AMENIA, NY — The ability to seize the greatest opportunities in this early stage of the artificial intelligence era would seem to belong to the larger holding companies, with their vast array of talent, access to data, and economies of scale versus comparatively smaller independent shops.
But indies might actually have one critical advantage that could hamper their larger competitors rushing to prove their AI acumen: the absence of legacy technology systems that slow innovation and drain resources — or what Horizon Media’s Domenic Venuto calls “tech debt.”
“We don’t have any tech debt, which is amazing to say,” Venuto, chief product and data officer at Horizon, told Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan at the Beet Retreat Berkshires 2025. “It just means we have an agility and a speed to outpace what’s happening at the other holding companies.”
This technological clean slate positions independent agencies to capitalize on six-week innovation cycles that characterize current AI development, while larger competitors struggle with maintaining and upgrading acquired legacy systems.
The maintenance burden of tech debt
Tech debt represents the accumulated cost of maintaining legacy technology assets that may have been cutting-edge when acquired but now require constant updating to remain functional. In an environment where AI capabilities advance every six weeks, this maintenance burden becomes particularly problematic.
“Tech debt refers to the level of effort and energy that you’re putting in and the investment that you’re putting in to keep things just even maintaining them, let alone moving them ahead of the market,” Venuto said.
The rapid pace of advancement in AI models, large language model capabilities, and new market entrants makes it difficult for agencies with older technology investments to stay current. Resources that could be devoted to innovation instead go toward simply keeping existing systems operational.
AI’s co-creation value
Platform companies like Meta are pushing agencies to rethink traditional trading models, but Venuto sees this disruption as an opportunity for collaborative innovation rather than a threat to existing business models.
“The AI revolution is really creating the opportunity to invent things together with partners and those partners are clients as well as the large platforms and publishers that we work with,” he said.
This co-creation approach extends beyond platform relationships to include direct client collaboration, where agencies can integrate proprietary technology with existing client systems to drive better outcomes.
Demonstrating AI integration
Horizon has consolidated its AI capabilities into its “blu.” platform, transforming what was previously a data and identity ecosystem requiring manual data scientist analysis into an AI-native application layer.
“We had data scientists sitting on top of this data asset mining for insights to build audiences and push those audiences out into market,” Venuto said. “What AI has enabled us to do and what we have built with the Blu platform is an AI native application layer that sits on top of that data asset.”
The platform extends AI capabilities throughout the complete media workflow while maintaining openness to integrate client systems and simplify their advertising technology and marketing technology stacks.
Media and creative reunification
One of Horizon’s strategic objectives involves using AI to bridge the gap between media and creative functions that were separated decades ago. This reunification represents a fundamental shift in how campaigns are developed and executed.
“We want to unite media with creative, which was broken up in the ‘80s, and we see the opportunity to reunite media with creative using the power of AI,” Venuto said.
Balancing proprietary and integrated solutions
The challenge of building proprietary technology while accommodating existing client platforms requires clear vision and flexible architecture. Venuto emphasizes focusing on client outcomes rather than technology for its own sake.
“We’re here to drive our clients’ outcomes and drive growth for them. Help them answer seemingly simple questions. Where is churn likely to happen next month? Which customers are likely to churn? If I’m going to invest another dollar, where am I going to get the best incrementality?” he said.
“We’ve got a very strong vision, we’ve got a very solid roadmap, and now we have to architect that so that it’s open and extensible and we can plug new technologies in when they come out and keep evolving and avoiding tech debt,” Venuto said.
