Media Buying Briefing: Instrument’s CEO on how agencies need to lead clients on AI

Since then, CEO Laurel Burton and team have embraced AI in multiple forms to not only work more efficiently but to help clients and would-be clients to imagine themselves in ways not doable just a handful of years ago. Where Instrument eight years ago did a project for Facebook Portal that required 14 weeks of work just for the discovery (which included stakeholder interviews, market research, competitive analysis, etc) and then built eight different websites, Burton said that if today, it would take a fraction of the time and a much different interface. 

“It was a workaround of what we actually wanted to do,” recalls Burton, who’s been with Instrument since 2013 and its CEO since late 2023. “We wanted to build something all the way up here, but we had to make compromises and find each other on middle [ground]…”

Burton spoke with Digiday to discuss how Instrument is adapting to an AI-first world, in its offerings, its talent and its tech.

This conversation has been edited for space and clarity.   

Instrument sits at the intersection of technology, design and creativity, and AI has plopped itself like an uninvited guest in the middle of that intersection. How do you make room for it?

People’s AI literacy are at many different levels, even when you go from an agency standpoint, and I’m very thankful that Instrument’s AI literacy is more advanced than most agencies … Across the industry, though, AI is a drainer for a lot of people — here it’s an absolute catalyst because it’s enabling the vision that we’ve always had. The technology has finally caught up to what we’re able to actually deliver … I know it’s a buzzword when we say AI or agentic, but to me it is an enablement for us to actually be able to now push ourselves into a place to where, in the past [what would have been] the final output are actually now our starting ground.

AI is absolutely closing the delta between idea and creation. That is a non-negotiable. And the parts that are collapsing are really around the strategy side of the business. Now I need my strategists doing a completely different job. So AI has moved the value into a different part of the work we do here at Instrument … It’s around, how do we take those insights and connect them to a strategic response that is undeniable to the output of what the business outcomes are?

What’s a contemporary example of the kind of work that you’re empowered to do today that blows past all possibilities of yesterday?

A lot of brands and clients are thinking, ‘you did this, and now layer in AI.’ We’re like, no, no — AI isn’t a feature anymore. It is the absolute product that we are delivering on, [doing] what we would never have been able to do eight years ago…

With [wellness app] Thorne we just did a Vibe Sprint — it’s a proprietary go-to product where we build a small, nimble, cross functional team, take a core problem statement that the client has, and in three days they have tangible, shippable outcomes. Each one of those team members are vibe coding, prototyping and building against a tangible system versus the tools of eight years ago that were sketch but now we can we can actually be prompt engineering and building actual outputs with [collaborative design interface] Figma and MCP [model context protocol], in three days. We also helped them figure out where they are and pull them along and radically changed their product and the output of what it is.

So you get a lot of AI companies coming to you for help?

I can’t even count how many times in a week we get a new company that’s come out of stealth mode, that’s now looking for their value prop and their position and how they’re standing out. How are we discerning in the work that we’re going to do — because that’s also really important to us here. The work we do isn’t about breadth and noise, it’s about depth and building things that actually matter, shaping a better future, and making the complex simple. In one week, we might get five to 15 reach outs from AI companies that are like, “We need a new brand. We need to stand out in the market.” And we have our due diligence to say, “Where is the effort?”

So you’re actually turning away companies that don’t feel like they’re making a difference?

We want to work with partners who have the same ambition as us, and that ambition needs to use technology to create a better future. There are partners that are just building a product, because they think Meta or Google will just buy them. That’s not where we want to put our effort.

How much interaction with the rest of Stagwell do have? How much does Stagwell let you invest in what you need to stay ahead?

I’m watching WPP, R/GA, AKQA, whoever it is, just go out and acquire a business. Rather than evolve and transform from the internal nucleus, they’re like: let’s bolt it on. It’s not making its way into the internal, cellular nature of these companies.

Within the Code and Theory network, technology investments are the ones that I never have to defend. The agency should always be more advanced than the client, and that’s why we have to invest in the areas that are unattainable to them in the day to day. Stagwell has slowed acquisitions. The directive from [Code and Theory Network exec chairman] Dan Gardner and [Stagwell CEO] Mark Penn has been, “You put together a strategy.” They’re not handing me the ideas. It’s kind of a mandate, and I have to say, I appreciate it.

How are you developing talent for executing on this?

We have an initiative for this year, Instrument Intelligence, in that we are building the most intelligent workforce of the future. Instrument Intelligence will not just be a strategic initiative, it will be a year over year investment that we make into our humans around our learning and development, our operability around what is our strategy for experimentation? We want prototyping constantly, but you know what? Every 90 days, those prototypes are evaluated and some are killed, and we learn from them. 

