The Other CES - Agencies and Media World Go All-In on AI

Whether in private suites or in the “C-Space” area during the day or while dining at the top restaurants in Vegas, the wheeling and dealing that sets out to define the new year for the ad-tech and media world kicked into high gear. And, given the massive global press coverage generated by CES (an estimated 6,900 reporters and analysts attend), it’s not a surprise that there was an avalanche of marketing and advertising-related announcements that were released during CES week.

The following provides a wrap-up of some important announcements for the industry:

Agency Announcements:

Omnicom used CES as a coming out party for the now-completed Omnicom-IPG merger. Housed at The Cosmopolitan, Omnicom’s “Transformation Experience” revealed that the next iteration of their audience and marketing platform, Omni, is now powered by the data company Axiom acquired by Omnicom in the IPG merger.

Omnicom announced a collaboration with Google where they have co-developed a consumer prompt insights agent that analyzes question-based searches in Gemini, categorizing them by funnel stage. The insights will be applied across paid search and influencer marketing.

Omnicom also announced a partnership with Roku and Amazon bringing Roku viewership data into Amazon’s clean room.

Finally, Pinterest data will be integrated into Omnicom’s Creo influencer tools.

Stagwell announced that their popular “Sports Beach” promotional events that they have used at CES, Cannes, and SXSW is being spun off as a separate company led by Beth Sidhu as CEO, who will also remain Chief Brand and Communications Officer of Stagwell.

Stagwell also announced “The Machine”, an agentic operating system built by Code and Theory. It enhances data systems and tools marketers use such as Figma, Slack, Teams, Adobe, and performance dashboards.

Havas CEO Yannick Bolleré became the first advertising holding company executive to deliver an official keynote at CES. He unveiled Havas’ AI “operating system,” Ava, which will enable instant access to the agency’s knowledge, streamline workflows, and ensure security, compliance, and privacy.

Havas deploys generative AI personas to understand audiences and test campaigns, delivering deeper insights without the time and cost burden of traditional qualitative research methodologies.

Publicisannounced that Epsilon data is now available on the Microsoft Advertising Platform. They also announced a strategic partnership with LiveRamp which will combine Publicis AI capabilities with LiveRamp collaborative technology allowing advertisers to connect and analyze information across systems without having to move the data.

WPP Mediaunveiled Agent Hub, a curated set of “super agents” that will be housed in the firm’s marketing platform, WPP Open.

The initial agents include:

The Brand Analytics Agent providing on-demand access to approximately 30 years of WPP’s proprietary Brand Asset Valuator data, the study of brand equity, to inform brand strategy and creative development.

The Behavioural Science Agent: applies Ogilvy frameworks to help teams understand human behaviour and motivation more deeply and create actionable client strategies.

The Analogies Agent: finds inspiration and parallel situations from different industries to foster cross-sectoral thinking and innovation to solve complex client challenges.

Media Announcements:

Disney, which recently announced a groundbreaking deal to allow OpenAI/ChatGPT using Disney IP in creation of short-form video assets through Sora, held their sixth annual Global Tech and Data Showcase at CES.

During the presentation they announced several new tools and initiatives which include:

• A new video generation tool which will allow advertisers to create high-quality CTV-ready commercials using existing brand assets and guidelines. It supports creative versioning by audience, context, and placement; informed by placement signals within the spot.
• A new AI-powered internal planning tool which captures objectives, audience intent, timing, and constraints to focus on strategy and collaboration.
• Disney Compass, their unified planning, data collaboration and measurement platform, will be expanding to EMEA and will also offer AI-powered summaries that will highlight key learnings and identify new opportunities for advertisers.
• Disney is bringing vertical videos to Disney+

DirecTVwill be making their DOOH Live TV, DirecTV Remote inventory available programmatically for the first time with Place Exchange, Basis, The Trade Desk and more.

Metaannounced significant upgrades to the functionality of the Ray-Ban Display glasses.

• The inclusion of teleprompter mode which allows users to view text in the glasses display freeing up speech-givers to walk freely across the stage and look directly at the audience.
• While wearing the Meta Neural Band, users will be able to write messages on any surface with finger motions which Meta will convert into text for messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Messenger.
• Announced a delay in rolling out Meta Ray-Ban Display outside of the U.S. due to strong domestic demand.

Samsung Adsrevealed that their ecosystem is powered by AI.

