SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO – At an industry event where conversations often drift toward what advertising might look like in five or 10 years, Lee Garfield is urging people to slow down and look at what is happening right now.
The vice president of programmatic sales and agency relationships at Hearst Magazines, whose more than 30 brands include Cosmopolitan, Elle, Good Housekeeping and Harper’s Bazaar, said the real opportunities with AI are already here and moving fast.
“I think there’s a lot that we can look at,” Garfield said during an interview with Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan at the Beet Retreat San Juan. “We’ve been talking a lot about the future. What does AI look like in five years or 10 years? I want to look at the present.”
That focus reflects how quickly technology is reshaping media and advertising workflows. Garfield said AI tools are already helping publishers speed up the production of branded content while still protecting the integrity of a brand’s message.
“First and foremost is speed,” he said. “What can we accomplish with our branded content suite? How can we get mocks out faster and more efficiently while still making sure the brand message is captured the right way?”
In other words, the robots may be coming, but they are currently helping with PowerPoint deadlines.
Data and Aura take center stage
Beyond speed, Garfield said AI is proving especially valuable in helping publishers understand audiences through better data models.
At Hearst Magazines, that effort centers on Aura, the company’s contextual and behavioral first-party data platform.
“Data is such an important value in our industry,” Garfield said. “Our first-party signals are the core of what make Hearst Magazines so powerful with our audience.”
Over the past year and a half, Hearst has used AI to refine Aura’s data segments and improve campaign performance. Garfield said those improvements have delivered measurable results.
According to Garfield, campaigns using the Aura data platform have produced a 2.2x engagement lift compared with more traditional targeting methods.
“AI creates a really positive effect toward building a stronger data model for our offering,” he said.
Agentic AI adds another layer
The next step for the platform is Aura IQ, which Garfield described as a new layer designed to go beyond identifying audiences and start explaining why certain messages resonate.
Instead of simply answering who should see an ad, the system is being designed to analyze what messaging works and why.
“We’re moving past who we’re targeting,” Garfield said. “Aura IQ is helping us understand who we’re targeting, what we’re targeting and why it’s resonating.”
The platform relies on emerging agentic AI systems that can analyze patterns and adjust strategies automatically. The goal is to help marketers make faster and smarter decisions while improving performance.
Garfield said the approach could “supercharge” the ability of advertisers to connect with audiences across Hearst’s properties.
Autos campaigns deliver tangible results
The company is already experimenting with new applications of Aura across connected television.
One recent initiative called Aura TV applies the data segments to connected TV platforms, particularly within Hearst’s automotive content vertical.
Garfield declined to name a specific marketer but pointed to a campaign that used the technology to drive measurable business outcomes.
“That campaign had a 61% increase in dealership visits and a 40% increase in conversion,” he said.
Those results highlight how first-party data can move beyond digital impressions and deliver real-world outcomes for brands, especially in categories like automotive where offline behavior matters.
Expect surprises in the AI era
When asked to make predictions about the future, Garfield resisted the temptation to offer a tidy forecast.
Instead, he pointed to the unpredictability of the past year.
“Well, since last year celebrities wound up in space,” he said with a laugh. “So I’d say expect the unexpected.”
Still, Garfield believes the biggest shift ahead will come from specialized AI agents designed for specific industries and tasks.
“If I look at Claude or how enterprises use ChatGPT, the continued evolution of those tools and the rise of niche AI agents is going to shape 2026 and beyond,” he said.
Those agents, he added, will increasingly influence everyday decisions at work and at home.
Which means the future may arrive sooner than expected. But if Garfield has his way, the industry will keep one eye firmly on the present while it does.
You’re watching coverage from Beet Retreat San Juan 2026, presented by Alliant and TransUnion. For more videos from this series, please visit this page.