For example, two years ago I needed a design director to be incredible at building a design system, because that was the output. That same design director today is completely different in that we’re actually now designing behaviors. They are building a behavioral interface for brands, which is completely different … Designers needed to be thinking about tokens and MCP and code prompts — it’s completely different. And that’s my must have moving forward.

Publicis continues sports M&A push

While its competitors merge, rebrand and restructure, Publicis Groupe is continuing to acquire agency units — and its most recent focus has been on media’s hottest venue: sports. The French holdco’s latest move is the acquisition of sports and creator agency 160over90 from WME Group, for a reported $500 million.

The firm counts 670 staff based across the U.S., Europe and Asia Pacific, and will be folded into Publicis Sports under its CEO Suzy Deering. The deal includes an ongoing “strategic partnership” with WME. Parent company CEO Arthur Sadoun described sports as the holdco’s “next big bet”, on par in importance with identity resolution, commerce and creators — the other areas in which Publicis has made acquisitions in recent years.

“In the age of AI, it has become one of the most high-value channels for clients, delivering unparalleled cultural relevance, live engagement, and measurable impact,” said Sadoun. 

Publicis has made other sports investments this year, including the formation of creator-focused Influential Sports in February. — Sam Bradley

Color by numbers

With the NewFronts in the rearview mirror, several platforms made their arguments about the tools they have that can deliver audiences for marketers. Human insights company GWI examined two of the platforms, TikTok and Snap, and found a gap in what they say they can deliver, and how many marketers actually spend on them.

• For example, TikTok rolled out new formats including TopReach and Prime Time as a means to harness cultural moments at scale. According to GWI data, it reaches 42% of consumers monthly (31% daily), but only 5% of companies use it in their marketing mix.
• Similarly, Snap said it delivers 2 trillion annual Snaps (~63,000 per second) and showed off new ad formats that aim to deliver on both brand and performance. GWI data shows 28% of consumers use Snapchat monthly (19% daily), and yet just 2% of companies use it for marketing.

Takeoff & landing

• Publicis landed Microsoft‘s global media business, said to be worth some $700 million in global media spend according to Comvergence. The incumbent was Dentsu. Sources said the win is likely part of a broader tech partnership the French holdco is forming with the software giant, but details were not available at press time.
• WPP Media appears to be picking up business in the APAC region. While WPP Media Malaysia secured integrated media AOR duties for Ikea, Wavemaker in India picked up Wipro Consumer Care & Lighting’s media business. 
• Speaking of India, Havas Media Network there picked up media AOR duties for Akash Educational Services Limited following a review. 
• CourtAvenue purchased data strategy and customer data platform (CDP) consultancy GTX Solutions to enhance its data prowess across AI, customer experience, martech, performance media, experiential and creative technology. Terms of the cash and stock deal were not disclosed.
• The OAAA and Geopath chose Ipsos to power an industry pilot program in late 2026, part of the development of a next-generation measurement platform for the out of home media industry. 
• Personnel moves: Kyu, the holding company behind Kepler (and which is owned by Hakuhodo) promoted Rick Greenberg, founding CEO of Kepler, to CEO, succeeding Michael Birkin, who  becomes chairman … Monks / S4 Capital hired Alex Oberberg to be its new chief revenue officer for the EMEA region … Stagwell hired Michael Twedell to be its first svp of Enterprise AI Solutions, coming from Bounteous where he was svp of growth … Adtech platform Big Happy hired Alison Mayes, former managing director and consulting lead at Apollo Partners, to be its vp of strategic partnerships and agency development.

Direct quote

“People are increasingly asking ChatGPT what they should buy, where they should eat, or which services they should use. That means brands now have a reputation inside AI systems — and most companies have no idea what it is. This feels very similar to SEO in the early 2000s. The companies that start building for AI discovery now will have a massive advantage in the next few years.”

—Joseph Levi, founder and CEO of digital marketing agency Noise Media Group.

Speed reading

• Seb Joseph and Krystal Scanlon teamed up to assess how just how rattled the markets will get if the war in the Middle East drags on. In short, predictability has become a luxury. 
• Kimeko McCoy analyzed how well received marketers and agencies were to Walmart Vizio’s measurement and attribution capabilities. In short, there are issues. 
• McCoy also wrote about how marketers are revamping their test-and-learn budgets to account for things like generative search optimization (GEO), ChatGPT pilot ads and even out-of-home.