The day after agency holding company Stagwell announced the inclusion of The Trade Desk’s new “alpha” Koa Agents within its marketing platform, The Trade Desk CEO Jeff Green sought to outline some of the specifics.
Koa’s agentic AI capabilities are designed for media planning, buying, optimization, and measurement “across the open internet,” according to Tuesday’s release.
Mr. Green said on LinkedIn yesterday:
- “We’re powering the agencies of the future.”
- “The agencies of the future are embracing AI and are powered by the only scaled, objective DSP—The Trade Desk.”
- “Agentic is not just about leveraging MCP basics to set up campaigns.”
- “We’re increasingly focused on powering the advertising companies of the future (those who make things more efficient, not those who exploit inefficiencies).”
He added, “This is the first of many similar agentic partnership announcements. We’re proud for the first to be with Stagwell.”
Read more on LinkedIn. (April 22)
From tipsheet: As noted yesterday in this newsletter, Koa Agents is part of TTD’s “Open Agentic Kit,” the all-new agentic integration framework — the details of which have not been fully revealed.
Related: PubMatic Brings Custom Creative Formats to AgenticOS: Creative, Planning, and Execution Run as One Workflow (April 22) – PubMatic
LLMs & CHATBOTS
Developments
- “Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, a comprehensive platform to build, scale, govern, and optimize agents.” (April 22) – Google Cloud blog
- Introducing workspace agents in ChatGPT (April 22) – OpenAI
- SpaceX and Cursor have explored a team-up with Mistral to take on AI rivals (April 22) – Business Insider (subscription)
LLMs & CHATBOTS
Screenshot: ChatGPT ads and CPCs
From Juozas Kaziukėnas on LinkedIn earlier this week:
“OpenAI started testing CPC ads for ChatGPT. I noticed them in the ads manager this morning. It is accepting max $3-$5 bids which feels arbitrary because in some categories that’s not high enough.
For the past two months, ChatGPT ads were buying impressions. Last week, they launched a conversion tracking pixel. This week, performance reports started showing conversion count (on top of the existing impression and click counts). Today, CPC ads got introduced. CPA (bidding for conversions) is marked as ‘coming soon.’
OpenAI is evolving the ads network super fast…” – Juozas Kaziukėnas on LinkedIn (April 21)
See more screenshots on LinkedIn. (April 21)
From tipsheet: Still early. But it’s something.
MARKETING
Pushing the AI for ‘great’
Digiday’s Sam Bradley finds that some practitioners in the agency world are finding the outputs from AI chatbots are a game changer — but only to a point.
Bradley writes:
“Marketing strategists are now habitual users of generative AI. But as tools like ChatGPT and Claude embed deeper into the work of agency execs and freelancers, more strategy practitioners are finding that the predictability of their responses is putting a lid on productivity gains.”
So, for example, you ask for “campaign strategy” and the conversational chatbot returns:
- Standard funnel breakdown
- Generic audience segments
- Safe channel mix (search + social + CTV)
It looks complete. But it looks the same, too.
Also, the AI may return a clean summary but it may also remove contradictions, average out extremes and will miss non-obvious angles.
Read: “Marketing strategists search for a solution to AI’s all-too predictable outputs” (April 22) – Digiday (subscription)
From tipsheet: The AI gets you to “good.” And then the human has to push for “great.”
DATA
Targeting omnichannel with in-app inventory
Unity is bringing its massive mobile gaming footprint — spanning “71% of the top 1,000 mobile games globally” — to Index Exchange, as it looks to activate that data across the web and CTV.
AdExchanger’s Anthony Vargas reports this marks the first time Unity’s first-party data is being activated outside its owned inventory.
Importantly, Unity isn’t selling data directly. Its audiences are packaged into curated media deals on Index, where Unity takes a cut of spend rather than licensing segments through a DSP.
Chris Feo, Unity’s SVP of programmatic sales and partnerships, told Vargas that “the advancements SSPs have made with curated deals over the past few years inspired Unity to look beyond its own ad platform for ways to activate its audience data.”
Unity’s release puts it simply: “The data has always been there. Now it is addressable.”
