme, laid out the company’s approach to AI—one that prioritizes solving actual business problems over chasing shiny new tech. Hulme warned against the common pitfall of using AI to generate insights without a clear plan for decision-making. He emphasized that businesses often don’t suffer…
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Dentsu Taps Adobe’s AI Power: A Smarter Content Supply Chain
Dentsu has announced the launch of Adobe GenStudio Dentsu+, a platform that integrates Adobe’s GenStudio suite with Dentsu’s services and Merkury data and identity platform. This AI-powered content supply chain aims to help Dentsu’s clients reach and engage audiences in a personalized and scalable manner. Abbey Klaassen, Global Brand President of Dentsu Creative and CEO…
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Adobe and Brandtech Team Up to Elevate AI-Powered Marketing
Brandtech Group has partnered with Adobe in a bold move aimed at redefining the marketing landscape through generative AI. This collaboration integrates Adobe’s Firefly Services into Brandtech’s Pencil Pro, a marketing platform already leveraged by brands like Miller Lite and Durex. Pencil Pro users gain access to Adobe’s creative suite, allowing them to create, analyze,…
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4A’s Noteworthy News – 25th Edition
THE BIG STORY: Does the rise of AI agents threaten the mobile app economy?The rise of AI-powered agents is sparking predictions of a major paradigm shift in the mobile app economy, with some industry watchers forecasting the end of mobile apps. As AI agents become more capable, some wonder if users will eventually bypass apps…
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4A’s Noteworthy News – 23rd Edition
THE BIG STORY: The Rise of Agentic AI – Revolution or Reframe? Agentic AI is pushing boundaries, with platforms like Microsoft (this week) and Salesforce (in September) announcing robust autonomous agents poised to reshape workflows across industries. Microsoft’s new “co-pilots” aim to shoulder end-to-end processes with little to no human touch, and Salesforce’s AgentForce offers…
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Dentsu launches “House of Creators” project to support next gen content creation
Dentsu has launched “House of Creators,” a program designed to support next-generation content creators, starting on Roblox. This initiative focuses on accelerating creative talent, integrating intellectual property (IP) into creator projects, and fostering collaborations between brands and creators. With Roblox as a key partner, Dentsu aims to empower about 30 creators by the end 2024,…
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Inside DDB’s Custom AI Tools
DDB is embracing the transformative power of GenAI through experimentation with a set of custom AI tools embedded into the agency’s RAND platform, a tech-focused creative initiative that supports creatives in refining ideas, exploring new angles, and ensuring originality in their work. Over the past 18 months, George Strakhov, DDB’s global head of creative technology,…
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4A’s Noteworthy News – 14th Edition
THE BIG STORY: Google beats OpenAI to voice punch, launches new Pixel phones and Gemini Live This week, Google made significant waves with its latest announcements, revealing new AI-driven features and the launch of the Pixel 9 lineup. Gemini AI will power an expanded suite of capabilities across the new Pixel devices. With Apple announcing…
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WPP Automates 3D asset development with NVIDIA AI: Coca-Cola and Ford lead early adoption
WPP is leveraging NVIDIA’s AI technology to generate 3D environments for diverse market campaigns. Announced at the SIGGRAPH computing conference, WPP will utilize NVIDIA’s microservices to search visual archives and code objects into virtual settings. These tools, accessible via NIM, streamline AI model use in production, making WPP the first to employ these for Universal…
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4A’s Noteworthy News – 12th Edition
THE BIG STORY: Walking the GenAI Tightrope – Balancing Transparency and Trust in Advertising Recent articles reveal a critical balancing act underway in the advertising industry: transparency in AI usage is crucial to maintaining trust, but disclosing AI involvement risks alienating consumers. A study by Washington State University found that using the term “artificial intelligence”…
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How agencies balance media and creative as AI projects ramp up
As AI projects ramp up, agencies are balancing media and creative efforts by integrating AI tools into their strategies. IPG’s Huge, for example, has increased AI-driven projects to 25%, working with partners like Google to create personalized, AI-informed experiences. Custom AI platforms are also being developed for analytics, audience research, and campaign optimization. Despite AI’s…
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Media.Monks launches Persona.Flow
S4Capital’s Media.Monks has enhanced its existing Monks.Flow service with additional AI-powered features that transform owned customer data into customer personas that the agency and its clients can interact with via a chatbot interface. Persona.Flow offers a user-friendly interface to help brands streamline strategy workflows, increase their precision, and democratize deep data insights. Its core technology…
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IPG Unveils “Engine,” an AI-powered platform created in partnership with Adobe
