NEW YORK — Rather than reducing ad agencies to the role of “mere service provider,” artificial intelligence tools just might be elevating creatives and media buyers to strategic C-suite partners that address fundamental business challenges.
“For a long time in the agency business, we got relegated to the procurement office. It was all about cost and efficiencies, and we were treated as vendors, not growth partners,” Domenic Venuto, chief product and data officer at Horizon Media, told Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan at the Beet.TV/Horizon Media AI Media Summit. “We’re changing that and the tools are enabling us to do that now in remarkable ways.”
Horizon’s Blu platform opens entirely new questions from clients about customer churn prediction, next opportunity identification, and business outcome optimization that transcends traditional media planning discussions.
Direct client access transforms relationships
Horizon provides clients with hands-on platform access using the same tools as internal teams, fundamentally altering brand-agency dynamics through instantaneous interaction and co-creation rather than traditional lag-heavy processes.
“We actually give our clients hands-on keys to the platform. So it’s the same platform that our teams are using and our clients are using,” Venuto said. “That’s fundamentally changing the brand agency relationship for the next generation.”
This approach enables real-time collaboration focused on driving growth and identifying opportunities across organizational touchpoints beyond standard media placement.
HorizonOS’s four elements
HorizonOS operates as a comprehensive framework including Blu’s connected marketing platform with AI-native applications, internal AI transformation tools for workflow efficiency, human intelligence roles interfacing between clients and technology, and OS Labs for market innovation scouting.
“HorizonOS is a framework that encapsulates everything that we do in the service of our clients,” Venuto said.
OS Labs runs biannual RFPs soliciting companies at any development stage, creating pilot opportunities that successful candidates can integrate directly into Blu through structured funnel progression.
Human element remains essential
While AI capabilities become ubiquitous across competitors, differentiation emerges through strategic deployment and human partnership rather than raw technological power alone.
“At a certain point, the capability is ubiquitous. Everybody has access to the same amount of power. It’s ‘How do you put that into play?’” Venuto said. “The human element is really important. Building connections, building trust, having a sense of instincts and ingenuity there, creative ideas, synthesizing all of that.”
Venuto cites Perplexity’s model selection approach as indicative of AI’s future, choosing optimal tools for specific tasks rather than one-size-fits-all solutions.
Client experimentation drives discovery
With 45-plus clients at various onboarding stages, Horizon anticipates learning from diverse platform usage patterns as organizations explore AI-powered business questions within private, secure data containers.
“We’re uncharted territory here. We can ask the LLMs any question. So we’re ingesting our client’s data, we’re enriching it, we’re handing it back to them in their private safe container, and then we’re unleashing that,” Venuto said. “I’m excited about how our client base is using these tools. How will it grow their business? What do we unlock? What do we learn from that?”
You’re watching coverage from The AI Media Summit, A Beet.TV & Horizon Media Collaboration, presented by Seedtag & The Trade Desk. For more videos from this series, please visit this page.