Read:
- Unity And Index Exchange Unite Behind Gaming Data In Non-Gaming Channels (April 22) – AdExchanger
- Gaming audiences everywhere: Unity and Index Exchange unlock omnichannel activation – Unity
From tipsheet: Unity supplies the signals, Index supplies the pipes. And AI (Unity’s Vector) is what turns gamers’ gameplay data into a bidding signal.
This is an emerging opportunity for SSPs. In a probabilistic, AI-driven world, the advantage goes to whoever sits closest to the transaction with the most signals — and can turn them into decisions.
AGENCIES
WPP sees Google Earth AI marketing opp
The physical world is more important than ever in digital marketing. That appears to be the premise of WPP’s announcement regarding the integration of Google’s “Earth AI” data within its WPP Open platform.
WPP CEO Cindy Rose OBE explained on LinkedIn:
“Following the expansion of our Cloud and AI partnership with Google, WPP is now one of the first marketing services companies to embed Google’s planetary-scale geospatial intelligence, Earth AI, directly into WPP Open, our agentic marketing platform.
We’re empowering our clients to anticipate consumer needs based on real-time physical factors like traffic, weather, and neighborhood movement patterns and predict demand and automate marketing at a hyper-local level. We’re helping our clients to shift from reactive postures to proactive, tangible business solutions.”
Ms. Rose names three unlocks for WPP with Earth AI:
- Advanced Audience Intelligence
- Predictive Media Planning
- Next-Generation Production
More: “WPP bridges the gap between digital marketing and physical reality with unique ‘Google Earth AI’ integration” (April 22) – WPP
From tipsheet: Google Earth AI data — and similar datasets — is pushing physical-world signals into media planning, especially across out-of-home and location-based channels. OOH yeah.
As those signals feed agentic systems, expect a renewed tension between optimization and consumer privacy.
Related: Introducing OpenAI Privacy Filter (April 22) – OpenAI
COMMERCE MEDIA
Fermat offers Commerce Graph
On Tuesday, Jennifer Schnadig, Chief of Staff, Fermat, announced her commerce media company’s new Commerce Graph.
“Today we’re launching an AI agent for large ecommerce brands that reads every session and learns why shoppers convert, hesitate, or leave.
We call it Commerce Graph, and it’s live in public beta today. (…)
Commerce Graph is different because it isn’t another analytics tool bolted onto the pile. Since FERMÀT generates the commerce experience itself, the same platform that builds the site watches every interaction inside it. Every session trains the agent, every improvement it drives generates richer data, and the loop compounds.” – Jennifer Schnadig, Chief of Staff, Fermat
Read more on LinkedIn. (April 21)
More: “Your shoppers tell you what they click. Commerce Graph tells you why” (April 21) – Fermat
From tipsheet: Product feeds are ad feeds.
CONNECTED TV
EDO pitches its ‘Vertical AI’
Ahead of the TV upfronts, EDO is pitching its “Vertical AI” as a solution for outcomes-based TV measurement and is offering agencies free access to test its related intelligence product — a potential blow to competitors that charge for a similar solution.
The vertical here is “convergent TV” or linear + CTV/streaming.
There are two parts to EDO:
-
Intelligence: EDO is promoting ChatEDO, an LLM-based interface that surfaces ad intelligence for planning, strategy, and investment decisions. The company describes it as turning its “investment-grade TV outcomes data into a conversational experience.”
-
Outcomes measurement: EDO’s Ad EnGage is its flagship TV outcomes measurement product and sits outside the limited-time free offering.
Read: EDO Unlocks Free TV Ad Intelligence for Ad Agencies Ahead of 2026 Upfront (April 22) – EDO
More:
-
EDO Launches ‘EDO Always-On’, Delivering Automated, Scaled Outcomes Measurement for Convergent TV (January 28) – press release
From tipsheet: EDO is repositioning itself following its January lawsuit verdict with iSpot. Read more in Adweek.
EDO and rivals like iSpot and Samba TV are moving TV measurement toward outcomes — the feedback loop AI models train on.
