Media agencies are finding new uses for AI while AI-generated creative still lags

David Dweck, svp of paid media at Wpromote, shared how his media agency leverages AI from companies like EDO — co-founded by actor Edward Norton — to analyze spot-by-spot search and conversion uplift based on ad creative and network programming. Wpromote also uses AI from Google to analyze display and YouTube assets, refine creative across social and search and then feed weekly optimizations into a large language model for insights. While it’s improving measurement and reporting efficiency, Dweck still finds AI-generated creative underwhelming.

“[AI] allows us to have a more senior team have more time for strategic thinking and pushing a client forward versus being in the weeds pulling bulk sheets out and uploading things,” Dweck said. “On the creative side, it is far from ready for showtime in terms of creative generation. … Gemini is not there, I’ll say that much.”

David Gaines, CEO media agency Media By Mother, described how automation has significantly reduced the need for traditional media planning roles. Instead of people putting budgets on spreadsheets, Gaines said AI helps free people up to be content planners who understand creative and context in ways computers can’t.

“I can get a machine to allocate budgets across channels and I can get a machine to allocate money into media,” Gaines said. “There are more than 33,000 choices you can make media [buys] in America. A human can’t do that. You’ve got to do that with a machine.”

Wariness over AI platforms

Media agencies are also still frustrated by the lack of transparency within AI-powered platforms like Google’s Performance Max and others. Without structured testing, brands and agencies risk starting from scratch with each new campaign.

As media agencies explore new AI capabilities, ad tech companies like Scope3 have built platforms for agencies and their clients to create new opportunities for buying media across the open web.

According to Scope3 CEO Brian O’Kelley, the company’s new agentic media platform creates new ways for agencies and advertisers to leverage data with more transparency. Part of the plan includes inviting agencies to create AI agents on the platform to help with various tasks related to media buying.

“Our platform that we’re building is really for transactional media buying agents, but we’re not the agent,” O’Kelley told Digiday ahead of the March 13 launch of its new platform. “We’re building the platform to let other people build those bespoke agents to do all the things they need to do.”

Some media agencies say they see the appeal. When asked on stage at DMBS about Scope3’s new Agentic Media platform, QRY CEO Samir Balwani said Scope3’s potential to disrupt the established order will depend on execution. He also questioned if brands will prefer to own and control AI tools outright or continue relying on media agencies to manage them.

“It’s going to go one of two routes. It’s either going to be great for us or it’s going to be horrible,” Balwani said. “That is going to be one of the questions we’re going to have to grapple with over the next few months of figuring out why should and why shouldn’t a brand just in-house that.”