13 August 2025
Ivy Liu.
If you don’t dig deep into the wells and possibilities of generative AI you will be out of business in no time. The adoption of AI tools such as agentic offerings and new hires with smarts to power media agency workings is increasing.
Carat, the holding company, announced two weeks ago a partnership with Vurvey Labs, a tech firm, to create a series of agentic tools to find new consumer insight, which will be run through Dentsu.Connect – the holding company’s integrated intra-agency platform. Dentsu, like other holding companies, has also made other AI-driven initiatives, including a partnership between Adobe and dentsu to integrate GenStudio with dentsu’s audience intelligence technology stack.
These tools are designed to enhance Carat (and other Dentsu agency’s) media and creative strategy by creating consumer personas and assistants for brainstorming. They also automate trend analysis. Dentsu, as well as third-party clients, can use a variety data formats to gain deeper insights and make faster decisions. This will save time and money. Michael Liu, Carat’s evp, head of innovation, said that while AI can reduce headcounts and save time, Vurvey helps teams by adding another virtual brain. This brain is able to think quickly and intuitively after it has been properly trained.
Liu said, “We can create assistants that are like myself and my colleagues, specialists dedicated to trend spotting or understanding insights – someone who is dedicated to brainstorming with us.”
He immediately clarified that his goal was not to replace existing colleagues, but to enhance them. He said that these are colleagues who work with us 24/7 in our global teams.
“We create agents that are more like real people than chat bots or other similar things,” said Chad Reynolds, the founder and CEO of Vurvey Labs.
It’s not as simple as adding a sexy UI to open AI. It’s the model that is based on understanding people. Carat’s model is based on understanding people.
Like an increasing number AI platforms, unstructured information can be restructured without any preparation before entering, whether it’s spreadsheets, PDFs or decks, consumer profiles, research reports, earnings reports, reports or competitive Intel. This is a huge time-saver, according to Liu.
Carat and Vurvey worked together on a test project for an unnamed chain of restaurants to understand casual dining behavior, going beyond what can be gleaned from quantitative data.
Vurvey, a company that Carat used, has a massive database of video respondent data, crunched using AI. Liu and his team were able not only to boost the media strategy, but also provide input on the creative aspect of the ads. Liu said that it took her longer to write the questions she wanted to include in the test than it did to receive responses. “Because of our access to these agent persons, they can tell us whether it’s out of home, TV, CTV, or social [that resonates best]; what types and types of things also catch consumers’ attention.”
As independents of all sizes build out their expertise, tools, and knowledge, the arms race in AI development isn’t limited to holdings companies. Apollo Partners, founded by Eric Perko and consisting of 20-30 people, decided to hire a hybrid type personnel to lead such efforts – executives who combine media skills with coding capabilities. Digiday has learned
that Apollo has hired Trevis Milton as the head of automation and AI solutions. Milton has experience in media agencies from his time at Starcom. He most recently applied the hands-on coding he learned along his career path directly to media workflows. Milton and Perko explained that their goal is to build AI tools and solutions from the ground-up, to give planners the exact tools they need. This includes an internal quality-assurance process on campaigns, which reduces the tiresome efforts of QA to just two minutes. Milton added that this will become fully automated within a year or so.
Milton said, “We are putting automation and AI in the hands of people who do the work every single day, planners, buyers, and supervisors, who have a fairly heavy manual process for certain parts of media planning and buying.” “Anytime that happens, there are opportunities for error. Milton added that Milton would not rule out pursuing partnerships with other tech companies. The main goal is to reduce risks and increase deterministic results. Milton said that in order to evaluate the build we are going to do, or a partner we’re considering we must start with our strategy. “We want to begin with deterministic automaton first. Milton’s hiring was a good example of this. “There are plenty of people who can code around AI but don’t understand the media business,” said Perko. “Travis is here for two weeks and we’ve already begun to accomplish these things.” Jay Pattisall is a senior agency analyst and vp at Forrester. He said that the CMOs are using a narrative to allay employee fears about their jobs being automated.
However, organic attrition in agencies can be solved using intelligent tools and personas like those described in this article. As AI continues to creep into agency operations, it’s important to be on the lookout for this.
