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, The Trade Desk prepares to build a centralised agent interface, the IAB is set to develop an AI measurement framework, and OpenAI tests exclusion targeting.
Top Stories of the Week
The Trade Desk to Build Centralised Agent Interface
The Trade Desk is building a central AI conversational interface called ‘Ask Koa’, designed to give advertisers a single entry point to a growing roster of specialised agents that can handle parts of the programmatic workflow, according to leaked documents seen by Adweek. The system is built alongside the company’s agentic platform Kokai Zuma release.
Why it matters:
Right now, media buyers navigate multiple tools and dashboards to plan, buy and optimise campaigns. Ask Koa is The Trade Desk’s bet that the future of programmatic looks more like conversationally interacting with tools, or one interface.
The IAB to Develop AI Measurement Framework
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is reportedly developing a new framework to measure the effectiveness of conversions influenced by AI, reports Digiday. The guidelines, which are set to release November 12, will give industry players an opportunity to address the challenge of understanding when AI, and not traditional methods, has been effective in campaigns.
Why it matters:
The framework, which will expand on the association’s Measuring Visibility in the AI Era framework, will focus primarily on how brands are surfacing in AI search and visibility in these new channels. The framework will reportedly focus on when AI serves something to a user (an awareness or intent layer) and when AI helps make a decision by that user.
OpenAI Tests Exclusion Targeting for ChatGPT
OpenAI is testing negative targeting guidance options for its ads system with a small group of advertisers, Adweek reported. This feature would let advertisers block specific conversational contexts or topics they don’t want their ads appearing next to. This would prevent some users from seeing ads, which would primarily save money from showing ads to people who have already been a customer, or who aren’t likely to purchase.
Why it matters:
ChatGPT is still figuring out its ads business. Giving advertisers the ability to control who does and doesn’t see your ads is a basic requirement for most advertisers – and until now, ChatGPT Ads has not had it.
Quote of the Week
Brands & Agencies
Fanta Launches AI-Assisted Horror Universe
Fanta has launched an AI-assisted campaign in the form of a halloween themed ‘universe’ with characters developed using AI. The campaign was created in partnership with Ogilvy, WPP Media, WPP Production and VML and was created using WPP Open X – WPP’s AI operating system.
Booking.com Gets Backlash for AI Ad Label
The online holiday platform Booking.com has drawn backlash from consumers after revealing an AI ad, with critics arguing the travel platform’s AI ads feel impersonal, generic, and misaligned with the aspiration and emotion that travel ads should conjure up.
Donut King Launches AI Mascot
The Australian brand Donut King has revived its 1981 mascot ‘Donut Buddy’ using GenAI, making it the centrepiece across all of its in-store and digital channels without the same costs as pre-GenAI.
Dentsu Signs EU AI Transparency Code
The Japanese holding group Dentsu has become on of the first of the major marketing holding firms to sign the EU’’s voluntary AI transparency code, committing to disclosure standards for AI-generated content across its operations in Europe – marking a significant compliance signal from a global network.
Media
Carl Sagan Sues AI Startup Over Unauthorised Voice Use
The company that owns the intellectual property for Carl Sagan, a late American Scientist, has filed a lawsuit against AI startup Luma AI for allegedly using a clip of his voice saying “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
Nine Entertainment Cuts Costs with AI Deals
Australian media company Nine Entertainment has announced a significant cost reduction programme across its network, driven in part by AI licensing deals and workflow automation – with the company saying it uses AI to reduce production costs across programming and news, and through content licensing deals with AI platforms.
Stanley Druckenmiller Admits Using AI to Write WSJ Article
The famous billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller has admitted to using AI to help him write a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, which has reignited debate about disclosure standards for AI-assisted works. The Wall Street Journal has publicly defended the use of AI by Druckenmiller, saying the essence of his argument was unchanged by use of the technology.
Tech
Sabio and Gentoro Partner to for Agentic Ad Ops
Sabio and integration platform Gentoro have announced a partnership to build agentic AI capabilities into advertising operations and demand-side platform internal workflows. With Gentoro, Sabio will deploy AI agents across internal operations, initially focused on campaign operations.
X Ads MCP Gives AI Agents Access to Live Campaigns
X (formerly Twitter) has launched an MCP server for its advertising platform, allowing third-party AI agents to connect to live X ad campaigns with write access. This would enable autonomous agents to create, modify, and optimise campaigns on behalf of advertisers through natural language prompts.
Google Ads Integrates Gemini Omni
Google has begun rolling out Gemini Omni into Asset Studio inside Google Ads for multimodal video creation. The tool specifically handles multimodal video creation, allowing marketers to provide text prompts to generate videos for campaign testing.
Startup of the Week
The GenAI company Stability AI has raised $76 million in a Series B round backed by Universal Music Group, Sony Music Group, Warner Music Group and Electronic Arts – the first time the three major labels have taken an equity stake in the same AI company.
Number of the Week
The survey found that search and shopping assistants led adoption at 45 percent, followed by customer review summaries (37 percent), visual search (33 percent), voice assistants (31 percent), and virtual try-on tools (31 percent).
