Welcome to Week In Review
From new tools transforming creative work, to campaigns reshaped by automation, we track the biggest shifts at the intersection of AI, media, and marketing. This week, Scope3 rebrands to Apostra, IAB Europe report reveals marketers want more AI guidelines, and OpenAI taps into the influencer marketing scene.
Top Stories of the Week
Scope3 Rebrands to Apostra
Ad tech company Scope3, which has so far focused on sustainability in the ad supply chain, has changed its name to Apostra and is pivoting its focus to AI, reflecting the firm’s heavy focus on agentic media buying in recent times.
Why it matters: Scope3 built its reputation on becoming one of the biggest carbon intelligence platforms in the industry for programmatic. Its rebrand to Apostra signals a belief that AI decisioning in media buying and autonomous media trading is a durable opportunity.
Marketers Want AI Governance and Guidance, Says IAB Report
IAB Europe released its recent 2026 Impact of AI on Digital Advertising Report during DMEXCO (Digital Marketing Exposition & Conference) in Cologne. One of the key findings of the report is that security is the biggest concern when it comes to AI concerns and 62 percent say they would benefit from AI guidelines developed by an industry association.
Why it matters: The study looks at how organisations across digital advertising are adopting AI today, and managing some of the challenges involved with this adoption. In addition to wanting more guidelines, 38 percent of respondents say they are still assessing the impact of the recent EU AI Act, suggesting marketers are both grappling with current regulation and still hoping for more.
OpenAI Taps Influencers to Build Reputation
ChatGPT creator OpenAI is currently tapping into influencer marketing as a means of building its reputation as being a tool that can support work that’s ‘good for the world’ – that’s what was revealed in a campaign pitch viewed by Business Insider.
Why it matters: OpenAI, and the AI industry as a whole, has been battling with growing ‘anti-AI’ sentiment amongst the general public. This feeling was, in part, fuelled by an ex-Anthropic employee – Jacob Coxon – publicly declaring that there’s a 10 percent chance AI causes the end of humanity.
Quote of the Week
Brands
Nestlé Appoints WPP Across China
The FMCG giant Nestlé has appointed WPP to build and run an end-to-end content operating model across its China market. WPP has said the model will support the brands under Nestlé in producing AI-powered content and output at scale.
Adobe and Jet2 Partner for Agentic CX
Holiday travel company Jet2 announced a multi-year partnership with Adobe, giving the brand access to Adobe CX Enterprise to create more personalised experiences for customers. This will include access to Adobe CX Enterprise Coworker, an agentic AI tool that will enable Jet2’s team deliver destination ideas and curated itineraries based on a customer’s travel history and preferences, for example.
Agencies
WPP Opens London AI Production Hub
WPP opened Devon’s Point, a flagship production facility in East London and the first in a planned global rollout of similar hubs. The facility will bring together shooting and editing facilities, advanced AI production tools, creator collaboration spaces, virtual production environments, and post-production operations.
Dentsu Launches Studio in India
Dentsu India has launched Dentsu Performance Studio, a performance marketing practice for creative, media, production and measurement in one place and operating model.
Tech
Amazon Blocks Meta’s Muse
Amazon has blocked Meta’s Muse – the company’s recently launched personal AI agent – from Amazon.com as users who sent Muse to shop on Amazon began seeing a popup stating the agent was prohibited from entering the website because of ‘Amazon’s Conditions of Use’.
ChatGPT Ads Expands Into Southeast Asia and Taiwan
OpenAI announced the expansion of ChatGPT Ads into Southeast Asia – including Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines and Taiwan.
Amazon Rolls Out Agentic AI for Third-Party Sellers
Amazon has introduced a new agentic AI service for third-party sellers on its website. This would let third-party sellers on its marketplace automate elements of product listing optimisation, inventory management, advertising campaign creation and customer communication.
Trusted Euro Technology Launches Certification
Austrian company Trusted Euro Technology (TET) launched a digital sovereignty certification platform, letting companies verify how sovereign their tech stacks are to their region. The company combines independent certification with a publicly accessible directory, in the hopes of making European tech visible and comparable.
Startup of the Week
The French Large Language Model (LLM) Mistral has acquired Pimento, a Paris-founded startup that builds AI-powered advertising software for marketing teams.
Number of the Week
Despite the above, the reward for getting brand experience right is notable as AI experiences that were high-scoring in the report led to a 4.4 times increase in engagement.