As agencies shift toward agentic buying, whoever owns that dataset shapes how the models optimize.
Related: PayPal announces Curated Ads for CTV – Mark Grether, GM, PayPal on LinkedIn
PLATFORMS
Meta’s Business AI expands
Yesterday on LinkedIn, Meta CMO Alex Schultz announced an expansion of Meta AI business assistant, which was first announced as part of Meta’s Business AI product rollout last October.
Mr. Schultz said on LinkedIn:
“We first tested this with a small group of US small businesses during Advertising Week last October. Today, we’re opening it up much more broadly.
Why? Because running ads shouldn’t require a degree in media buying.
If you’re a small business owner, you’re probably also the CFO, the customer service team, the social media manager, and the person who takes out the rubbish. You don’t have time to learn a new platform from scratch. You need to be able to say “help me reach more people like my best customers” and get a real answer. That’s what the Meta AI business assistant does, it helps you create campaigns, troubleshoot performance, and understand your results through a conversation.”
From tipsheet: A couple of trends…
- Ad platforms are trying to make it easier for SMB marketers to use their system. AI chatbots are the solution. Yesterday, Google announced updates to its Ads Advisor solution, too.
- The second trend is the opportunity to unlock SMB budget at scale courtesy of AI and automation. If ads can work for SMBs, which likely have tight budgets, this could have an enormous positive impact on the advertising industry.
SELL-SIDE
Mixing videos with AI on TikTok
TikTok and creators are embracing AI and its ability to generate and remix entertaining videos. But now TikTok is challenging creators with a new level of functionality.
Ad Age’s Gillian Follet reported: “TikTok is testing a feature that lets users ‘remix’ creators’ content using generative AI, but creators worry it could strip them of control over their likeness. Influencer marketing leaders agree the concern is warranted; however, they say those fears may be overblown in this case.”
TikTok has been busy with AI for creators. Last June at the Cannes Lions ad festival, TikTok launched a basket of generative AI tools including Image to Video, Text to Video, and Showcase Products.
Read: “TikTok is letting users remix videos with AI—what creators need to know” (April 22) – Ad Age
More: “‘Emergency Roll Call’: TikTok Creators Scramble To Turn Off New AI Setting” (April 21) – Pedestrian
From tipsheet: If your data (including video) is on the internet, assume others have access to your data and may use it for one purpose or another — publishers know this conundrum well.
How much, or to what degree, another party can re-purpose it appears to be the question. And at its core are implications for intellectual property rights.
Ironically, “How to Remix TikTok Videos” appears to be a popular channel on TikTok.
COMMERCE MEDIA
WPP Commerce launches
The first phase of WPP’s two-year turnaround was outlined in an Adweek interview with Brent Taylor, global CEO of the new WPP Commerce unit.
WPP Commerce is the “dedicated arm for commerce expertise that up until now has primarily been part of WPP Media and VML.” Taylor previously led WPP’s retail marketing agency, Barrows.
Taylor said the restructuring is designed to concentrate commerce expertise in one unit spanning WPP’s four core areas: media, creative, enterprise solutions, and production.
More: “WPP Restructures Commerce Expertise Into One Team” (April 22) – Adweek (subscription)
From tipsheet: Like WPP Open, WPP Media and WPP Production, Ms. Rose is collapsing capabilities into branded, centralized units. Commerce isn’t a specialty anymore — it’s becoming infrastructure across the agency stack.
PEOPLE MOVES
Now hiring
-
Former Yahoo and Verve executive Morgan Jetto joins Bridge as EVP, Business Development & Ecosystems (April 22) – LinkedIn
MORE
- Your AI Data, Now Up For Auction (April 22) – John Battelle on LinkedIn
- When it Comes “AI Unleashed” – Big Brands and Media Companies are Still Uber-Cautious (April 21) – Mike Shields on Next in Media
- Meta Faces ‘Scam Ads’ Suit (April 21) – MediaPost
- Trusted Media Brands Gets An AI Assist To Sell Cross-Platform Audiences (April 22) – AdExchanger
- Google Ads Makes Call Recording Default For AI Lead Calls (April 21) – Search Engine Journal