• AI enhanced contextual solutions to analyze content themes, objects, and sentiment for contextual alignment around programming.
• Program-genre meta-data to ensure ads are placed in brand-safe, emotionally resonant environments.
• Use of machine learning to combine mobile and TV data to predict demographics and interests
• Use of machine learning to identify unreached audiences
• Release of enhanced interactive ad formats that can include QR codes, Vertical Video, product galleries, fan polls, and click to email options within the Samsung TV Plus environment.

Reddit is going all-in on programmatic launching Max Campaigns. With Daily Active Uniques up in Q3 2025 +19% YAG and the number of ad conversions 2x year-over-year, Reddit is launching Max Campaigns to help advertisers more easily and effectively reach the right people with the right message. Enabled by Reddit Community Intelligence™ and AI that predicts the value of every ad impression the tech optimizes campaign settings in real-time and unlock new creative and audience insights. Included in Max campaigns is a new reporting feature called Top Audience Personas. AI will cluster the campaign’s audience into relevant personas and allow advertisers to see which personas are viewing and interacting with their campaign the most, as well as what those personas are interested in right now.

Roblox launched several new ad unit formats including a Homepage Feature (CPM based). When users click the ad, they experience the brand’s video creative transformed into an immersive, 3D environment. The Homepage Feature is now available in closed beta will be purchasable as an always-on display format enabling brands to reach Roblox’s audience 365 days a year. In addition, Roblox is expanding their programmatic partnerships. On the DSP side they are now adding Amazon DSP and Liftoff. On the SSP side they are now available (in addition to Google) on Index Exchange, Magnite, and Pubmatic.

NBCUniversal is introducing several new ad options and resources:

• Live Total Impact: the industry’s first cross-platform tool designed to leverage real-time viewership of live tentpole moments and extend the engagement across NBCUniversal’s full ecosystem - delivering the right ad to the right person at the right time. Events include Super Bowl LX, the Milan Cortina Olympic Winter Games, NBA All-Star Weekend, and additional live events throughout 2026 including Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
• Contextual Targeting in LIVE: Advertisers can target Live programming in real time using a breakthrough AI-powered tool that continuously scans live content to ensure an advertiser’s ad or creative automatically aligns with the most relevant moments as they unfold live. By automating brand suitability and real-time context, NBCU says that advertisers gain greater efficiency, agility, and precision, optimizing every second of live media investment to reach audients with the right moment of authentic connection.
• Performance Insights Hub: A proprietary intelligence platform providing marketers of all sizes with a unified view of campaign delivery, audience insights, and full-funnel, in-flight performance. (partners include: Dynata, EDO, Kochava, LiveRamp, MarketCast, and VideoAmp).
• Arrival Ads on Peacock: A high-impact premium unit connected to the user’s profile page that they see each time they launch the service.
• Programmatic Pause Ads:Available with Programmatic Guaranteed deals, marketers can now deliver contextually relevant creative when viewers naturally pause their content. Per NBCUniversal, Pause Ads have already shown a +68% lift in Ad Memorability and +106% life in foot traffic for advertisers.

Viant revealed the launch of Outcomes, a new class of advertising execution, Autonomous Outcomes, powered by AI Lattice Brain, a decisioning architecture built to operate campaigns autonomously. Lattice Brain continuously evaluates multiple proprietary data signals in parallel, including Viant Household ID, Iris ID, supply quality scoring, historical campaign performance, bid pricing dynamics, and real-time delivery data to determine and execute optimization decisions without manual intervention. Outcomes combine identity, quality, and performance to optimize towards outcomes without manual intervention.

Pubmatic announced the release of AgenticOS, a new operating system designed to enable autonomous agent-to-agent advertising execution across digital environments. AgenticOS lets intelligent software agents plan, buy, and optimize programmatic buys in real time, while giving advertisers guardrails for strategy and brand safety. AgenticOS uses NVIDIA-accelerated computing to support large-scale transactions with low latency. Early tests show an 87% reduction in campaign set-up time and reduction of issue resolution time by 70%.

PayPal unveiled several tools for marketers to better understand shifting commerce dynamics. PayPal Transaction Graph Insights is an interactive analytics experience showcasing cross-merchant, cross-surface shopper journeys to deliver brand-specific recommendations.

Posted at MediaVillage through the Thought Leadership self-publishing platform.

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