Advertising holding companies are investing heavily in AI-enhanced solutions for automation and to improve the effectiveness of their work for clients. IPG is the latest to weigh in with their “Engine” announcement. IPG has unveiled a first-to-market partnership with Adobe through which the holding company is restructuring how all of its agencies and other units…
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IPG’s Huge Unveils AI-powered Subscription Product
As the marketing ecosystem continues to wrestle with the impact of generative AI, Huge has launched a new subscription product called “Culture Decoder”. Huge, the IPG agency that pivoted last year to become a creative consultancy is unveiling today a new product for clients — an AI-powered tool designed to help brands better understand the…
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Publicis Groupe announces CoreAI platform and €300 million AI investment
The French advertising giant is doubling down on its early investments in AI platforms like Marcel. The proprietary CoreAI platform will focus on 5 areas: Insights and strategy, media planning, creative and production, software development and operations. In addition, the Groupe disclosed that it will invest €300 in AI over the next three years, with…
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Dentsu adds Amazon GenAI tools to its growing suite of technology
From AdAge… Dentsu has struck a deal with Amazon Web Services that will bring more generative AI tools into the holding company’s growing technology arsenal. Two key platforms developed by AWS will now be accessible to Dentsu employees, for both client-facing and internal operations. Bedrock is a hub of AI models sourced from numerous providers,…
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Publicis Groupe uses AI to send 100k personalized videos to employees
When I was at Razorfish, the annual Publicis Groupe holiday greetings were something I always looked forward to. It was great to see senior leadership showing off their lighter side (or, when appropriate – a very serious side). This year’s greeting turned into an AI-powered personalized message that seems like it took a village of…
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Stagwell demos “SmartAssets” AI Platform at CES
The marketing world started paying serious attention to CES nearly 20 years ago, and most major holding companies send a contingent of folks to Las Vegas to help guide (and schmooze) clients through the chaos of one of the world’s biggest trade shows. But it is rare that an agency or a holding company actually…
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Pereira O’Dell uses AI to create virtual focus groups
Built on ChatGPT-4, the agency’s new “Insights Machine” enables staff and clients to simulate conversations with several different AI-powered personas. Bernard is a 40-year-old libertarian, does accounting for a tech company and likes to listen to Pearl Jam while lifting weights. He also doesn’t exist. Bernard is one of a handful of artificial personas created…
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Pedro Lerma on celebrating diversity through AI
Great piece at AdAge from Lerma/ founder Pedro Lerma on the importance prioritizing diversity at all times, not just during recognizable events like Hispanic Heritage Month – and on the challenges presented by bias in AI. As Hispanic Heritage Month comes to an end, a recurring sentiment echoes in my mind. It is a sentiment…
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Ogilvy is putting Adobe’s gen AI tool Firefly to use
Agency adoption of gen AI tools is widely varied, as is the maturity of those efforts. The Drum has a great piece showcasing how Ogilvy has been using early-access beta version of Adobe’s gen AI tools, and how it helps the shop navigate some of the most common concerns surrounding gen AI (security, copyright, IP,…
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Dentsu Creative’s “Artificial Client” gives AI-generated feedback on your work
This is a really fun experiment from the agency holding company – they have created three different AI-powered client archetypes who will provide feedback on your creative work – be it a UX design, identity design or a TV commercial script. If you don’t have any of that handy, the AI engine will create one…
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BBDO is using AI to write better briefs
Agencies big and small are wrestling with the implications and embracing the opportunities presented by generative AI. Most of the conversations we’ve been privy to seem to indicate that the technology can help in different ways throughout the entire campaign development lifecycle, but that it can be especially useful in strategy/planning/inspiration. Case in point, the…
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IPG Mediabrands partners with Google Cloud to accelerate brand AI adoption
As the agency community wrestles with the wide-ranging implications of AI, more and more agencies are announcing deals with tech companies to support operational efficiencies and new capabilities. IPG Mediabrands struck a deal with Google to speed up brands’ use of AI by using Google Cloud to develop applications that use generative AI to “codify the essence…
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How major agencies are using AI
AI has quickly becoming pervasive in the advertising industry. You can always browse our curated examples for artificial intelligence broadly or more specifically generative AI, but AdAge has launched a great roundup of plans and announcements from agencies. As major marketers consider capitalizing on new forms of artificial intelligence, ad agencies see a rich opportunity…